Follow this guide and set up for success with Essentials Data Health & Insights.
Set up Data Health & Insights to monitor and improve the quality of your financial data effortlessly. Connect with your accounting software and it will help you identify opportunities, track trends, and keep your records accurate and actionable.
Once your clients are added to your Dext account, follow the following steps to make the most of Data health & Insights.
- Connecting a Client to Xero or QuickBooks Online for Data Health & Insights
- Creating Client Tags
- Reviewing Lock Dates
- Client Health Score
- Client Level Features
Connecting a Client to Xero or QuickBooks Online for Data Health & Insights
Connect your Xero or QuickBooks Online account to Dext to automatically sync the data from your accounting software to the Data Health & Insights area in your Dext account.
To Connect to Xero or QuickBooks Online:
- Go to Business settings, then Connections
- On the Connections page, go to the ‘If you also have Data Health…’ section and click Connect.
- Select Xero or QuickBooks Online, then click Connect.
- You will then be directed to the selected accounting software login page. Enter your account login details and follow the steps provided to log in and connect your account to Dext.
See this article for more information on connecting a client to Xero or QuickBooks Online for Data Health & Insights.
Creating Client Tags
Use tags to easily group and categorise your clients for reports and workflows. Tags are visible on the Client List, Client Overview and in the Practice Insight. You can use tags to search and filter your clients in both the Client List and the Practice Dashboard.
You could tag your practice clients by:
- Industry
- GST/VAT Quarters
- End of Year only
- Monthly vs Quarterly Bookkeeping
- Non GST/VAT registered clients
To set up Tags:
- Go to Workflows, then Tags.
- Enter the name of the tag and click the + button.
See more about tags here.
Reviewing Lock Dates
Lock Dates (in Xero) or Closing Dates (in QuickBooks Online) prevent changes to records in periods that have already been reported on or filed.
Dext Data Health & Insights combines Companies House account filing information (where available) from within these set dates to prevent changes in data in your accounting software and help you keep your financial data stable.
The Lock Date History page will highlight when these dates get out of sync with filing dates, encouraging active maintenance of monthly reporting period closing or lock dates, enabling you to reduce the number of data inconsistencies between your accounting software and third parties.
See more about using lock dates here.
Client Health Score
Dext Data Health & Insights calculates an overall health score for each client, giving you an overview of the health of their books. The health score can bDext Data Health & Insights calculates an overall health score for each client, giving you an overview of the health of their books. The health score can be seen on the client list and on a client’s overview page.
The health score is derived from various cleanup tools and insights and enables you to focus on improving the data quality of your clients and easily see that progress on a daily basis.
You can also customise the health score, by selecting the cleanup tools and insights used to generate the score.
See this article to learn more about the health score and how it can be customised.
Client Level Features
Client Overview
The client overview page gives a summary of all of a client’s data in one place, giving you a clear and simple view of their current status.
The overview includes an overall snapshot of the status of a client’s documents, including costs and sales, as well as the client’s health score, activity stats and insights.
See more about the Client Overview here.
Data Quality Checks & Clean Up Tools
Identify and resolve issues like duplicate contacts, miscoded transactions, and outdated data to ensure your clients’ records are accurate, clean, and reliable.
These checks and tools can be accessed by going to Data Health in the sidebar.
VAT Checks & Clean Up Tools
Identify and resolve issues like incorrect VAT rates, and transactions coded to non-VAT accounts.
For Xero & QuickBooks Online clients only.
These checks and tools can be accessed by going to Data health in the sidebar, then to the Tax section.
Sales & Cost Analysis
Analyse your clients’ costs and sales across their supplier and customer bases over time, with AI detecting amounts that deviate from typical spending and income patterns.
These checks and tools can be accessed by going to Insights in the sidebar, then Cost analysis or Sales analysis.
See these articles for more information on cost analysis & sales analysis.
Aged Balances
The Aged balances insight reviews aged Debtors and Creditors, providing a snapshot of outstanding invoices at any point in time.
These checks and tools can be accessed by going to Insights in the sidebar, then Aged balances.
See more about Aged Balances here.
Activity Stats & Benchmarking
Use the Activity stats insight to track key KPIs and assess business performance, then use the Benchmarking insight to compare clients’ turnover and expenses against industry, regional, or practice standards.
These checks and tools can be accessed by going to Insights in the sidebar, then Activity stats or Benchmarking.
See more about Activity stats here & Benchmarking here.
