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PowerMetrics: Adding QuickBooks metrics (with data feeds)

 

Our recent redesign simplifies the data transfer experience by combining raw and modelled data sources into a single object - data feeds. We’re gradually releasing this new feature to our customers.
If you see Data Feeds in the left navigation sidebar, you’ll learn how to add QuickBooks instant and custom metrics in this article. If not, go here.

 

Visualize, discover, and act on your QuickBooks financial data with metrics and metric dashboards!

Get started by connecting to your QuickBooks data and adding some instant or custom metrics.

This article includes:

Note: This article refers to connecting to and adding metrics for QuickBooks Online (not QuickBooks Desktop).

Connecting to your QuickBooks data

Whether you’re creating instant or custom metrics, one of your first steps is connecting PowerMetrics to your QuickBooks data. Here are a couple things to note about connecting:

Your data is safe with us. The first time you connect your QuickBooks data to PowerMetrics, you'll be prompted to sign into QuickBooks and give permission to allow access to the data within your QuickBooks account. We are serious about protecting your data privacy.

Managing your connections. By default, your connection name looks like this: yourname<date and time created>. You can rename connections from your list of connections (accessed by clicking the in the left navigation sidebar and selecting Connections) or within the application as you add metrics. Go here for more information on managing your account connections. You can use the same account connection every time you connect to QuickBooks. If you have trouble accessing an existing connection, your OAuth token may have expired. If that happens to you, check out these troubleshooting tips.

Adding QuickBooks instant metrics

PowerMetrics includes a wide variety of instant metrics for QuickBooks. Created for you by industry experts and based on best practices, our instant metrics will get you tracking your QuickBooks data in no time!

Note: The first time you connect to QuickBooks, you’ll need to enter your QuickBooks login credentials.

The following procedure describes adding an instant metric from the left navigation sidebar. You can also add instant metrics from the Metric List page, or from Explorer, or from an open dashboard, in Edit mode.

Note: After adding an instant metric, you can edit it and set it as certified. Learn more about editing instant metrics. Learn more about certifying metrics.

To add QuickBooks instant metrics:

  1. In the left navigation sidebar, click the + button beside Metrics and select Instant metrics.
  2. On the Select a service page, select QuickBooks.
  3. Select one or more instant metrics.
    You can select up to 5 metrics each time you visit this page. If you want to learn more about a metric, click the information button (see below) to see a brief metric definition, a list of available dimensions, and the metric formula. For more detailed information, click the link to go to its information page in MetricHQ.
  4. Click Add metrics.
  5. If this is your first time adding metrics for QuickBooks, click Add new account.
  6. Enter your QuickBooks login credentials and click Sign in. Click Use account.
    Note: The next time you add QuickBooks instant metrics, you won’t need to enter your QuickBooks credentials. That’s because we assume you want to use the same account as before and skip that step. However, if you want to connect to a different account, before clicking “Add metrics”, click the account connection in the top right of the window (see below) and either select an alternate, existing account or click “Add new account”.

 

That's all there is to it! You just added QuickBooks instant metrics to your account. If you added them from the navigation sidebar or from your Metric List page, they're added to your list of metrics. If you added them from an open dashboard, they're added to the dashboard and to your list of metrics. If you added them from Explorer, they open in Explorer and are added to your list of metrics.

Note: Instant metrics are managed by Klipfolio. As such, they each have a set date range for the data being retrieved. If you add an instant metric and don’t see the date range you’re looking for, we suggest you create a custom metric instead.

You're ready to start analyzing and tracking your data as it changes over time. Learn more about viewing and exploring your data.

Adding QuickBooks custom metrics

If our QuickBooks instant metrics don’t get you to the data you’re looking for, create a custom metric instead.

Custom metrics use data feeds. Think of a data feed as the information channel between your source data and your metrics. Every time your data refreshes, the data feed gets updated accordingly. The resulting data is then added to the existing data for all the metrics that use the feed. Learn more about data feeds.

When you add QuickBooks custom metrics, you:

Connecting to your QuickBooks account and adding a data feed

The first time you connect PowerMetrics to your QuickBooks data, you log into your QuickBooks account, allow Klipfolio PowerMetrics to access your data, and specify the data you want to connect to by selecting your QuickBooks account. When you create custom metrics next time, you can use the same account connection or add a new account to point to different data.

Every custom metric needs a data feed. As you create metrics, you'll either create a new data feed or select one from your list of existing data feeds.

