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How to export a grouped report to Excel in QuickBooks Online

Forum|Forum|4 months ago
April 15, 2026
5 replies
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Before the hard switch to the Modern Reporting, reports were exported to excel with the account grouping intact. Since the change reports only export flat with no option to update it. This has impacted the consistency of reporting across periods. Would like to know if the export with grouping will be restored.

QuickBooks Online

Best answer by cody_a

Getting grouped data back in your Excel export

You can still get a grouped export, it just comes from a different tool now. Standard summary reports like profit and loss and balance sheet don't have a group by option since they already organize data into sections by account. To get the same grouped result you had before, you’ll want to build the report in the Custom Report Builder instead, then export that.

Why the export comes out flat

The group by option only applies to reports built in the Custom Report Builder, like transaction detail reports. Those are designed to show line-item data that can be grouped several ways, which is why it's not offered on standard summary reports.

How to export a grouped version

Go to Reports, then Custom reports.
Select Create new report and choose a report type that pulls in the account or transaction data you need.
Select Customize, open the Groups dropdown, then choose your columns under Group by. You can group by up to three columns.
Use Edit group calculations to add totals, averages, or percentages for the grouped numbers.
Once it looks right, export to Excel. Calculated rows and columns keep their formulas, so the grouped structure carries over cleanly.

One thing to know before you start: the Custom Report Builder is available with QuickBooks Online Advanced and Intuit Enterprise Suite.

Check out this article for more: Customize your reports with a modern view in QuickBooks

Give that a try and see if it gets you the grouping you’re looking for. If you run into any trouble setting that up or have other questions as you go, just let me know. I’m happy to help.

J

JoelES

QuickBooks Team

The Group by option can only be shown on reports that can be grouped, such as Detail reports. For example, a balance sheet and Profit and loss (P&L) statements are already organized into sections because they summarize data by accounts.

Please know that the Group by option is specifically available for Transaction Detail account reports. These reports are designed to display transaction data at the line-item level, allowing for complex, multi-layered grouping that summary reports cannot provide.

For more information, you can check out this article: Customize your reports with a modern view.

Please let us know if you require any additional assistance with this matter. We'll be around to help.

M

Mary Carter CMAAuthor

Thanks for the response. Although the grouping on reports (P&L, Balance Sheet) that were exported to excel was available with in QBO, it was also a feature of reports that were exported to Excel. The grouping on exported reports is no longer an option as it had been in previous periods, periods as recent as March 2026. This seems to be a casualty of reporting change to "Modern" reporting.

I have reached out to support of multiple occasions, and the agents, including advanced agent support, are unaware or unable to provide a solution or timeline if the grouping will be restored.

I have implemented manual workarounds in order to preserve the consistency of reporting structure to my Board of Directors. It is frustrating that there is now a need to allocate precious time to manual formatting tasks because of developer changes to the product.

cody_a

Community Manager

@Mary Carter CMA I can certainly see how much extra work this manual reformatting adds to your plate, especially when you need to keep things consistent for your Board of Directors. Our goal is to make sure your reporting is efficient, and it’s clear the current flat data export is getting in the way of that.

I’ve shared your case with our Next Level Help team to ensure this gets the specialized attention it deserves. They’ll be digging into your QuickBooks support history and your comments here in the Community to get the full picture of what’s happening with your account groupings. You can expect one of our experts to reach out to you within 1-2 business days to discuss the next steps.

U

User1201

New Member

Hello - Can we please have an update to this. The auto-grouping of exported excel files for the P&L and balance sheet is absolutely needed back.