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Chances are, you’re here because you’re interested in Tableau in the finance field. But one question remains: is Tableau actually used in finance?
I’ve done my research and here’s a short answer:
Tableau is used in finance. It is a powerful data visualization tool commonly used for charting financial data. Tableau is used in accounting, financial reporting, financial planning and analysis, and preparing financial statements. However, Tableau is also used in other applications in business intelligence.
Now that you’re clearer on what Tableau is used for in finance, you’ll likely want to know more about some details and specifics of Tableau applications in Tableau!
Read on to find out 11 things about Tableau in finance:
1. How is Tableau Used in Finance?
Tableau is used in finance for handling financial data. Tableau enables financial analytics through revenue and pricing analytics, cash flow management, financial reporting, and audit analytics. Tableau financial analysts use Tableau to create financial dashboards, analyze accounts receivables and monitor cash flow.
Want to know more about how Tableau is used in finance for financial analytics? This webinar series by Tableau should get you started.
You might also want to check out this video below of Tableau Finance 101 presented during a Tableau Conference:
Let me also give you some examples of dashboards to demonstrate why Tableau is used in finance really well!
Accounts Receivable Dashboard
This is an example made by Tableau Software themselves to demonstrate how accounts receivable can be tracked using Tableau!
Instead of working manually by updating Excel sheets, Tableau displays all the information in 1 neat dashboard.
View the full dashboard on Tableau Public here.
Financial Reporting Dashboard
This dashboard shows you an overview of all the key financial data points in 1 single view!
With the powerful data visualization capabilities of Tableau, you can create your own charts using financial data much faster than manually creating them in Excel.
View the full dashboard on Tableau Public here.
Tableau For Cash Flow Management
Tableau is great for measuring smaller financial tasks that are too tedious for accountants to do on a daily basis.
Here’s a good video showing an application of Tableau in cash flow management:
In fact, learning Tableau is also great because of its uses beyond finance!
Here’s an article on how Tableau is being used in healthcare.
2. Is Tableau Worth Learning for Finance?
Tableau is worth learning for finance. Tableau is an essential data visualization tool that is likely to replace the current manual processes of preparing spreadsheets. Moreover, Tableau is a highly sought-after skill for its financial analytics and intelligence functions to bring deeper insights into financial data.
Work in finance can sometimes get really tedious but by learning Tableau, you’ll be able to eliminate all that through drag-and-drop interfaces!
Here’s a list of reasons why Tableau is worth learning for finance:
- Eliminate tedious spreadsheet preparations
- Handles large amounts of data that Excel is unable to
- Bring deeper insight into financial data
- Good career prospects beyond finance
Want to learn more about the benefits of learning Tableau in general? You might like this article I wrote on whether Tableau is worth learning.
And if you’re really thinking of starting with Tableau but with no actual experience in it, check out these 7 clever ways to get started with Tableau for beginners.
3. Can Tableau be Used in Accounting?
Tableau can be used in accounting. Tableau has data analysis and modeling functions that are used in accounting. Tableau is used in accounting for preparing financial statements, creating investor reports, and financial planning and analysis.
4. How Do You Use Tableau in Accounting?
Tableau is used in accounting using its data analysis and visualization functions. Tableau has a drag-and-drop interface that allows easy preparation of financial data to create dashboards. Therefore, Tableau creates automation to complete tedious accounting tasks.
Here’s a quick video I found showing how a balance sheet dashboard is created in Tableau:
Here’s an example I found of a Tableau dashboard used in accounting:
Year-to-date Income Statement
Want to create great dashboards like these? I’d recommend reading the Big Book of Dashboards, authored by the creator of this dashboard!
Here’s a review I made of the book.
Or you can watch my video of it below!
5. Can Tableau Create Financial Statements?
Tableau can create financial statements. Tableau has functions to create tables within worksheets to present financial data. Tableau tables are highly-customizable and can be modified to fit the structure and format of most financial statements.
6. How Do You Use Financial Statements in Tableau?
Financial statements are used in Tableau through the crosstab table function. The crosstab function in Tableau stores financial data in a tabular format similar to a financial statement. However, crosstabs are not as flexible as Excel for specific custom formatting but other alternative workarounds in Tableau do exist.
Here’s a really nice dashboard I found showing a financial statement being made in Tableau instead of the usual Excel.
What you’ll notice with this dashboard is the inclusion of both tables and charts, which makes full use of the data visualization functionalities in Tableau.
However, in some cases Tableau may not be the perfect tool for you.
