How to create itemized sales reports based on categories or brands

How to create itemized sales reports based on categories or brands

 I need to do reports on sales by Category. I can only get a total of each category's sales. I need one that lists the items sold by category. I could get by with showing all categories in a sales report and sorting by category but that isn't possible either.

I've started to duplicate category into the brand field but even the reporting on sales by brand seems impossible.

Why have categories if one can't create reports?

I tried getting help for this in support chat but was bot given a solution.