Reporting tools shift position in QuickBooks Online Advanced's modern view
QuickBooks Online Advanced's modern view has relocated familiar report controls and changed how custom reports are built, filtered, and exported.
QuickBooks Online Advanced users who sign in to run their usual reports are finding a different screen waiting. Intuit calls it the modern view, and it reworks how standard and custom reports are built, filtered, and exported in the Advanced tier of QuickBooks Online. The numbers on the reports have not changed. The workflow around them has, and that is where the questions reaching our desk have clustered.
The modern view is a rebuild, not a reshuffle
This is a new reporting experience covering both standard and custom reports, not a coat of paint on the old screens. Alongside the redesigned layout, it introduces new report types, an Excel integration, and added security controls. For teams that live in reports at month end, the combined effect is substantial enough that the first run feels unfamiliar.
Where did the familiar controls go?
Location is the most common sticking point. The Display columns by and Compare options now sit directly in the report header, so comparing periods no longer means opening a settings panel. The accounting method has become a toggle: flip between cash and accrual at the top of the report and it reruns immediately. Customization lives in a dedicated section of its own, which keeps layout work separate from reading the numbers.
One pass, then one run
Customizing a report used to be an iterative grind. You changed a filter, ran the report, adjusted a column, and ran it again. The modern view inverts that. Filters, columns, and groupings are all set first, and the report runs once at the end. For anyone assembling recurring month-end packages, that ordering removes most of the waiting.
Starting a report in the builder
The Custom Report Builder is the other half of the update, and it is exclusive to QuickBooks Online Advanced. Open Reports, choose Custom reports, then select Create new report and pick a report type. A blank report offers two routes in. The creation wizard searches out the report type you have in mind, or you can start from bare data columns, adding and dragging fields until the layout looks right. The report name is editable in place: select it a second time and type the new one.
Columns, filters, and groupings
Inside an existing report, Customize opens the layout tools. The Columns area has a Reorder tab for dragging fields into place and a More Columns tab for switching data fields on or off. Banded rows can alternate their shading for readability; that setting sits with the row settings on the Visual tab.
Filters follow the pattern spreadsheet users already know. Choose a field, choose a condition, then pick or enter the values, and stack further conditions or filters where the data calls for them. Groupings are handled in the same panel before the report runs. Nothing changes until you apply the changes, and Save or Save As keeps the layout so the report is editable whenever you return.
Formulas that survive the export
The export behaviour may be the quiet highlight. When a customized report is exported to Excel, calculated rows and columns carry their formulas across rather than arriving as flat numbers. Anyone who extends a report in a spreadsheet after exporting will find the calculations still work, which turns the export into a starting point instead of a dead end.
Scrolling and saved layouts
Scrolling behaves differently enough to catch people on their first pass. The modern view scrolls at the page level, so the whole report moves with the page, and hovering the pointer over the white space beside the report scrolls from there too. Saved custom reports remain editable at any time through the report name field, so a layout you refine once does not need rebuilding.
Which plans include it?
The Custom Report Builder belongs to QuickBooks Online Advanced, so readers on lower QuickBooks Online tiers will not see it in their Reports menu. For Advanced subscribers there is nothing to install or switch on; the rebuilt screens are simply part of the product they already use.
The practical takeaway
Rebuild your most-used reports once in the modern view and save them. Set your filters, columns, and groupings in a single pass, keep the cash and accrual toggle at hand for method switches, and let exports carry formulas into Excel rather than retyping them. The Reports menu is where it always was. The route through it is newer, and the report you wait for is the one you run at the end, not after every small tweak.