Microsoft retired the native QuickBooks Online connector in Power BI during 2025: it was hidden in the Power BI Service from June, removed from Power BI Desktop in the July release, and fully deprecated in August 2025, at which point scheduled refreshes on datasets using it stopped working. Microsoft has said it has no plans for a replacement. If you're reading this because a QuickBooks report stopped refreshing, that's why. The three routes that work now are a third-party connector (CData, Coupler.io and similar), an export pipeline (Power Automate copying QuickBooks data to SharePoint or OneDrive on a schedule), or a custom connection to the QuickBooks Online API. Before any of that, though, it's worth being honest about how much QuickBooks Online's own reporting already covers.
What does QuickBooks Online's own reporting do well?
QuickBooks Online has a broad standard report library and, on the higher plans, a decent set of tools for shaping it. Things it does well:
- The standard financials. Profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flow statement, with comparison columns and percentage-of-income options. Customisable and saveable.
- Management reports. A packaged set (a cover page, the P&L, balance sheet, and whichever reports you add) that you can brand, add notes to, and send as one PDF. This is the QuickBooks equivalent of Xero's Management Report and it's more flexible on layout.
- Ageing. A/R Ageing Summary and Detail, A/P Ageing, customer balance reports. Credit control can work from these.
- Budgets and budget vs actual. On the Plus and Advanced plans. Budget by month, by class or location if you use them, and a Budget vs Actuals report.
- Projects and job costing. Also Plus and Advanced: project profitability, time and costs by project, unbilled time.
- Classes and locations. Two dimensions for slicing everything. Enough for department and site.
- Custom report builder. On Advanced, a more flexible builder for reports the standard library doesn't cover.
- Spreadsheet Sync. Also Advanced: a two-way Excel link for pulling QuickBooks data into a workbook and pushing budgets back.
For one entity with ledger questions, that list covers most of what an owner or a small finance team needs, and I'd start there.
Plan features are from Intuit's UK pricing page (quickbooks.intuit.com/uk/pricing) as read on 21 September 2026. I'm deliberately not printing prices: they rose in January 2026, and the figures published by third parties disagree with each other, so read the page.
Where does QuickBooks Online reporting stop?
The same three places every ledger's reporting stops, plus one that's specific to QuickBooks:
Data from outside QuickBooks. Pipeline in the CRM, hours in a timesheet tool, orders in a job system, targets in a spreadsheet. QuickBooks reports on QuickBooks.
An audience outside QuickBooks. Sales managers, department heads, a board, a lender. Each extra user is a licence and a permissions question, and QuickBooks user roles aren't fine-grained enough to show a manager only their own cost centre.
Questions that need a model. Rolling twelve-month margin by customer, cohort analysis, a 13-week cash forecast built from open invoices plus expected collections, trend of aged debt at each month end. QuickBooks reports show a state; a model holds history and relationships.
And the QuickBooks-specific one: the standard reports are fixed in shape, and the custom report builder is only on Advanced. On Simple Start and Essentials you're choosing from the library, not building.
How do you get QuickBooks Online data into Power BI now?
Three routes, and the right one depends on who's going to maintain it.
| Route | How it works | Cost shape | Refresh | Who maintains it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Third-party connector | CData, Coupler.io, Dataddo, Windsor.ai, Skyvia and similar handle the OAuth and copy or query QuickBooks for Power BI | Monthly subscription, usually per connection | On the vendor's schedule plus Power BI's (up to 8/day in a Pro workspace) | The vendor; you configure |
| Export pipeline | Power Automate (or a script) pulls reports or tables on a schedule to CSV/Excel in SharePoint or OneDrive; Power BI reads the files | Included in Microsoft 365 for basic flows; a small build | On your schedule | Whoever owns the flow |
| Custom API connection | Power Query calls the QuickBooks Online API directly, or a small app stages it into a database | Developer time, no subscription | Up to 8/day, but OAuth token refresh has to be handled | A developer; fragile without one |
Source: Microsoft's deprecation notice on the Power Query QuickBooks Online connector page, and the vendors' own pages, all read 21 September 2026.
