QuickBooks Tableau Integration: 2 Easy Methods

Tableau helps companies leverage their data and visualize it by building compelling reports and dashboards. This tool helps organizations integrate data from multiple sources and streamline the process of acquiring insights from that data.

QuickBooks Online is an accounting software that helps businesses handle their finances and resources on time. QuickBooks Tableau Integration is a new technique that helps transfer QuickBooks Data into Tableau. Organizations can also use the features and advantages of both technologies in an efficient manner.

In this article, you will learn how to set up QuickBooks Tableau Integration. You will also get an overview of both Tableau and QuickBooks Online to better understand these technologies individually.

Prerequisites

• A QuickBooks Online Account.
• Tableau Desktop installed on your computer.
• Working knowledge of Tableau.
• Working knowledge of Databases and Data Warehouses.

Introduction to QuickBooks Online

QuickBooks Online is an accounting software that is developed and maintained by Intuit. It was initially released in 1983 as its beta version and was officially released on the Windows platforms in 2019.

QuickBooks Online primarily focuses on small and medium-sized companies by offering On-premise and Cloud-based accounting applications. QuickBooks Online houses many capabilities including accepting Business Payments, Managing and Paying bills, and Payroll functionality.

QuickBooks Online has helped organizations keep track of their budget, handle their financial transactions and make the organization more data-driven while ensuring flexibility, security, and reliability in all their processes.

Key Features of QuickBooks Online

QuickBooks Online houses a wide range of features which makes it a better choice as compared to other accounting software. Some of these are as follows:

• QuickBooks Online stores the details of an unlimited number of customers and suppliers.
• It keeps track of all your Sales & Expenses helping you understand how your business is performing so that you can make strategic decisions.
• It helps design and create professional invoices, print or send them via email. It also helps you track who owes you money and whether or not you have been paid.

Introduction to Tableau

Tableau is a BI and Data Visualization platform founded in 2003 by Christian Chabot, Pat Hanrahan, and Chris Stolte.

It became immensely popular as every organization wanted to gather valuable insights from multiple data sources and simultaneously collaborate with the employees of the organization.

Visualization is a great way to analyze a huge amount of data and that is exactly what Tableau does. 

Tableau has helped leading organizations across industries cut down their processing time and make their business more data-driven while ensuring flexibility, security, and reliability in all their processes. 

Key Features of Tableau

Tableau has a wide range of features which makes it a better choice over other BI tools. Some of these are as follows:

• It has a great number of integrations that you can choose from.
• Tableau has a special drag & drop feature.
• It allows you to create interactive dashboards and share them with users outside of the organization as well.
• It transforms your questions or queries into visualizations.
• Tableau can be used on any platform, be it mobile, web, or desktop.
• It supports building a diverse set of visualizations that can assist you in exploring your data.

With QuickBooks Tableau Integration, you get the flexible features of Tableau and the financial and accounting capabilities of QuickBooks Online, to constantly monitor your data.

Methods to Set up QuickBooks Tableau Integration

There are 2 methods you can use to set up QuickBooks Tableau Integration:

• Method 1: Manual QuickBooks Tableau Integration
• Method 2: Using Hevo Data to Set Up QuickBooks Tableau Integration

Method 1: Manual QuickBooks Tableau Integration

In this method, you will use Tableau Desktop to connect with QuickBooks data, set up a data source, and extract the tables from it so that you can visualize that data on Tableau. This feature is part of Tableau 10 and is available as part of the beta version as of now.

To do this, you need to have a QuickBooks Online account, username, and password. Once that is done, you need to follow the steps given below:

• Step 1: Connect with QuickBooks Online from Tableau
• Step 2: Authorize the Connection between QuickBooks and Tableau
• Step 3: Select the Tables to Extract from the Data Source

Step 1: Connect with QuickBooks Online from Tableau

The first step of setting up the QuickBooks Tableau Integration is to open Tableau and click on Connect > Intuit QuickBooks Online. The home page for Tableau Desktop is shown below.

n case you want to see all other connectors, you need to navigate to the To a Server section and then select the More button. This is shown below.

