QuickBooks (Desktop) 2017 – Part 2: Search Enhancements

by

Editor's Note: This is the second of an exclusive four-part series by William Murphy, Insightful Accountant's senior technical editor, on Intuit's product launch for QuickBooks 2017, which is slated for Sept. 19. The piece features some of Murph's own experiences in reviewing a pre-release copy of the software.

As we saw in our first installment, Intuit has begun the roll-out of QuickBooks 2017, with the formal product launch set for Monday, Sept. 19. Because they have made the information available, we are giving you an inside scoop of the new features, enhancements and changes prior to it hitting various sales channels.

This year’s product enhancements seem to target customers, with the focus on helping small businesses "run their business" with even greater ease. In this part, we will provide a first look at Search Enhancements – Form Drop-down Fields: 

Search Enhancements – Form Drop-down Fields

QuickBooks 2017 has made it easier than ever to find relevant information across the various transactional windows, especially when it comes to items, accounts and names. In older versions of QuickBooks, you had to remember the exact name of any of your items, accounts or names.

With the enhancements in this feature, after typing in the drop-down field of any transaction, QuickBooks will show you all possible matches, with relevant matches narrowing as you continue to type.

This is a great new enhancement to an existing functionality that will significantly ease information finding and reduce the time needed to find the exact list elements you are looking for.

Search Enhancements – Locating Amounts within a Range

Have you ever needed to find an amount within a range of amounts, or perhaps you wanted to display an amount within a range? For 2017, QuickBooks has added a new range filter to all amount searches.

Previously, QuickBooks amounts could only be searched or filtered by the options of = (equal to), <= (less than) or >= (greater than). For example, if you needed to search an amount using the Advanced Find feature of QuickBooks, you could only search using the =, <= or >= options as shown below.

In this version, QuickBooks amount searches and filters have been supplemented by the addition of a new range filter giving you a From (amount) to a To (amount).

Below is the Amount filter within the Advanced Find feature showing how the new From ~ To enhancement works.

But this new enhancement isn't found only in searches within the "Find" feature of QuickBooks, you also will find it in the QuickBooks Search function.

And as if two different ways to search for amounts within a range were not already enough of an enhancement, QuickBooks 2017 allows us to apply the same From ~ To amount fields to reports as well. Here is an example of how the filter is being applied in a Profit & Loss report:

If you frequently exporting report data from QuickBooks into Excel to apply this type of amount range to identify the specific information you need, you will appreciate the time and labor savings that the new "Amount Search" enhancement adds.

Search Enhancements – Customer or Vendor Types

In all prior versions of QuickBooks, you haven't been able to apply a filter to search for either Customer or Vendor Types within the Customer or Vendor Centers. In this version, you can filter your Customer or Vendor information by Types. Here is an example of how the Customer Type search appears in the Customer Center:

Here's an example of the Vendor Type search within the Vendor Center:

While we may find ourselves wondering why you haven't had this functionality before now, you can welcome the enhancement of this feature in QuickBooks 2017.

Want more?  Register for our QB Talks web seminar on October 12.  We offer the same web seminar at 1:00 and 6:00 Eastern time.  Click to learn more.