We’ve got good news and bad news. Personally, I usually prefer to hear the bad news first, so that’s how I’m going to deliver it. Here goes:

As of July 31, 2022, Intuit will close the books on its QuickBooks Online Advanced (QBOA) partnership with Fathom. If you use QBOA, you were likely already notified of this. Fathom is a software that provides data analytics and visualization, and its integration with QuickBooks greatly enhanced the value and readability of a bookkeeper’s client reports. If you weren’t familiar with Fathom, then this bad news has no effect on you!

Now for the good news: To fill the functional void left by Fathom, QBOA is evolving a new set of features for data reporting! These include Spreadsheet Sync, Custom Report Builder, Performance Center, and Cash Flow Planner. Below, I will further describe what these features are. And remember that these aren’t integrations, they are native (built-in) functionalities of QBOA that will continue to develop and improve in future updates. How exciting!

Spreadsheet Sync is QBOA’s new native ability to integrate with Microsoft Office Excel. Data can be seamlessly synchronized from Excel to QuickBooks and vice versa. Spreadsheet Sync also comes with pre-made, customizable report templates in spreadsheet format. These advanced reports will allow a user to combine data from multiple companies into one report file.

Custom Report Builder is a new and improved interface for, well… building custom reports. With the goal of an overall better user experience, Intuit has now included the ability to add PivotTables to reports. If you aren’t familiar with PivotTables, they are a feature of Excel that allow a user to select tabular data and generate a new table with rearranged columns and rows according to your specific reporting needs. Basically, it’s an easy way to customize the story you want your data to tell. You can expand and collapse data rows and columns as needed, to avoid a cluttering up your screen. Custom Report Builder also allows the user to build brand new reports totally from scratch, complete with custom fields, and save your templates to reuse later. The world of data reports is your oyster!

Performance Center is where the data visualization comes in. QBOA users can create custom charts and graphs to see different aspects of a company’s performance, without having to run a report. This can be helpful to keep track of KPIs and detect trends in data such as revenue and expenses, updated automatically to help you stay ahead of the curve. Don’t underestimate the power of a simple yet eye-catching data chart! This can make a huge difference in a user’s understanding that just might not come from reading numbers. I believe most people are visual learners. QBOA even allows you to compare your companies’ data with that of “like businesses.”

Cash Flow Planner is an application of machine learning to predict cash flow up to 90 days in the future. Its algorithm processes historical data from any accounts you’ve connected to it, and outputs its projection. Users can plan ahead by creating hypothetical scenarios and observe how they affect the cash flow projection.

According to Intuit, the value that Fathom brought to QBOA included the ability to generate a report for multiple companies (which is now covered by Spreadsheet Sync); the capacity for data visualization (which is now covered by both Spreadsheet Sync and Performance Center); and the intuitive user experience of tracking KPIs (which is now also found in Spreadsheet Sync, Performance Center, and Cash Flow Planner).

In fact, a prominent new native feature that Fathom didn’t have is the bi-directional data synchronization — part of Spreadsheet Sync. If you modify the Excel document, your QuickBooks file updates with it. If you modify your QuickBooks file, the Excel sheet updates with it. This means, of course, that if you’re already an Excel power user, you might just be unstoppable.