Jaclyn Anku, ProAdvisor Training & Certification Leader: Hey, I'm Jaclyn and welcome to In The Know.
This is our weekly video show designed to keep you up to date on the most exciting news across the QuickBooks ecosystem.
Today, we're here to talk about Spreadsheet Sync for Google Sheets. This powerful feature enables you to securely send data back and forth between QuickBooks Online Advanced and Google Sheets. Before, it was only available with Microsoft Excel, but now you can use QuickBooks Online Advanced with Google Sheets to quickly create pivot charts, graphs, and to collaborate with clients.
Jaclyn: And now for the Fast Facts.
- The spreadsheets sync with Google Sheets feature is available to both admin and standard All Access users.
- It can be accessed through QuickBooks Online Advanced.
- This feature is available as of mid-May in the U.S. and will be live in Canada, U.K. and Australia as of July 2024.
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Let's turn now to Intuit’s Senior Product Manager, Subhanan Sahoo for a look at Spreadsheet Sync for Google Sheets. Subhanan, welcome!
Subhanan: Thank you, Jaclyn.
I’m one of the product managers for QuickBooks Online Advanced, and I'm really excited to talk about Spreadsheet Sync for Google Sheets.
Users can use their QuickBooks credentials to log in. You can select the company if you have multiple ones on your account and then log in.
Once you log in, we have made two different things available. You can run a report and also run a multi-company report.
You will see that the users will be able to select the report that they want to run from the pre-selected 40-50 reports available. Users can also select the filters for which date range they want to see this report and other details. Spreadsheet Sync also offers multi-company reports.
Users can select a group of multiple reports, and then use the filter to get these reports. This report provides a higher level of information on the companies that you have in a format so that you can see everything in one view.
Jaclyn: Subhanan, thank you so much for that walkthrough and for all of your work on spreadsheet sync.
Let's now turn to Carla Caldwell and Michael Ly. Carla is a firm leader and expert trainer on all things advisory, and Michael is an accounting and fintech entrepreneur. Carla, Michael, welcome and thank you for joining us.
Michael Ly: Thanks for having us.
Carla Caldwell: Thank you.
Jaclyn: Michael, let me start with you. Tell me about your reaction to spreadsheet sync for Google sheets.
Michael: Sync for Google Sheets is great. It really allows more flexibility for the types of clients we can work with. Google Sheets and Google Workplace are used by many small businesses and startups, and more modern accounting firms are opting to go with the Google Workspace platform instead of the Microsoft Office 365 platform. Google Sheets allows us to do that syncing and interact with those customers that are used to the Google Workspace environment.
Jaclyn: And Carla, how about you? Do you use Google Sheets at your firm to collaborate with clients?
Carla: We do. We use G sheets and the whole Google workspace. We’re also traditional accountants that have Excel, but I personally prefer Google Sheets. I think that it's really going to be a great way for us to use spreadsheets, to sync with them. There's a lot on that platform that I think is going to really facilitate those conversations with our clients.
Jaclyn: Tell me more about that, Carla. What is it about Google Sheets that you prefer? How does it help you collaborate more with your clients?
Carla: I personally love being able to put a comment on a financial statement or a document, and clients are able to respond to that. I think it is going to be very helpful for us as we're working with clients and for them to make comments to us and ask us questions. I think it's going to be making that [communication] a whole lot easier as well.
Michael: Yeah. As Carla said, you know, a lot of communication with clients for accounting firms is primarily through email. Most of the time, these financial reports get lost in email, and we hope that a client sees it. With the new Google Sheets sync to QuickBooks, we're able to push that data straight to Google Sheets, share that spreadsheet with the client, and then the client can actually ask questions inside Google Sheets with us. We can highlight information and do other things like consolidate with other reports and data coming from different systems—such as information from our CRM or information from our HRIS system. So, that's the power that this update will provide. What we normally had in Excel, now we're able to have it in Google Sheets. That opens up a whole new ecosystem for us to interact and engage with our clients.
Jaclyn: Michael, that's a really powerful insight that you can combine data from QuickBooks Online with data from other sources. Carla, tell me more about what you do once you've exported the data from QuickBooks into either Excel or to Google Sheets.
Carla: I don't like exporting data— it can all suddenly become very asynchronous. Now, this isn’t going to be the case because [QuickBooks Online Advanced] syncs. So, we can actually bring data from in this case today, in Excel, but then also in Google Sheets, we're going to be able to bring that data into QuickBooks Online, which I absolutely love. That it's going to make it a lot easier to do some updates that need to happen. I also like the idea of being able to consolidate companies. Only one of the entities needs to be in QuickBooks Online Advanced, and then if we're using QuickBooks Ledger for some of their holding companies, and we want to bring them all together, we can do that now. I think that is really powerful and just really elevates what we're able to provide for the value to our clients. They're going to absolutely love it. I can't wait to be using this with them.
Jaclyn: Once you have the data in either Excel or in sheets, do you create charts or put it in pivot tables? How do you serve this up to your clients in a way that might be easier for them to understand?
Carla: I like the idea of being able to add some color to some of these reports. They're exported out, it's plain black-and-white, highlighting some of the areas and pointing out things and putting in various different formats. Some of our clients are so much more visual, and they need to see [the data] in Technicolor. They need that. And quite honestly, we do too sometimes. Let's be real; we're not all just black-and-white, and that's it. We want to make this a little bit more interesting. The ability to move beyond just our financial statement presentations to our clients with [Spreadsheet Sync] is important to think about. A lot of our clients are doing other types of things with QuickBooks Online. It's not just the financial at the end. It could be, you know, sales reports and graphs. Again, it's all one place they're in all the time. Now. they’re able to access this and see their data in a different way instead of the standard. This is how everybody sees their reports. We can now kind of make it a little bit more special and customized for the client.
Jaclyn: Carla, Michael, thank you so much for your thoughts and insights about how Spreadsheets Sync for Excel… and now, Google Sheets enable better advisory and collaboration and create efficiencies for your firm. We are going to move into a lightning round. Are you ready?
Carla: Ready.
Jaclyn: Would you rather use [Microsoft] Excel or [Google] Sheets?
Michael: Google Sheets
Jaclyn Anku Would you rather collaborate with clients via email, Slack, or neither?
Carla: Email.
Michael: Slack, [but]I don't want them having 24 hour access to me through slack. I'm fine with it. Just an email is good for me, though.. But, hey, you know.
Jaclyn: Michael, would you rather use pivot tables or charts if you could only choose one feature in Google Sheets to use for the rest of your life?
Michael: Charts.
Carla Caldwell I'm with Michael on this one. I'm going for charts. I want colors and pretty pictures and....
Jaclyn: All the things.
Carla: Yeah.
Jaclyn: Well, Carla, Michael, thank you again so much for your time. And we'll catch you on the next episode of In The Know.
Carla Caldwell Thank you.
Carla Caldwell Looking forward to it.
Jaclyn Anku And thank you for watching this episode of In the Know!
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We'll catch you next time.
Meet the ProAdvisors
ProAdvisor Carla Caldwell: Founder, Caldwell Consulting & Training
ProAdvisor Michael Ly: CEO, Reconciled
