Access Live QuickBooks Data in Excel (Desktop) via Connect AI

Microsoft Excel is a widely used spreadsheet software application, primarily used for tasks related to data management, analysis, and visualization. When combined with CData Connect AI, you gain immediate access to QuickBooks data directly within Excel, facilitating data analysis, collaboration, calculations, and more.This article shows how to connect to QuickBooks in your Connect AI instance and access and update live QuickBooks data in Excel spreadsheets.

CData Connect AI provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for QuickBooks, allowing you to easily access live QuickBooks data in Excel for the web. Simply use the Connect AI Add-In to query live data (or write your own). Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect AI pushes all supported query operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to QuickBooks, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return QuickBooks data.

Getting Started

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Configure QuickBooks Connectivity for Excel

Connectivity to QuickBooks from Excel is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with QuickBooks data from Excel, we start by creating and configuring a QuickBooks connection.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection

2. Select "QuickBooks" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to QuickBooks.

   QuickBooks runs on-premises, so Connect AI requires the Connect Gateway to reach it. Install and start the gateway on the same machine (or network) as QuickBooks, then set the URL connection property to the Remote Connector address (e.g., http://remotehost:8166) and enter your User and Password.

   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add QuickBooks Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to QuickBooks data from Excel.

Access Live QuickBooks Data in Excel

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect AI from Excel to access live QuickBooks data.

1. Open Excel, create a new sheet (or open an existing one).
2. Click Insert and click Get Add-ins. (if you have already installed the Add-In, jump to step 4).
3. Search for CData Connect AI Add-In and install the Add-in.
4. Click Data and open the CData Connect AI Add-In.
5. In the Add-In panel, click Authorize to authenticate with your CData Connect AI instance
6. In the CData Connect AI panel in Excel, click Import
7. Choose a Connection (e.g. QuickBooks1), Table (e.g. Customers), and Columns to import
8. Optionally add Filters, Sorting, and a Limit
9. Click Execute to import the data

Update QuickBooks Data from Excel

In addition to viewing QuickBooks data in Excel, CData Connect AI also lets you update and delete QuickBooks data. Begin by importing data (as described above).

1. Update any cell or cells with changes you want to push to QuickBooks (your changes will be in red)
2. In the CData Connect AI Add-In panel, select Update
3. Optionally highlight the cell(s) you wish to update and select an update option ("Update All" or "Update Selected")
4. Click Execute to push the updates to QuickBooks, and a notification will appear when the update is complete

Live Access to QuickBooks Data from Cloud Applications

Now, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live QuickBooks data from your Excel workbook. You can add more data to your workbook for calculations, aggregations, collaboration, and more.



Try CData Connect AI and get real-time data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications.