Why you may need a custom built report
You report may require specific pinpoint layout, and you don't have the in-house skills to develop complex macros in Excel, or use Crystal Reports.
You just want to "press a button" and make everything come out
You are currently using QuickBooks in a manner that is not optimal to creating the report "out-of-the-box". For instance, you may want to separate machinery from other information in your job cost detail, but don't use a single item, or it is only part of a description; this would require experienced hands to create - and possible data entry rules.
What you see above the hood in QuickBooks, is not stored in a way that you expect - or is not stored at all. For instance, you want to tie a specific bill to the invoice on which it was billed, but realize that QuickBooks doesn't store the specificity of that information within the invoice, or bill.
It simply is more cost effective for you to do so.

If I need a custom report, will I still need QQube?
The short answer is yes, because it will save you 80% of the time necessary to manually reverse engineer, extract, transform and tailor the data to your specific need.

First, remember that Intuit does not provide direct access to the QuickBooks database; never have and never will. So there are a limited number of options for this purpose:

Intuit Software Development Kit (SDK). Is kludgy, difficult to learn, and is full of holes. It takes developers months to learn about the details, and nuances of this offering.
Connectors like the QODBC driver (which comes with Enterprise). These applications take the Intuit SDK, and turn it into a product that looks like "tables". None of these connectors take into effect the nuances of operational QuickBooks, and again requires weeks/months of studying tables, relationships, and reverse engineering against QuickBooks reporting.
QuickBooks Enterprise Custom Reporting. The closest thing Enterprise users have to direct access to the database. You must be logged into QuickBooks to use this feature, it has holes in the available data, and again takes weeks/months of studying tables, relationships, and reverse engineering against QuickBooks. Furthermore, there is no built in mechanism like the SDK, to check for data corruption, that even verify and rebuild operations in QuickBooks may not show.
QuickBooks Advanced Reporting. The latest "failed attempt" by Intuit to deliver custom reporting to its users, it is similar in nature to the Custom Reporting feature, in that there are raw tables and relationships to reverse engineer, and that you must be logged into QuickBooks. They start off with a few QuickBooks reports, and then leave you to add calculated measures, and other tables - if you can figure it out. They also include a subset of the visualization tool QlikView, whose market share is being nearly obliterated by Microsoft's offering, Power BI.
The whole premise of QQube is to eliminate the need for reverse engineering, and reading complicated documents to help decipher how all of the tables relate to each other. Second, QQube includes hundred and hundreds of calculations, can aggregate dozens of files, and puts everything together for you.

So if you are an end-user, you can drag and drop your fields into the application you choose to create your report in. If you are an advanced user,. e.g. developer or custom report expert, you can attach to the raw tables and quickly develop any custom project - in a fraction of the time it would take with any other option.

Why hire a QQube Certified Solution Provider?
Our founder Chuck Vigeant, M.Ed. created the concepts for QuickBooks custom reporting as it is known today, having developed thousands during the first 15 years that Intuit exposed their data using the Software Development Kit. He is still considered the foremost authority on QuickBooks data extraction, the art of custom reporting, is also the only accounting technology professional ever contracted by Intuit to work in the actual database.

He has now passed on his legacy to some of the best and brightest in the Intuit Community and who are now accredited as QQube™ Certified Solution Providers.

Our QQube Certified Solution Providers are not only experts in the use of QQube technology, but are long standing QuickBooks experts and Pro Advisors - well known in the Intuit Community. In the course of their hands-on experiences with their QuickBooks clients, they have continually pushed the envelope when it comes to "thinking around the box".

What should I do before contacting a Solution Provider?
The number one thing you should do, is to layout your report request column by column. Sending an example of the actual report before any meeting would be best, unless it is something you just have "in your head". - in which case a simple excel column by column example will suffice.

The Solution Provider will go over your report requests, column by column, to determine how the information ties to QuickBooks - before any quotes - or even ball park quotes, are given. If you want to learn How To Customize QuickBooks Custom Reports then you can give us a call anytime you want.

Pictures and agreements will eliminate scope creep.