Profit and Loss by Month in QuickBooks Online

Profit and Loss by Month is the same income statement as the standard Profit and Loss, laid out with one column for each month in the period. Instead of a single total for the whole range, you see the months side by side with a total column at the end. That layout turns the report from a snapshot into a trend view, which is how most people actually read their revenue and expenses over a year.

What the Profit and Loss by Month shows

The rows are the same accounts you see on any Profit and Loss: income, cost of goods sold, expenses, and the resulting net income. The difference is the columns. Each month gets its own figure, so a cost that crept up over the year, a seasonal dip in sales, or a one-off spike in a single month becomes visible instead of being averaged into an annual total. Reading across the row is what makes patterns and outliers stand out.

Cash basis vs accrual basis

This report changes with the accounting method, the same way the standard Profit and Loss does. On the accrual basis it counts income when you invoice and expenses when you are billed, so the month a sale lands can differ from the month the cash arrives. On the cash basis it follows the money as it moves. For a business that invoices ahead or pays vendors on terms, the two monthly patterns can look quite different, so keeping both versions gives an accountant the full picture rather than one interpretation of it.

Why a CPA or auditor asks for it

A month-by-month view surfaces things a single yearly total hides. It is used for budgeting and forecasting, for board or partner reporting, and for spotting bookkeeping problems, since a transaction posted to the wrong period often shows up as an odd swing in one column. In a due-diligence review before a sale, a buyer wants to see whether revenue is steady, seasonal, or trending in a direction the annual figure does not reveal. Having the report saved per year means those questions can be answered from a file instead of rebuilt from scratch.

How to run and export the Profit and Loss by Month in QuickBooks Online

1. Go to the Reports menu and open the Profit and Loss report by typing "Profit and Loss" into the report search box.
2. Set the report period to the range you want, such as a full fiscal year or All Dates for the complete history.
3. Set the "Display columns by" option to Months so each month gets its own column.
4. Set the accounting method to Cash or Accrual near the top of the report, and run it.
5. Use the export control at the top of the report to export it to Excel or PDF. Excel keeps the monthly columns easy to work with.
6. Switch the accounting method to the other basis, run the report again, and export that version too.

Keeping the Profit and Loss by Month after you cancel

Once a paid QuickBooks Online company is cancelled, it stays read-only for 12 months and is then permanently deleted, a trial only 90 days. After that, the monthly detail is gone and cannot be rebuilt without the underlying data. Because the IRS generally expects business records to be kept for at least three years, and the monthly view is often what a lender or buyer asks to see, it belongs in a copy you hold outside QuickBooks.

Frequently asked questions

Is Profit and Loss by Month a separate report?

It is the standard Profit and Loss report with the columns set to display by month. QuickBooks builds it from the same underlying data, so the totals match your regular Profit and Loss for the same period and basis.

Which basis should I keep?

Both, if you can. The monthly pattern can differ between cash and accrual, and an accountant or auditor may specifically want one or the other. A saved Profit and Loss archive keeps both, along with your other statements.

Can I break the report down further?

Yes. If you track classes, the Profit and Loss by Class splits the same income statement out by segment, which pairs well with the monthly view for understanding where results are coming from.