Thank you for your reply. 

The options you have listed I am already aware of. The Transaction list by customer 1) cannot be run for a single customer 2) does not give a running account balance and 3) is not a debits and credits type of account report. 

The account statements cannot be downloaded to Excel so I can only use the PDF versions which are inflexible and in any case badly formatted - I still cannot understand the reasoning for left aligning numbers - no one does that !!!

I am getting the impression that as a piece of software, it was designed business owners who want something simple and uncomplicated and dont mind a few short cuts - when accountants start using it to serve their clients, it is coming up wanting and hasn't the built in flexibility to allow us to manage to a standard we need to. This is a design philosphy flaw that QBO would do well to address asap before trying to branch out into other areas.