Remove COGS, Gross Profit & Unused Rows from a Budget vs. Actuals (or P&L)

The problem

COGS, Gross Profit, etc still show up on Budget vs Actual reports. The client is a church with no need for these fields. There is no option to remove these.

Your client is a church, a nonprofit, or a service business with no cost of goods sold, but QuickBooks still stamps COGS, Gross Profit, and the other standard subtotals onto every Budget vs. Actuals and Profit and Loss report. There is no checkbox to hide them, so the report carries rows that mean nothing to the client.

Why QuickBooks can't do it

QuickBooks reports use a fixed statement layout. The income-statement structure (Income, COGS, Gross Profit, Expenses, Net Income) is baked in, and there is no per-report option to remove a subtotal or reorganize accounts into categories that fit the client.

Do it in Google Sheets with Retriever

A spreadsheet has no fixed layout. Once the report is in Google Sheets, every row is yours to keep, hide, delete, or regroup.

1. Pull the report into Google Sheets

   Bring the Budget vs. Actuals or P&L in with Retriever, accounts and all, no export needed.

2. Delete or hide the rows you don't need

   COGS, Gross Profit, or any subtotal that doesn't apply: remove it outright or hide it, and the report reads the way the client expects.

3. Remap accounts into your own categories

   Group accounts into the categories that fit the organization (for a church: Programs, Missions, Operations) instead of the default income-statement buckets. The Summary P&L template does exactly this.

4. Keep it refreshing

   Your cleaned-up layout stays put; scheduled refreshes update the numbers underneath without touching your structure.

See also

Frequently asked questions