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LEARNING RESOURCES

AICPA ENGAGE 23
be a field in one table that represents a unique
June 5–8, Las Vegas and live online value for every row in the table (primary key).
The association is formed by joining the pri-
With multiple tracks designed to empower you with
innovative strategies and best practice solutions, mary key with a field that contains a like value
there is no better event for you to enhance your in the desired table with which to relate (known
skills. as the foreign key). Note that the foreign key
does not have to be unique on every row in the
CONFERENCE table (i.e., it can repeat on multiple rows), but
it does need to be like the values in the primary
key row to form the relationship.
Microsoft Power BI: Power BI Series Also, note the “Id” field highlighted in gray
A nine-part self-study online series created to help in the Purchase table (primary key) and the
“Id” field highlighted in gray in the Purchase
you develop the skills necessary to use Microsoft
Power BI tools. Account Based Expense Line table (foreign
key). These two keys represent the two fields
SELF-STUDY joining the tables. You can now create visualiza-
tions using purchasing data.

Excel for Accounting Professionals Webcast COMPARISON OF EXCEL-BASED APPROACH
Series VS. QUICKBOOKS INTERFACE APPROACH
The Excel for Accounting Professionals Webcast The Excel-based and the QuickBooks interface
Series is designed to walk through the Excel features, approach both have their advantages and
functions, and techniques that will save you time. disadvantages. The Excel-based approach can be
easier to use when data to be analyzed requires
WEBCAST multiple QuickBooks tables. However, this
approach has one disadvantage when the user
For more information or to make a purchase, go to aicpa.org/cpe-learning wishes to use updated data from QuickBooks.
or call the Institute at 888-777-7077. Then, the user will need to run the report in
QuickBooks, then repeat the load and transfor-
mation steps in Power Query to update the data
for visualization and analysis purposes.
One major advantage of the QuickBooks
interface approach is that data is automati-
AICPA RESOURCE cally updated upon reentering Power BI after
QuickBooks data has been modified. The
Article
disadvantage of this approach is that mul-
“Power BI: An Analytical View,” JofA, March 2020 tiple tables are required to create the desired
visualization and analysis, and Power BI cannot
create the relationships between them auto-
matically. Therefore, users need to have more
advanced knowledge of data contents and the
Load (see the screenshot “Loading Tables” on relationship between multiple tables when using
the previous page). this approach. Determining an accurate primary
Power BI returns to the Visualization key and foreign key are crucial steps when
view. From there, select the Relationship the user is required to form the relationships
view. Note that Power BI has automatically between tables.
formed a relationship between the Purchase The examples supplied here provide yet
and Purchase Account Based Expense another peek at the power of Power BI and
Line tables. Power BI automatically forms the the utilization of integration capabilities with
relationship by detecting like fields in each table accounting software such as QuickBooks. Such
(see the screenshot “Forming Relationships in knowledge opens the door for higher levels of
Power BI” on the previous page). crucial analytical power when clients rely on it
When forming a relationship, there should and need it most. ■

28 | Journal of Accountancy December 2022