Chuck Vigeant ties the power of Microsoft Power BI to Clearify's QQube

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If there is one name related to the successful ability to extract data from QuickBooks, that person is Chuck Vigeant. For more than 20 years Chuck had a traditional client practice dealing with bookkeeping, tax and day-to-day finances, but in 2003 everything changed, and Chuck would soon become 'the father of QuickBooks reporting.'

After selling his practice, Chuck partnered with FLEXquarters, the creators of the QODBC driver, and spent three years working to produce a product that would become licensed by QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions for custom reporting purposes. During this period of time Chuck produced the first Crystal Reports for QuickBooks. By 2006, Chuck was the most sought after expert on QuickBooks custom reporting and integration.  

Starting in 2007 Chuck began consulting with Intuit on Business Analysis ES and various cloud applications, as a data analyst, database engineer, schema architect and Business Objects specialist to transform the raw QuickBooks data into usable and manageable pieces for their engineering and asset design teams.

In 2010, Chuck established a new business called CLEARIFY® centered around their core technology QQube™ which was designed to provide reporting, business analytics and data visualization aimed at making data access easier for business owners and decision makers.

QQube™ is a data warehouse for QuickBooks desktop which allows users to create reports and analysis in minutes by dragging and dropping their information into tools like Excel, Access, PowerPivot, Crystal Reports, Power BI, or Tableau. Users can then create reports, dashboards, and visualization without spending weeks or months learning about data structures, tables, relationships, and reverse engineering. 

Microsoft's Power BI is a suite of business analytics tools that deliver insights, allowing users to produce beautiful reports and then publish them for their organization to consume on the web and across mobile devices. Everyone can create personalized dashboards with a unique, 360-degree view of their business and then scale them across the enterprise, with governance and security built-in.

So the question becomes, "how do users link their QuickBooks data with Microsoft Power BI?" Seeing the writing on the wall, Chuck Vigeant steps-in more than 2 years ago to begin linking his technology with Power BI. Chuck told Insightful Accountant, "We have been out of the box with Power Bi for almost two years, but despite the pre-built shells, the ability to get started with what we had was lacking, we needed to do more to make Power BI a real offering for QQube™."

Chuck went on to say, "as part of our preparations for a new version, we not only honed the data extraction process to include tons of measures not even available within QuickBooks, but to include granular drill downs to provide information users want and need."

When I asked Chuck specifically about using the newest version of  QQube™ with Power BI, he told me, "Our latest offering includes dozens and dozens of created formulas and visualizations for PowerBI.  That's in addition to the 230 other examples we have out of the box for PowerPivot, Access, Crystal Reports, Tableau and regular old Excel."

QQube™ by itself is a very virtual tool featuring over access to more than 45 analytical areas, 7,000 fields of information, multi-company aggregation for up to to 100 QuickBooks Company files, and multi-currency details as well as home currency within the company data.  Some of the analytical areas available from the tool include:

  • Customers (Sales, Open Salses Orders, Accounts Receivable)
  • Operations (Purchases, Open Purchase Orders, Accounts Payable, Inventory Management, Job Cost Details, Time and Billing, and Payroll)
  • Financial Summary including by Class (Trial Balance, Trial Balance Activity with beginning and ending balances, Balance Sheet, Profit and Loss and Statement of Cash Flows)
  • Financial Details (General Ledger Detail with enhanced descriptors and row by row linked transactions, Profit and Loss Detail with granular line details and any dimension, Combined Actual, Budget and Forecast, and Calendar, Fiscal, or 52/53-week Tax Year)
  • Financial Summary including by Class for Enterprise Only (Profit and Loss by Job with budget, Profit and Loss with Actuals, Budget, Forecast and Profit and Loss with 52/53-week Tax Year)
  • Financial Summary including by Class - Freestyle (10 year availability, Combine Actuals, Budget, Forecast, Calendar, Fiscal, or 52/53-week Tax Year)
  • Auditing (Audit Trail with dollar and number of changes, and by whom; Sales Tax Audit subject and List Deletes)

When I asked Chuck about the granularity and detail that QQube™ affords as contrasted with QuickBooks alone, he pointed me to the QuickBooks Audit trail reminding me of the lack of meaningful filters and data selection within such a critical report.  He then provided a QQube™ analysis of the QuickBooks Audit trail displayed within an Excel worksheet that greatly enhances the ability to select and filter needed audit data (as shown below).

But that's not where the lesson ended, Chuck then showed me how QQube™ could configure QuickBooks Audit Trail data into Microsoft Power BI and create a set of dashboard displays (like those below) related to audit trail findings including the frequency of user changes by QuickBooks document type (journal entries, vendor bills, invoices, etc.), the average time of day for user changes, and the average value of dollar changes by specific QuickBooks user, as just examples of the power of combining QQube™ with MS Power BI.

I must admit, I don't think I ever even though what it would take to ascertain the average dollar change per user per QuickBooks document within any given Company file.  Of course, the Audit Trail data in QuickBooks is just a tiny fragment of the type of data people want from QuickBooks. And the more data people want, the more likely a solution becomes too complex to use, but not QQube™.

The good news is that QQube™ simplifies the process of data extraction, a user doesn't need to understand things like connection strings, tables, reverse engineering or database terminology. Users can easily drag and drop their data into analysis reports. Let's look at the 3-steps of using Chuck's solution.

STEP 1. QQube™ establishes a connection to QuickBooks and auto extracts data either by scheduler or on demand into their proprietary Sybase repository. You can even automatically retrieve information from multiple QB files.

STEP 2. QQube™ transforms the raw spaghetti code data, and turns it into usable pieces.

STEP 3. Using your tool of choice, open up an existing report – or start with one from any of the products pre-built shells, then the data will refresh from the QQube™ repository.  

Drag and drop fields as needed, including special calculated measures.

You won't need to spend your time trying to figure out how to put the data together, you will save hours building new reports because the fundamentals, calculations, analytic examples and metrics have all been pre-configured for you. Even for Microsoft Power BI, you will be turning QuickBooks data into Power BI dashboards in no time at all.

Have problems forecasting inventory demand from your QuickBooks data? You won't have that problem using QQube™ coupled with Microsoft Power BI.

Needing a better way to look at your QuickBooks 'jobs' so you can get a feel for where you are going, and how much you are really making? QQube™ coupled with Microsoft Power BI can display a wealth of data you have never seen before.

I could go on and on showing you examples of how QQube™ coupled with Microsoft Power BI can give you the very best from your QuickBooks data, but really you are better off seeing it for yourself.

You can start the process by simply visiting the Clearify website, taking the tour, and signing-up for the 15-day free trial. Believe me, you will more than happy you did.