Which one:
- You want it working this week and there's no developer: a connector. Pay the subscription, accept that it's a dependency.
- You're a Microsoft 365 shop with someone who's comfortable in Power Automate: the export pipeline. It's simple, the files are yours, and Power BI reading a folder of CSVs is about as reliable as anything gets. The downside is that you're modelling from exports rather than from the API's full table structure, so you have to be deliberate about which reports or tables to pull.
- You have a developer and you want no subscription: the API route, with a staging database if the volumes justify it. This is the one most likely to stop on a Tuesday when a token expires, so name an owner.
For a First Report on QuickBooks Online I'll usually take the export pipeline or the API route, because the client owns it afterwards with nothing to renew.
What should you model once the data's across?
The same lessons as any ledger, with two QuickBooks notes:
- Model from the transaction lines (invoices, bills, journal entries with their accounts, customers, classes, locations), not from the P&L report. Rebuilding QuickBooks' P&L from its own P&L output is brittle. Building it from the lines means any cut is possible.
- Model on IDs, not names. Customer and account names get edited in QuickBooks; IDs don't.
- Classes and locations are your dimensions. Bring them across as separate tables and everything slices by them.
- Store month-end snapshots of ageing and balances if you want trends. QuickBooks gives you the current state; the trend is yours to keep.
- Reconcile every refresh. The model's P&L total and the QuickBooks P&L total on one page, difference shown. Zero is the only acceptable number. This is the check the retired connector never did for anyone, and it's the one that makes a finance director trust the report.
What does it cost?
Licences: Power BI Pro is £10.80 per user per month on Microsoft's UK page as of September 2026, paid yearly, for everyone who opens the report. Add a connector subscription if you take that route. QuickBooks plan costs are on Intuit's page.
Build: a single-source report on QuickBooks Online is what the First Report is for. One system (QuickBooks Online is one of the named ones), one report answering one written question, the headline number reconciled back to QuickBooks to the penny, published to your own workspace, £1,950 fixed, ten working days. Details at the First Report. QuickBooks plus your CRM is two sources and a Reporting Sprint instead. If you had reports on the old connector that just need moving onto a new route, Report Migration is priced per report.
Common questions
Is the QuickBooks Online connector for Power BI gone?
Yes. Microsoft hid it in the Power BI Service in June 2025, removed it from Power BI Desktop in the July 2025 release, and fully deprecated it in August 2025. Scheduled refreshes on datasets built on it stopped. Microsoft's connector documentation says to transition off it and that no new connector is planned (as read 21 September 2026).
Why did my QuickBooks report stop refreshing in Power BI?
Almost certainly the deprecation above. The dataset is still there and the last data is still in it, but the Service can no longer reach QuickBooks through that connector. It needs rebuilding on one of the three routes in the table.
Can QuickBooks Online produce management accounts on its own?
Yes. The Management Reports feature packages a cover page, the P&L, balance sheet and any other reports you add into one branded PDF, with notes. For a single entity with ledger questions, that's a monthly pack.
Which QuickBooks plan has budgets and job costing?
Budgets and Projects (job costing, project profitability) are on the Plus and Advanced plans. Advanced also adds the custom report builder and Spreadsheet Sync. Details on Intuit's UK pricing page as of September 2026.
What's the cheapest way to connect QuickBooks Online to Power BI now?
The export pipeline: Power Automate copies the reports or tables you need to SharePoint or OneDrive on a schedule and Power BI reads the files. No subscription beyond Microsoft 365. The trade-off is that you're working from exports, so decide up front which tables you need.
Will the Power BI numbers match QuickBooks?
They have to. Every model I build has a reconciliation page with the model's figure next to QuickBooks', and on the First Report the second half of the fee is only invoiced once that reconciliation ties.
Should I switch accounting software because of this?
No, not for this reason. The connector going away is an inconvenience with three workable answers. If you're thinking about switching, do it for the reasons in Which Accounting Software Has the Best Reporting? Xero, QuickBooks Online, Sage 50 and Business Central, Honestly, not because of one Microsoft product decision.