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February 19, 2025
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Act. Cost & Act. Sales... ?????

  • February 19, 2025
  • 10 replies
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On some reports I view, there seems to be a column for "Act. Cost", and in some transaction reports also a column for "Act. Sales ". At first I thought this was only on Detail Transaction reports but today I viewed a Bank report for Deposit Detail, and the Act. Cost column appears again. This doesn't make sense on a Deposit Report, but ...

 

I have searched through all the column options in the Display options for these reports and I don't see anything that looks like it would be for "Actual Cost" (I assume that is what the "Act." stands for.)  Without knowing what is generating this on the report, I don't know how to delete it. I don't want to have to export every report I do to Excel so I can hide or delete this column.  (The column so far is completely blank, no data appears.)

 

Can anyone tell me what display option is causing this to appear? If there is none, this has to be a fluke ... or undocumented feature coming to us directly from QB / Intuit. Any ideas how to get rid of this on reports?????? Help!!

 

Thanks in advance.

Best answer by FishingForAnswers

@Deadwood Al  Not seeing it on my end; could be a custom column someone added to your books.

 

Either way, you can remove columns from reports without knowing what it is tied to in the Columns listing.

 

You may notice a series of three vertical dots to the left and right of each column name.

 

Hover your mouse cursor over those three dots, then click and hold the left mouse button as if you were going to resize the column. Then, drag the cursor to the left until you have passed the next set of three vertical dots.

 

Release the left mouse button and the column will be removed from the report.

 

Reports only require that you have one column active, so you can remove basically as many columns as you need to in this way. Could even memorize the report if you don't want to have to do this every time.

10 replies

FishingForAnswers
February 19, 2025

@Deadwood Al  Not seeing it on my end; could be a custom column someone added to your books.

 

Either way, you can remove columns from reports without knowing what it is tied to in the Columns listing.

 

You may notice a series of three vertical dots to the left and right of each column name.

 

Hover your mouse cursor over those three dots, then click and hold the left mouse button as if you were going to resize the column. Then, drag the cursor to the left until you have passed the next set of three vertical dots.

 

Release the left mouse button and the column will be removed from the report.

 

Reports only require that you have one column active, so you can remove basically as many columns as you need to in this way. Could even memorize the report if you don't want to have to do this every time.

February 24, 2025

Thanks!  This is very helpful. 

February 20, 2025

We're experiencing the same issue as of yesterday 02/19/25. Not sure if connected but we had a QBs update we ran yesterday that wasn't as smooth as we've experienced in the past.

Now we have these "Act. Cost" and "Act. Sales Price" columns that are showing up on our memorized reports.

We typically have the two columns "Amount" and "Balance".

These are not checked any longer in the Modify Report options. 

And I can't seem to understand where those two "Act..." column options are listed as an option to check. 

 

Anyone have a solution? Or experiencing the same thing?

 

February 20, 2025

Well, we also did an update just recently, so I'm tempted to think the crack wizardry at QB / Intuit added at least one or two "undocumented features" into the update. I'm seeing these new columns showing up in a few reports, and they seem to have replaced a column for "Amount" that now is no longer appearing. I have also noticed that this Act. Cost column is showing up in both standard (provided) reports AND in memorized reports, so it appears that these crack wizards have developed near super-powers in wreaking havoc in report-land.

 

I believe it was user Fishing For Answers who told me that I could delete these unwanted columns by clicking on the three dots at the top-right of the unwanted column and while holding down the click while dragging the dots past the left side of that column you are telling the system to not display the column. That may help clean the report of the junk the wizards have given you, but you will have to re-add the data column you do want to show up there. 

 

It would have been just peachy if the wizards had tested things before they sent it out to the world ... and I'm sure they would say "we did test it", to which my response would be "If you had experience out in the real world to know how actual real-world users actually use the system, your testing would be immensely better because you obviously don't know what to look for in your testing!"

 

 

February 25, 2025

It showed up on my memorized reports after I updated the required updates today.  The amount of checks were no longer there and this extra column that I can't get rid of.  This is crazy.  Why did they mess up all my memorized reports?  It is not in the options when I "Customize Reports" to remove this unnecessary column.  Now I have to re-do all my memorized reports in order to get rid of this ridiculous, column that has nothing in it.  If you are going to add something to our reports, at least let us be able to get rid of it.  This is extremely frustrating.  This is wasting my time to fix something we didn't ask for.

February 25, 2025

to JoyMas ....

There is a way to get rid of the columns (Act. Cost & Act. Sales Price) .... on the report display, at the top of the column where the column heading is, there are 3 vertical dots. Click & Hold on those 3 dots, and then drag them to the left just past the left edge of the column and the column will vanish from your report. 

----- Don't thank me. FishingForAnswers is the one who gave that method to me, so he gets the credit.