To connect PowerMetrics to your QuickBooks account and add a data feed:

  1. In the left navigation sidebar, click the + button beside Metrics and select Browse all services.
  2. On the Where is your data? page, select QuickBooks.
    Note: Your metrics will refer to data that’s associated with the QuickBooks account you’re currently connected to. If you’ve connected to QuickBooks before but want to use a different account this time, click the currently-connected account in the upper-right corner of the window to select a different account and/or account settings.
  3. Click Can't find the instant metric you need? Build a custom metric instead. It's located at the end of your list of instant metrics. (See below.)
  4. If this is your first time connecting to QuickBooks:.
    • Click +New data feed > Select QuickBooks data.
    • Click Add new account
    • Enter your QuickBooks login credentials and click Sign in. Click Use account.
      Note: The next time you connect to QuickBooks to create a custom metric, you won’t need to enter your QuickBooks credentials. That’s because we assume you want to use the same account as before. If you want to connect to a different account, you can do so when choosing data to include in your data feed (in the query builder) by clicking the account connection at the top of the data preview window (see below). You can either select an alternate, existing account or click “Add new account”.
  5. If you’ve connected to QuickBooks before:

Choosing data to include in your data feed

In the query builder, you tell us what data you want to retrieve for your data feed. When you use the data feed for your custom metrics, you’ll choose which pieces of data from the feed you want to display for each metric.

Using the data view you select, we’ll run a query to get a list of available columns (fields) from within the data view. You’ll then choose from those columns to specify what data to include in your data feed.

Tip: You can apply filters to the data view and to columns in the left sidebar and in the data preview. Applying filters helps narrow down the data you’re looking for, ensuring you only query the data you need. By pinpointing your desired data, you optimize the volume of data being queried, which not only makes your data easier to understand and handle, it often makes the query run faster! Learn more about filtering.

To choose data to include in your data feed:

  1. In the Choose data for your data feed page, under Data view, click the drop-down and choose the subset of data you want to query.

    Tip: Find the data view you’re looking for by entering its name in the search box or by entering the name of a column/field to find the data view that includes it.
  2. Under Data view filters, add required filters (if needed) and optional filters (if desired).
    Tip: APIs for some services include "StartDate" and "EndDate" as optional data view filters. Applying filters here, at the query (source) level, rather than later at the query results level can improve efficiency and simplify data handling.
  3. Under Columns, select the checkboxes beside the columns you want to include in your data feed.
    Tip: Columns represent the fields that are available for the data view you selected above. Each item you choose will display as a column in the data preview table. If there are a lot of columns to choose from and you know what you’re looking for, start typing the column name into the search box. You can add up to 30 columns for each data view.
  4. Optionally, apply filters to applicable columns to narrow down your data before previewing.
    Note: You may find it easier to apply filters to columns in the next step (in the data preview table) as you can see your data more clearly there. However, if you know your data set well, applying filters in the sidebar can be beneficial because it removes excess data before previewing. It may also be necessary when your data is too large to query all at once.
  5. When you’re done selecting (and filtering) columns, click Preview data. The data preview window is populated with the results of the query for the columns you chose.
    Note: The data preview table can show up to the first 1000 rows of your data. As a result, if you have a large data set, some rows may not display. Using the drop-down, you can select the number of rows to display (50, 100, 500, or 1000). You can also see how long it took for your query to complete. (See below.)
  6. If this isn’t the data you want for your data feed, choose a different data view and/or columns. To preview your most recent choices, either click Preview data again or Reload data (located above the data preview table).
    Note: At the top of the data preview window, you can see the QuickBooks account you’re currently connected to (see below). By clicking it, you can change to a different account. If you change accounts, your recent choices are removed and you start over by choosing a data view and columns.
  7. In the data preview window, you can narrow down the data you want to include in your data feed by applying filters to applicable columns.
  8. When you’re satisfied with your choices, click Save query.

You've chosen your data. Next step - refine the data in the data feed editor.

Refining data in the data feed editor

You’ve arrived in the data feed editor where you can choose to either accept the automatic settings or make changes.

If you’re happy with the automatic settings:

If you want to make changes:

  • Some common adjustments include changing the data format or names for columns, updating the data feed name, and combining columns using formulas - there are many customization options available.
  • If you want to adjust your query choices (for example, add or remove columns or filters) click the tile under Data service to return to the query builder. (See below.)
  • When you’re finished editing the data feed, click Save data feed and proceed to Configuring your custom metric.

Learn more about editing data feeds.

Note: After you’re finished creating a custom metric with this data feed, you can return to it and use it to make more custom metrics. In the left navigation sidebar, click Data Feeds. Select the desired data feed from the list and click +Add metric.

You've created a QuickBooks data feed. Next step - Configuring your custom metric.

