Hundred MSHome / Blog / Monthly financial report
What should a monthly financial report include?
Stuck on this in your own books?Bring it to a free 30-minute call with Narek. No pitch.
Book a callA monthly financial report is the short document an owner, board or lender reads after each month-end close. The ones we make run about nine pages. Together they cover results, position, cash, what moved and what comes next.
- Our monthly financial reports run about nine pages, always in the same order.
- Most of the monthly hours go into rebuilding the same report, not into the numbers.
- Excel works until the layout, new accounts and commentary start eating a day each month.
QuickBooks Online produces every standard report. It does not produce the monthly financial report itself. That is the document people actually read. Below are its pages, their order, where the hours go, and when software beats Excel.
What should a monthly financial report include?
A monthly financial report should cover results, position, cash, what moved and what comes next. The reports we make run about nine pages. Each page answers one question the reader has. A smaller business can merge a few of them. Keep the summary first, though. This is the order we use:
- Summary: the five numbers that matter and one line on each.
- Profit and loss against budget: the month and the year to date.
- Balance sheet: what the business owns and owes today.
- Cash flow: where the cash came from and where it went.
- KPIs: the few figures that drive this business.
- Receivables and payables aging: who owes what, and for how long.
- Commentary: what moved and why, in plain words.
- Forecast: the next three to six months of cash.
- Open items: decisions and questions for the reader.
How is a monthly financial report different from QuickBooks reports?
A QuickBooks report follows the ledger’s layout. A monthly financial report follows the reader’s questions. It picks a few lines, groups them the owner’s way, and sets them against the plan. Then it explains what moved.
That explanation is what turns numbers into decisions. An owner can read a profit and loss report, but what they want to know is why margin fell, and what to do about it.
Open last month’s report: could your reader find the five numbers that matter on page one?
Why does the order of the pages matter?
The order matters because, in our experience, many readers stop after page two. So the summary carries the story. The detail follows for whoever wants it. Keep the same order every month. Then the reader knows where to look.
Each page also depends on clean books. The close comes first. NetSuite’s checklist, for example, locks the period to limit posting transactions. Our month-end close process guide covers that part.
Where do the hours go each month?
Most of the time goes into rebuilding, not thinking. Someone exports the reports. Someone pastes them into the layout. Someone regroups the lines the owner’s way. Then someone checks that the totals still tie.
Commentary takes the next block of time. It is the page readers value most. It is also the page no report button writes. The rest goes to surprises, like a new account that has no place in the layout.
None of this work is hard. It is just the same work every month. That is why it slips when the close runs late, and why the report often arrives after the decisions it should inform.
Say receivables are $120,000 on the balance sheet. The aging page splits that into four buckets. It shows $80,000 current and $25,000 at 30 days. It shows $10,000 at 60 days and $5,000 over 90. Then $80,000 + $25,000 + $10,000 + $5,000 = $120,000. If the buckets miss the total, the page is wrong. This is an illustrative example, not a client’s figures.
Excel or software for a monthly financial report?
Excel is fine for one company and a simple layout. Software earns its place when the monthly rebuild starts to take a day. It also helps when new accounts keep dropping off the report, or when the commentary is always late. Six questions decide it:
| Question | Excel | Reporting software |
|---|---|---|
| Same layout every month? | Only if someone rebuilds it | Yes, refilled after each close |
| New account in the ledger? | Can drop off silently | Should come back as a question |
| Commentary? | Written from scratch | Drafted from what moved |
| Several companies? | One file each | One account, separate views |
| Output? | Whatever you export | PDF or PowerPoint |
| Set-up? | Yours to build | Look for one done with you |
Stay in Excel if you run one company, the layout rarely changes, and one person owns the file. Move to software when you report on several companies, or when the reader expects the same pages on the same day every month.
What does Reportly automate in a monthly financial report?
Reportly is reporting software for QuickBooks Online. It takes the PowerPoint report you already send and uses it as the template. After each month-end close, it fills the same pages with the new numbers. The output is PDF or PowerPoint.
A new account in QuickBooks comes back to you as a question. It never turns into a silent gap. We built Reportly for our own reports first. The open items page is the one we still keep by hand.
It suits owners who report to a board, investors or a bank, and outside CFOs who send reports to their clients. The reader keeps the report they know. Only the hours behind it change.
When should you get help with the monthly report?
Get help when the report arrives late or the reader stops trusting it. Our fractional CFO services cover the report, the budget and the cash forecast. If you want a second opinion on the report you send today, book a free 30-minute call with Narek.
Where this goes wrong
| The problem | What it costs you | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| Sending only the profit and loss | the reader can’t see cash or debt | add the balance sheet and cash flow pages |
| Changing the page order each month | the reader can’t find anything | fix the order and keep it |
| A new account the layout doesn’t know | a balance drops off the report | check new accounts before you send |
Based on NetSuite’s published period-close documentation, checked against the monthly reports we produce ourselves.
Sources we opened and checked for this guide:
Published November 2026. Checked in November 2026. If something here is out of date, tell us and we will fix it.