Here’s why:
Tableau is rigid in structuring and modifying custom tables that are easily produced in spreadsheet software like Excel and Google Sheets.
In fact, this problem is commonly seen among all business intelligence software like Tableau and Power BI.
Here’s an article where I covered whether Power BI will replace Excel. Many of the points mentioned are also applicable to Tableau!
Tableau can be rigid, but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible!
If you’re an advanced user of Tableau, there are many ways for a workaround.
Check out this video below of an extreme example of using Tableau to customize a specific table format, presented at a Tableau Conference:
7. Is Tableau Used in Financial Analysis?
Tableau is used in financial analysis. Tableau has field calculations and table calculations that are used in data analysis of financial data. The data visualization features in Tableau are used to visualize trends and changes in budgets, cash flow, earnings, and profit.
Here’s a good example of how Tableau can be used in financial analysis through the use of data visualizations:
Budget Analysis Dashboard
With a budgeting dashboard in Tableau like this, finance teams are able to pinpoint any changes in trends, with breakdowns from each country!
This brings further insight to the financial planning and analysis department!
P&L Analysis Dashboard
In the dashboard above, data visualizations in Tableau have helped to better represent changes in budget and profits.
Instead of presenting everything in a table that’s non-intuitive and rigid, this waterfall chart perfectly shows a company’s financial metrics at a glance.
How cool is that!
8. Is Tableau Used for Financial Reporting?
Tableau is used for financial reporting. Financial data is loaded into Tableau, where data can be formatted into highly formatted reports such as profit and loss statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements. These reports are refreshed and generated automatically using Tableau.
9. What Should Be On A Financial Dashboard in Tableau?
A financial dashboard in Tableau should include high-level KPIs, trends of financial data, and filters by fiscal year. However, financial dashboards are not all the same and each dashboard should include information according to its user needs, who the user is, and how often the financial information is needed.
10. Is Tableau Good for Financial Analysts?
Tableau is good for financial analysts. Tableau is a powerful business intelligence platform that can be used to join financial data from multiple sources to put together financial reports. However, tables in Tableau are more rigid than in Excel, which can make financial modeling in Tableau tough.
11. How Much Does a Tableau Financial Analyst Earn?
A Tableau financial analyst earns an average base salary of USD $62,256 in the US. However, the salary of a Tableau financial analyst may vary depending on the level of experience in Tableau, years of experience in the finance industry, country, and state.
Financial analysts with Tableau skillsets are more valuable than those without.
However, due to lesser data available on Tableau financial analysts, the average base salary is lower than that of an average general financial analyst of $70,603 per year
Tableau Financial Analyst Annual Salary in the US
Website | Payscale |
---|---|
Avg Annual Base Salary | USD $62,256 |
Moreover, most Tableau financial analysts may identify themselves as data analysts or business intelligence (BI) analysts instead, to make things simplified.
That’s because both data analysts and BI analysts are frequent users of Tableau and other BI software!
Here’s a table comparison of their respective salaries:
Data Analyst | Business Intelligence Analyst | |
---|---|---|
Average Salary | USD$73,678 (US) | USD$69,526 (US) |
As you can see, both of them carry higher average salaries!
You can read more on this comparison in my article here.
Final Thoughts
That’s about all the things you should know when it comes to using Tableau in Finance! Hope this article has been useful to you and thanks for reading!
My Favorite Learning Resources:
My Recommended Learning Platforms!
Learning Platform | What’s Good About the Platform? | |
---|---|---|
1 | Coursera | Certificates are offered by popular learning institutes and companies like Google & IBM |
2 | DataCamp | Comes with an integrated coding platform, great for beginners! |
3 | Pluralsight | Strong focus on data skills, taught by industry experts |
4 | Stratascratch | Learn faster by doing real interview coding practices for data science |
5 | Udacity | High-quality, comprehensive courses |
My Recommended Online Courses + Books!
Topic | Online Courses | Books | |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Data Analytics | Google Data Analytics Professional Certificate | – |
2 | Data Science | IBM Data Science Professional Certificate | – |
3 | Excel | Excel Skills for Business Specialization | – |
4 | Python | Python for Everybody Specialization | Python for Data Analysis |
5 | SQL | Introduction to SQL | SQL: The Ultimate Beginners Guide: Learn SQL Today |
6 | Tableau | Data Visualization with Tableau | Practical Tableau |
7 | Power BI | Getting Started with Power BI Desktop | Beginning Microsoft Power BI |
8 | R Programming | Data Science: Foundations using R Specialization | Learning R |
9 | Data Visualization | – | Big Book of Dashboards |