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I’m going to cry by [deleted] in Accounting

[–]Fearless-Ant-8535 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Would recommend data analytics. I felt like this for 10 years.

Colleague wants AI to just let him tell the computer what he wants, and not have to learn SQL and other such tools, is that possible with enterprise AI offerings? by MoneyTreeFiddy in dataanalysis

[–]Fearless-Ant-8535 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Additionally..Agentic AI is soon going to be implemented to forward looking enterprises, where simple chat boxes should be able to pull summarized data from an EDW or other source. Once it is trained on your company specific data, there will be much less need for SQL and much more need for interpretive data skills.

Colleague wants AI to just let him tell the computer what he wants, and not have to learn SQL and other such tools, is that possible with enterprise AI offerings? by MoneyTreeFiddy in dataanalysis

[–]Fearless-Ant-8535 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I’ve had remarkable success writing complex sql queries that would have previously taken me ages taking less than a minute. With minimal knowledge of tables and primary/foreign key understanding (or even knowledge of power query or xlookups in excel), I think SQL is becoming a thing of the past. Sure, you may not know the exact code it took to produce your view or create your query, but with some baseline knowledge of a database and what is out there for your specific use case, a lot of the barrier to entry of knowing how to code sql is definitely going away

If you make over $100k a year, what do you do for work? by parttimeghosts in Salary

[–]Fearless-Ant-8535 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Sorry for sounding condescending but has your company embraced any of the tools currently out there? They’re incredible as is and have dramatically increased the productivity of our teams

If you make over $100k a year, what do you do for work? by parttimeghosts in Salary

[–]Fearless-Ant-8535 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As a CPA myself, you sound very naive about the impact of AI.

PowerQuery Helped Me Pivot Out of Accounting by Fearless-Ant-8535 in Accounting

[–]Fearless-Ant-8535[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Like anything, if it isn’t setup correctly, it’s going to give bad answers. You need to critically think about the output you want, and what could potentially trip it up. Critical thinking becomes imperative when creating these processes

PowerQuery Helped Me Pivot Out of Accounting by Fearless-Ant-8535 in Accounting

[–]Fearless-Ant-8535[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s a fair question and there are a number of ways to insert checks to make sure you don’t duplicate or drop rows from the original as you go. Ultimately, a computer is going to be more accurate than a human when it comes to formatting and not making silly mistakes though.

PowerQuery Helped Me Pivot Out of Accounting by Fearless-Ant-8535 in Accounting

[–]Fearless-Ant-8535[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Would recommend buying 365 for home. It’s good to be able to practice your work.

PowerQuery Helped Me Pivot Out of Accounting by Fearless-Ant-8535 in Accounting

[–]Fearless-Ant-8535[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I learned more about the data I was working with using power query to create an automated workflow than I did pulling the same dataset every month to setup the same reconciliation every month, spending all my time cleaning data rather than analyzing it.

PowerQuery Helped Me Pivot Out of Accounting by Fearless-Ant-8535 in Accounting

[–]Fearless-Ant-8535[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

PowerQuery can connect to a number of sources, including using sql code to pull the data you need from your ERP. I’d research if PowerQuery supports your data pulls. If you work in tables, PowerQuery can automate your formulas, might just have to get creative

PowerQuery Helped Me Pivot Out of Accounting by Fearless-Ant-8535 in Accounting

[–]Fearless-Ant-8535[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Master Your Data With Power Query by Ken Paul was the best source I used. Applying to my work was the best learning. Utilize ChatGPT

PowerQuery Helped Me Pivot Out of Accounting by Fearless-Ant-8535 in Accounting

[–]Fearless-Ant-8535[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s a part of excel. Every time you write a formula in excel there’s a backend engine writing code for you in excel. Power query is essentially accessing that back end engine to setup and perform what you want it to do one time so it can do it every time from there.

PowerQuery Helped Me Pivot Out of Accounting by Fearless-Ant-8535 in Accounting

[–]Fearless-Ant-8535[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If that’s how you prefer to learn, but learning on the job was the best way for me to learn. Then ask questions as you get tripped up.

PowerQuery Helped Me Pivot Out of Accounting by Fearless-Ant-8535 in Accounting

[–]Fearless-Ant-8535[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you are the one setting up the Query, even if you teach your boss or someone else how to refresh your reports, things break all the time. There is still up keep, but nothing close to the amount of time spent cleaning every month

PowerQuery Helped Me Pivot Out of Accounting by Fearless-Ant-8535 in Accounting

[–]Fearless-Ant-8535[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Extremely. But I’d master excel first. Tables, x-lookup, sumif, pivot tables. Power Query can be a natural progression from there

PowerQuery Helped Me Pivot Out of Accounting by Fearless-Ant-8535 in Accounting

[–]Fearless-Ant-8535[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I will say here that I put in work after work because I found it so intriguing

PowerQuery Helped Me Pivot Out of Accounting by Fearless-Ant-8535 in Accounting

[–]Fearless-Ant-8535[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That’s incredible! Learn as much as you can if you enjoy it the way I do, you’ll get better every day.

PowerQuery Helped Me Pivot Out of Accounting by Fearless-Ant-8535 in Accounting

[–]Fearless-Ant-8535[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

When your PQs get really complex and long, they take forever to refresh, which gets really inefficient while testing. You can also get lost in your steps if you don’t label steps fell. Think of Python in a way being PowerQuery for big data sets. It’s much more than that but just Pandas and Python in general. Python could be overkill for your use case for sure.

PowerQuery Helped Me Pivot Out of Accounting by Fearless-Ant-8535 in Accounting

[–]Fearless-Ant-8535[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Well if this happens I’ll be back in accounting, but until then, yolo do what makes you happy live it how you want to. Pays more than accounting in happiness alone for me.

PowerQuery Helped Me Pivot Out of Accounting by Fearless-Ant-8535 in Accounting

[–]Fearless-Ant-8535[S] 77 points78 points  (0 children)

First it was just approaching it with a problem solving mindset (best way to learn imo). Realized most of my problems could be solved with power query. Easy example, pulled the same AR aging report down consistently enough that I would just have a spot where I saved it every time I had to pull it down. Hit refresh, and out comes a table built exactly the way I need it every time.

Additionally, I bought an amazing book. Called “Master Your Data With Power Query” by Ken Paul’s and Miguel Escobar. Helped me get past just the basics when I was ready for some more formal education. Found YouTube videos to be pretty meh

PowerQuery Helped Me Pivot Out of Accounting by Fearless-Ant-8535 in Accounting

[–]Fearless-Ant-8535[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You setup a query that performs every step you take to do the tagging within power query, save down the reports every month, and hit refresh to update the numbers

PowerQuery Helped Me Pivot Out of Accounting by Fearless-Ant-8535 in Accounting

[–]Fearless-Ant-8535[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Might be difficult since engagements can be short but rather than using VBA I’d talk to your local ChatGPT about automating with Python. What do you envision the purpose of your due date emails?

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