Uncovering QBO Report Filtering Issues

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I had an interesting time creating a client settlement report in QBO for a law firm recently. This particular report is not that difficult to create. In fact, I built and saved a report in my sample company for demonstration purposes.

Once the report template is made, you can reopen the report and filter for another client as needed.  Below, the original report:

Below, the saved report filtered for a different client:

While working with my client, everything was normal until I filtered the saved Client Settlement report for a different client. Here’s the error message:

On that particular day, I tried a number of possible scenarios to attempt a fix, but nothing worked. A few days later, I specifically went back and forth between my sample company and the law firm to try to discovery the difference.

I discovered that I could filter the report for one client and filter, again, for another client as long as I didn’t save the report. 

As soon as the report was saved, it was locked for only that one client. Filtering for another client only resulted in my now favorite error message. Finally, in complete and utter frustration, I created accounts, clients and transactions in my own QBO file. I created and saved the report. And, once again, as in my sample company, I could filter just fine for a new client.

Harumph.

I called tech support and  learned that this filtering issue, effecting some data files and not others, is a known problem. The engineers are working on a fix, but there's no ETA.

So, for the time being, my law firm will have to create this report from scratch for each client (at least, it can do that).  

So, if you receive (or have received) this error message, don’t take it for granted that some filters are invalid.

Christy Bertani is the semi-retired founder of Christy Bertani Bookkeeping, a "2016 Insightful Accounting Top 100 ProAdvisor" firm. These days, she continues to assist small businesses with their bookkeeping needs, from manual journal entries and general ledgers (the "Jurassic" period, as she calls it) to the Cloud, QuickBooks Online, Xero and its accompanying apps.