Do you want to effectively visualize your QuickBooks Online financial data in Tableau? Then you need an automated way to extract and Connect QuickBooks online to Tableau for analysis.
There used to be a Tableau Quickbooks Online connector but it has been depreciated in January 2023. Since then Tableau has been working on a replacement connector but it is still work in progress 17 months later. Moreover, the old Tableau QuickBooks Online connector had data in 100+ different tables which made it really hard to find the needed data.
In this article, we will review the importance of connecting Quickbooks Online to Tableau.
A better approach is to use a dedicated QuickBooks Online connector. It can consolidate the data into Analysis-ready views. Along with that, you can streamline your workflow in Tableau. This method offers several key advantages:
Instead of the native Tableau connector, this method uses a proprietary QuickBooks Online connector from Vidi Corp. It will extract your financial data into a cloud data warehouse. This cloud warehouse can either be an Azure DB, Snowflake, or any other similar solution. You can then connect this data warehouse directly to Tableau.
The implementation process is simple:
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Once the historical data load is complete, the connector will incrementally refresh the data warehouse. You can define your own preferred schedule for this. For example, it can be hourly, daily, or even weekly.
You can then use the standard data warehouse connector in Tableau to directly query and analyze this QuickBooks data.
Let’s explore the format of the extracted QuickBooks data when connected to Tableau. We’ll start with the P&L Detail view:
Every row represents a transaction. It includes the date, amount, description, and debit/credit details. Importantly, all transactions are already mapped to their corresponding QuickBooks P&L account categories.
You can filter this view by accounting method (cash/accrual basis), transaction class, as well as search for specific accounts. This provides a clean and analysis-ready model. You can use it for building P&L visualizations and reports in Tableau.
Similarly, the Balance Sheet view mirrors the QuickBooks format. It has transactions linked to their respective balance sheet account segments and classes. This allows you to rapidly create Tableau visualizations and analytics based on your balance sheet data.
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One of the key benefits of publishing your QuickBooks data to Tableau is the ability to blend it with other data sources. You will not just be monitoring only financial metrics but also advanced analytics. You can also correlate them with operational drivers. This will help you to obtain a complete view of business performance.
For example, you could combine:
Tableau offers excellent data blending and modeling capabilities. Hence, you can easily merge the QuickBooks extraction with other spreadsheets, databases, and cloud applications. You may then build interactive dashboards surfacing unique insights. It will not be possible to use financial data alone.
The suite of advanced analytic features on Tableau include cohort analysis, forecasting and clustering. After the integration, you can make them available on your QuickBooks data. This allows you to move beyond just monitoring what happened historically. It provides you with predictive abilities that improve decision making.
For example, you could build a predictive model estimating future cash runway. You may do it based on projected sales, expenses, and contractual obligations like payroll and loans. This “quantitative finance” approach leveraging Tableau’s stats engines is powerful for many duties. They include budgeting, capital planning, investor reporting and more.
When connecting QuickBooks data to Tableau, it’s important to consider robust governance capabilities. It will help you with secure and regulated data exploration. Tableau offers a number of features in this area:
These governance capabilities allow you to securely scale QuickBooks reporting. You can do it while maintaining control over who sees what financial information.
Using a connector to extract and model your QuickBooks Online data makes it seamless to analyze your finances in Tableau. The hierarchical data structure matches how you view reports in QuickBooks. This provides you with a turnkey solution.
This connector supports combining data from multiple QuickBooks accounts. You can also go ahead with applying accounting rules. Moreover, you can enable advanced data exploration that is not possible within the QuickBooks app itself.
