Question: Is there some way in QuickBooks to run a report showing the amount of sales from a particular group of customers?
Answer: Yes. QuickBooks allows you to define “Types of Customers.” When you open a customer in the Customer Center, click on “Additional Info” on the left side of the screen. There you can enter different customer types and denote one type for each customer you choose.
You can define customer type however you choose. You can define them by their business segments, such as schools, hospitals or day care centers. Or you can define them by their sourcse—radio, TV, mail campaign, etc. You can define them any way you might want. But, it is best to use only one set of criteria. In the example above, use one set of types—don’t mix them up.
Once you have the customer types set up, you can then run reports that filter for one particular type of customer. In the example above, I might want to see sales for a particular period for my hospital clients. You can do that by customizing a sales report to filter for the customer types of “hospitals.” Setting up “Types of Customers” gives you a great, simple means of tracking different segments of your clients in a variety of ways.
QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise can be modified to better serve ad specialty distributors. Harriet Gatter is a QuickBooks ProAdvisor, a former accounting professor and a former ad specialty distributor. She advises ad specialty distributors to use QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise, often in conjunction with other industry-specific software, to manage the complexities of the ad specialty business, with the results being time saved, errors eliminated and an overall accurate accounting of your business.
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