 

However, you need to check reports very closely, because it appears that QB's crack design team has fubar'd  many reports: standard reports and memorized reports. What I've seen so far is that many times when either or both of the "surprise columns from QuickBooks" (Act. Cost and/or Act. Sales Price") appear on a report, there is some column that used to be on the report that is no longer  present, so just removing the one or two "surprise" columns won't fix the report. You need to examine the report to see if it still displays the data you expected to see. And I have yet to discern any consistency in what reports are infected with this "surprise" problem ... sometimes I have been missing a column that used to be in the report, sometimes it is just removing the "surprise" columns. Sometimes it is a memorized report, sometimes a standard report.

 

Not only are there "surprise" columns, sometimes it is a "surprise" as to which reports are infected.

 

Everyone who has responded to this in the past AND all that respond in the future should ALSO go to HELP, and under the "Submit Feedback Online", please submit a Bug Report to describe this problem. QB will not respond when only one or two people complain or submit ideas. But if enough of us do bombard them with Bug Reports and complaints, they just might be tempted to try to figure out how to undo their FUBAR.

AmericanRV
February 26, 2025

This started happening to my company file Tuesday (2/25/25). All of a sudden there are new ghost columns in my memorized reports and the ones I need were removed (so far I've seen columns added for "Debit" - not the standard one built into QB - "Cost", "Act. Cost", "Sales Price" & "Act. Sales Price". All of these are invisible to me as far as the column options go, and each column has no information in it. I'd like to note that a QB update was installed 5 days ago, but I didn't start using it until yesterday. We use QB Premier Plus desktop and are currently on version R13_46.

 

I am NOT HAPPY over this, it's playing havoc with my accounts and my productivity. Yesterday I had to file tax reports with the state and it was a nightmare. I have a set of reports I run each month and they make the reporting fast and fairly painless. But when I started to run them, all except one had been changed. As far as I can tell, QB removed the last 3 columns on my reports and replaced them with three of the above. It added a "Sales Price" and a "Debit" column in reports they have no relevance to. But it got even worse from there. I tried to add MY columns back in and I could add one, maybe two, but never the three QB had removed. That makes my data unusable because I'm not getting the figures I need. Worse, even if I did manage to get one of my columns added back in, on each report QB would always keep one of its own useless columns and allow me one of my own. Because of this issue, I spent a several hours gathering data so I could file a state tax report, which normally takes me half an hour, tops.

 

The suggestion for how to make the phantom columns "disappear" helped if I removed one column, but where QB had added more than one it didn't work. at all In fact, that seemed to make it worse. Not only did they NOT disappear, they multiplied. Submitting a "suggestion" form to QB is a joke of an answer.

 

Whatever that update did, it broke the program. This is happening to too many of us to be a fluke - it's a programming error at QuickBooks. Wouldn't it be better if Intuit actually fixed whatever they broke? I'm sure I'm not the only user who considers this an emergency situation that QuickBooks needs to address RIGHT NOW. This isn't acceptable, by any means.

AmericanRV
February 27, 2025

I just stumbled onto something, test it out and see if it works for any of you. It definitely does NOT fix the issue here but ...

 

I went into my Memorized Report List and right-clicked on a few of the changed ones - and MY reports came up! 

 

A big hassle for sure, but until they manage to fix what they broke, this could work.  🙂

February 27, 2025

I am having the exact same problem and under the filter option there is nothing to uncheck this option.  Is this the problem from an update?  The act cost and act sales price appears on all my memorized reports but never did before.  (I also am assuming act means actual)

 

February 27, 2025

Hello there, Cindy. It would be best to contact our support team to check your experience with the memorized report further. I'm here to provide the steps to reach them.

 

Before proceeding, if you haven't done so already, please follow the steps provided by my colleague IrizA about verifying and rebuilding your company file. This process helps identify and resolve common issues within your file. For detailed instructions, refer to this article: Verify and Rebuild Data in QuickBooks Desktop.

 

Here's how to connect with a live representative:

 

  1. Go to Help and select QuickBooks Desktop Help/Contact Us.
  2. Click the Contact Us button.
  3. Type in a brief subscription in the field and click Continue.
  4. Follow the on-screen steps.

 

In the meantime, you can either ignore the columns in question or create a new memorized report that does not include those additional columns.

 

Additionally, you can refer to this article about exporting your reports: Export reports as Excel workbooks in QuickBooks Desktop.

 

Please return to this thread if you have other concerns with your reports in QBDT, Cindy. We're here to help you in any way we can.

February 27, 2025

regarding message from JanBonN ....

