Why no way to customize reporting formats??

Question

:# For more than two decades, I have used Quicken.  THE MOST FRUSTRATING aspect which has never been addressed is the failure to provide customizable reports (i.e., Excel-type manipulation of format, fonts, and sizing for printing) in Quicken itself.  This is clearly a business decision on Quicken's part of avoid this and make it as difficult as possible to export reports with these options in an easy way.  It has lead to HOURS of unnecessary work, and I'm just about ready to bail on Quicken because of it.  What's up with this?

Jim_Harman · Answer

I feel your pain. If you would like to see improvements to Quicken's reporting system, you might want to comment and vote on this Idea discussion.
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7660947/reporting-system-replacement-5-merged-votes

Or if that does not describe what you are looking for, you can open a new Idea post.

LarryL · Answer

That's an unsatisfactory answer, really:  "it would be nice..."  Exporting to Excel requires a complete setup of format to make it readable when printed.  And there's no way to update the report in Excel without starting over with the formatting.  With all the fancy things Quicken has done, it clearly is within the capabilities of the company.  It is simply a business decision to avoid playing nice with Microsoft--which I do understand.  So come up with your own.

Jim_Harman · Answer

It would certainly be nice to have more flexible report customization in Quicken, but that would probably require a new reporting engine.

That might happen someday, but in the meantime the most straightforward way I have found to export a report from Quicken to Excel is to set up the report in Quicken to include the desired data, then click on the Export button and pick Copy to Clipboard. In Excel, position the cursor to the top left corner where you want the data and select Paste.

If you can be more specific about the changes you would like to see in Quicken, that would be helpful. For example, many people have requested a way for all the data in each row to be repeated when there is an expanded split transaction. This would make it easier to manipulate the data after exporting.