Configuring your custom metric

As you configure your custom metric, you can click the button, located beside “Measure”, “Historical data”, and “Date handling”. This opens a guide for each setting that helps you decide which options to choose. As you make choices, you’ll see the result in the metric preview window on the left. Don’t worry about getting everything right the first time. Before clicking “Save metric”, you can go back and forth, making changes and observing the preview until you arrive at the configuration settings that give you the exact metric you’re looking for.

To configure your custom metric:

  1. Under Data feed, you can see the data feed that’s associated with this metric. If desired, click its name to open it for viewing or editing.
  2. Under Measure, select the column from the data feed that contains the values you want to track in your metric.
  3. Under Dimensions, select the columns by which you want to be able to segment and filter your metric value.
    Each selection shows a unique view of your business, for example, you might choose to look at your sales data based on region, sales rep, or product type. The dimensions you select will be available for filtering in the finished metric. You can filter on the individual metric level or at the dashboard level (when you add your metric to a dashboard). You can also create a metric with no ability to segment or filter, by not selecting any dimensions.
    The number of dimensions you can select depends on your pricing plan. You can either upgrade your plan here (by clicking Upgrade) or from your pricing plan page (accessed by clicking the button in the left navigation sidebar and selecting Plan).
    Note: When choosing dimensions, you can only select columns that have a text format. If the associated data feed doesn’t include any text columns (or has only one text column) there will be no available categories by which to segment.
  4. Under Historical data, select the column from the data feed that contains the date/time associated with each value.

    If the data feed doesn’t include a date column or history, deselect the Data feed contains historical data toggle to use the date and time the data feed is refreshed. (See below.)
  5. Click the Settings tab.
  6. Under Date handling, select Use all values or Use most recent values only. Your choice determines the data points your metric will use when calculating the metric value for a time period.

    If you chose Use most recent values only, select the desired time period. (See below.)

    If you need more help deciding which date handling option to choose, check out this article: Choosing the right date handling method for your custom metrics.
  7. Under Format, select from Numeric, Currency, Percentage, or Duration.

    If you selected Currency as the data format, the default currency symbol that will display is USD $. You can select an alternate Currency symbol from the drop-down list. Note: This is a display option only. Currency is not converted.
  8. Under Favourable trend, choose whether you want ascending or descending values to indicate a positive trend. For example, if your metric includes sales totals, a higher (ascending) number demonstrates a positive trend but, if your metric includes cost to acquire customers, a lower (descending) number indicates a positive trend. Favourable trends are indicated by a green arrow. Unfavourable changes in metric values are indicated by a red arrow.
  9. Under Default aggregation, you’ll see the default aggregation type. It’s based on the measure you selected for the metric. For numeric columns, the default aggregation type is “sum”. For text columns, it's “count”. The default aggregation type will be used when the aggregation has not been set by the user in a metric visualization and wherever there are no configuration options available. For example, on the Metric List page, metrics will display using a default aggregation type based on your selection here.
    Note: When metrics are created, they’re automatically visualized using the most appropriate aggregation type. As such, we don’t recommend changing the default aggregation type.
  10. At Show as cumulative, you can set your data to display cumulatively by default for all of the metric's view modes.
  11. Enable the Users can override aggregation option if you want to allow changes to the aggregation and cumulative settings for the metric.

    Note: When metrics are created, they’re automatically visualized using the most appropriate aggregation type and cumulative settings. As a result, we recommend disabling the ability to override the default aggregation.
  12. Click the About tab.
  13. Optionally, enter a new name and description for the metric.
    Note: The metric was automatically named based on the measure you chose.
  14. Under Certification, optionally, enable the Certify this metric toggle. Learn more about certifying metrics.
  15. When you’re done configuring your metric, click Save metric.

If you added the custom metric from the navigation sidebar or from your Metric List page, it's added to your list of metrics. If you added the custom metric from an open dashboard, it's added to the dashboard and to your list of metrics.

You're ready to start analyzing and tracking your data as it changes over time. Learn more about viewing and exploring your data.

Troubleshooting tip: My QuickBooks metric data isn't refreshing

If the data in your QuickBooks metrics isn't refreshing, you may have inadvertently created multiple connections using the same QuickBooks user account. Each new, duplicate connection you create invalidates the previous one and prevents metrics that were created using the original connection from refreshing. We strongly recommend creating only one connection for each QuickBooks user account and then using the same connection for all of your QuickBooks metrics that are associated with that QuickBooks account.

To fix this issue:

  • Go to your Connected Accounts page, accessed by clicking your Account Name (at the bottom of the left navigation sidebar) and selecting Settings. Remove all unnecessary, duplicate account connections. After cleaning up your account connections, you might need to re-create your QuickBooks metrics.
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