This was an excellent example of a response from someone following a script by QB in responding without really understanding what problems this FUBAR update caused for users nor understanding that a Verify and Rebuild doesn't do anything to fix reports. The person also has completely missed previous comments about some columns that should have remained in the reports have been deleted at the same time the erroneous columns were added in ... sadly, a common occurrence in responses from Team Members.  Actual users of the system actually pay more attention to the descriptions because they know how the software and reports are used in the real world and have more experience in what users actually are trying to accomplish and what to look for.  I think Team Members mean well, but QB has a major flaw in throwing people into positions where they have to respond to problems when they themselves don't have sufficient experience in real-world usage of accounting systems and processes.

February 27, 2025
March 3, 2025

Wow. Wow. Wow.

QuickBooks is just walking around in the dark. This affected many of my memorized reports and obviously has a significant impact on many people and they are just tossing our canned responses ; "...Verify and Rebuild."

March 3, 2025

First, QB did make available a patch update that supposedly included a "critical fix" for the report problem. The fix must be intended simply to replace the code that caused the false options (Act Cost and similar) from appearing and removing valid column selections. It would likely be worthwhile to install the update ... I did.

 

Secondly, and disappointingly, QB indicates in the narrative ("Fix memorized reports that open with unexpected results") that their solution to their FUBAR is to "recreate the memorized reports you need".  Judges, lets give QB a failing grade on this one. Too bad they didn't come out with a method to replace the memorized report group with the report group from the save immediately prior to the update that corrupted the memorized reports. This might not have been perfect and it might have taken some time, but so does "recreate the memorized reports you need"!!!!  Perhaps the grade should be an F-minus!

March 14, 2025

All of my custom report went from Amount to Act.Cost as well.

As Act.Cost isn't an item you can uncheck under display, you have to drag it like your resizing all the way to the left to get rid of it.

Then add Amount back in and Memorize as a new report.

It's a real pain as I have to delete all the Memorized reports on my Icon Bar and add them back linking to the new reports.

As far as upgrades go this was a downgrade.

Next upgrade I won't be so quick to use after this disaster.

March 30, 2025

Same thing happened to me.  Upgraded yesterday, and today my memorized and the standard General Ledger Reports no longer show the Amount or the Balance columns.  Gee whiz, this is why I am paying $1,200 more for Quickbooks 2024 Pro version plus Enhanced Payroll?  And the instructions as indicated above, left-hand mouse click, dragging to the left to remove the column does work, however, you also need to add in an extra column after the Amount or the Balance column, in order to see the column that you are trying to put back into the report.  Hopefully Intuit will pay attention, but I am not hopeful, as mostly, all I have seen over the past 20 years of using Quickbooks, is a lower and lower level of service, year-on-year.  If I did this to my clients I would be out of business.  I've attached a (sanitized) pdf file so folks can see these two errant columns Act. Cost & Act. Sales.

April 7, 2025

Same thing happened to us. When will this be fix?

April 7, 2025

You have to make sure you've updated to the latest release of your QuickBooks Desktop version, cecxcx. I'll share additional information regarding this concern.

 

Before we begin, it's important to check if you have the latest version of your QuickBooks Desktop to experience all the product improvements and fixed issues that are being addressed in the newer version.

 

To get the latest edition, you can follow the steps below:

 

  1. Go to Help and select Update QuickBooks Desktop.
  2. Select Update Now, then Get Updates.
  3. Close and reopen QuickBooks to reinstall.

 

Moreover, we can also perform some basic troubleshooting steps by verifying and rebuilding your data in QBDT to determine whether a corrupted data system is causing the error you are encountering.

 

However, if the issue still persists, you can get in touch with our QuickBooks Support team to further investigate the issue you're encountering right now.  They have advanced tools and can provide real-time assistance through screen-sharing.

 

Once resolved, you can also check this page if you wish to learn how to resolve file export Excel common errors in QBDT: Fix export to Excel issues in QuickBooks Desktop.

 

I've outlined the key steps for updating and troubleshooting QuickBooks Desktop. Please know that you can always revisit this thread if you have further questions with your memorized reports in QBDT. We're always here to help.

April 10, 2025

I tend to wait to install new updates, hoping that the bugs will be worked out by the time I install the new software.  That practice didn't help this time, so it's just now affecting my work.  

 

Some of my Memorized Reports were easy to adjust, but in most cases, the "Memorized" reports popped up with weird useless columns and even some margin arrows stuck within columns which effectively cover the data.  I finally decided to just give up and start from scratch.  I went back to the Reports tab, chose Report Center and found the default report that looks most like what I needed.  Then I seemed able to add my own columns and change my titles and print my report.  Only tried this on two reports so far, so keeping my fingers crossed that this will work across the board.  

 

Bottom line: Kiss your Memorized Reports goodbye.  I know it's a real pain here at end of quarter, when we're trying to file State and Fed reports.  But we've gotta get the reporting done.  Meanwhile, QB fouled up the Memorized Reports program and they're telling their support staff to blame the users.  Sorry QB, but you guys messed this one up Royally.