Once you finish this, the QuickBooks Online Authentication Window appears. Sign in to your QuickBooks admin account. In some cases, you may also have to perform a 2-factor authentication. Once this is done, you need to choose your company name. This is shown below.

Step 2: Authorize the Connection between QuickBooks and Tableau

The next step is to Authorize the connection between QuickBooks and Tableau. To do this, select Authorize option to authorize QuickBooks and to securely share your data with Tableau Desktop. This is shown below.

If Tableau can’t make the connection, verify that your credentials are correct. If you still can’t connect, your computer is having trouble locating the server. Contact your network administrator or database administrator.

Step 3: Select the Tables to Extract from the Data Source

Once the connection between your QuickBooks account and Tableau has been established, your data source is ready. Next, go to the Table section and select and drag it onto the top of the canvas.

You can click on the Sheet 1 tab to start your analysis. When you do this, Tableau will start importing the data by creating an extract.

Data can be updated by refreshing the extract. Creating extracts may take some time depending on the amount of data. This is shown below.

You can use the Sales & Expenses Line Item tables to build accounting reports such as Profit and Loss (P&L) statements and Balance Sheets. QuickBooks Online aggregates this information into sub-transactions in order to be easily understood. An example of such a transaction is shown below.

That’s it! You have successfully set up QuickBooks Tableau Integration using the manual method!

Some of the Limitations of this method include:

• You must have a QuickBooks Online administrator account to use this method.
• You cannot use this method if your company is not listed on the Tableau QuickBooks connector page.
• As Tableau 10 is only in its beta version, you can only use this method for extracting data from QuickBooks Online for now.

To overcome these limitations and integrate QuickBooks Online and Tableau quickly and efficiently, you can use Hevo’s No-code Data Pipelines. Check out the next method to understand how Hevo can help you integrate them within minutes.

Method 2: Using Hevo Data to Set Up QuickBooks Tableau Integration

Hevo Data, a No-code Data Pipeline helps you directly transfer data from QuickBooks and 150+ other data sources to Business Intelligence tools such as Tableau, Data Warehouses, or a destination of your choice in a completely hassle-free & automated manner.

Hevo takes care of all your data preprocessing needs and lets you focus on key business activities and draw a much powerful insight on how to generate more leads, retain customers, and take your business to new heights of profitability. It provides a consistent & reliable solution to manage data in real-time and always have analysis-ready data in your desired destination. 

Hevo focuses on three simple steps to set up QuickBooks Tableau Integration:

• Extract: Connect Hevo with QuickBooks Online and various other data sources by simply logging in with your credentials and extract information seamlessly.
• Integrate: Consolidate your data from several sources in Hevo’s Managed Data Warehouse Platform and automatically transform it into an analysis-ready form.
• Visualize: Connect Hevo with your desired BI tool such as Tableau and easily visualize your data to gain better insights.

Check out what makes Hevo amazing:

• Secure: Hevo has a fault-tolerant architecture that ensures that the data is handled in a secure, consistent manner with zero data loss.
• Schema Management: Hevo takes away the tedious task of schema management & automatically detects the schema of incoming data and maps it to the destination schema.
• Minimal Learning: Hevo, with its simple and interactive UI, is extremely simple for new customers to work on and perform operations.
• Hevo Is Built To Scale: As the number of sources and the volume of your data grows, Hevo scales horizontally, handling millions of records per minute with very little latency.

Conclusion

This article gave you a step-by-step guide on setting up QuickBooks Tableau Integration.

It also gave you an overview of both QuickBooks Online and Tableau along with their features. Overall, QuickBooks Tableau Integration can be set up using either the manual method or by using Hevo, but if time and ease of use are a parameter for you, using automated data platforms like Hevo can help you to set up QuickBooks Tableau Integration in a smooth manner!

In case you want to integrate data from data sources like QuickBooks into your desired Database, then Hevo Data is the right choice for you! I

Want to take Hevo for a spin? Sign up here for a 14-day free trial and experience the feature-rich Hevo suite first hand.