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How to Create an Accounts Payable Dashboard in Tableau

Cody Schneider•

Wrangling your accounts payable data in spreadsheets is a necessary, but often tedious, part of running a business. Visualizing that data in a cohesive dashboard turns a static list of numbers into a powerful tool for managing cash flow and vendor relationships. This guide will walk you through creating a detailed and interactive Accounts Payable (AP) dashboard in Tableau, transforming how you see what you owe.

Why Bother Visualizing Accounts Payable?

Moving beyond manual spreadsheet tracking gives you a huge advantage. An AP dashboard surfaces insights you might otherwise miss. The primary benefits include:

  • Better Cash Flow Management: See your current and future obligations at a glance. You can forecast your cash needs more accurately and decide on the best times to make payments.

  • Spotting Bottlenecks Instantly: One department consistently late with invoice approvals? An aging report immediately highlights overdue payments, helping you pinpoint and fix process delays.

  • Strengthened Vendor Relationships: Consistent, on-time payments are key to being a good partner. A dashboard helps you track payment timelines, take advantage of early-payment discounts, and avoid late fees, keeping your suppliers happy.

  • Improved Negotiation Power: By analyzing your spend per vendor, you can identify your most important suppliers and use that data to negotiate better payment terms or volume discounts.

Step 1: Get Your AP Data Ready

The success of your dashboard completely depends on the quality of your underlying data. Before you even open Tableau, you need to gather and clean your AP information. Most finance or accounting systems can export this data into a CSV or Excel file.

Key Data Fields You'll Need

At a minimum, your dataset should include the following columns. Having well-structured data from the start will save you countless headaches later.

  • Invoice ID: A unique identifier for each invoice.

  • Vendor Name: The name of the supplier.

  • Invoice Date: The date the invoice was issued.

  • Due Date: The date the payment is due.

  • Invoice Amount: The total amount due on the invoice.

  • Payment Date: The date the invoice was actually paid. This can be blank for open invoices.

  • Status: A field indicating if the invoice is 'Open', 'Paid', or 'Overdue'. (You can also create this field within Tableau using a calculation).

Quick Data Cleaning Tips

Perform these quick checks in Excel or Google Sheets before importing your data into Tableau:

  • Standardize Vendor Names: Make sure "Company Inc." and "Company, Inc." are formatted the same way. Inconsistent names will appear as separate vendors in your analysis.

  • Check Date Formats: Ensure all date columns (Invoice Date, Due Date, Payment Date) are in a consistent format (e.g., MM/DD/YYYY).

  • Remove Duplicates: Check your Invoice ID column for any duplicates to avoid overstating your payable amounts.

  • Fill in Gaps: Ensure every invoice has an amount, a date, and a vendor. Handle any missing data before you begin.

Step 2: Connect Your Data to Tableau

With your data cleaned and ready, it's time to bring it into Tableau. Tableau supports connections to hundreds of data sources, but for this example, we’ll focus on connecting to a simple Excel file.

  1. Open Tableau Desktop. Under the Connect pane on the left, select Microsoft Excel.

  2. Navigate to your saved AP data file and click Open.

  3. Tableau will take you to the Data Source screen. You should see your spreadsheet's columns and rows laid out. Tableau does a good job of interpreting data types (e.g., recognizing dates as dates and numbers as numbers), but it's worth a quick glance to make sure everything looks correct. For instance, check that 'Invoice Amount' has a '#' symbol next to it, indicating it's a number.

Step 3: Build Your Core AP Worksheets

This is where the magic happens. We'll create individual "worksheets" for each key performance indicator (KPI), chart, and graph. Later, we’ll combine these into a single dashboard. Go to a new worksheet by clicking the orange tab at the bottom left.

Worksheet 1: KPI Cards - The Big Numbers

KPIs give you an immediate high-level overview. We’ll create a handful of these to show our most important metrics.

Total Accounts Payable:

  1. Create a new calculated field called “Open Invoices Amount.” The formula is:

This IF statement tells Tableau to only consider invoices marked as "Open". 2. Drag this new 'Open Invoices Amount' measure onto the Text mark. 3. Edit the worksheet title to "Total AP" and format the number to show up as large, bold currency.

Total Overdue AP:

  1. Create another calculated field called "Overdue Amount." The formula is:

  1. Drag this new calculated measure onto the Text mark and format it similarly.

Average Payment Days:

  1. Create a new calculated field “Payment Period in Days”:

  1. Drag this measure onto the Rows pane and change the measure from Sum to Average.

  2. Drag the measure onto the Text mark too. This will give you a numeric value you can display prominently.

Worksheet 2: AP Aging (Bar Chart)

This aging report shows how your payables are distributed across different time buckets (e.g., 0-30 days, 31-60 days, etc.), helping you identify overdue payments.

  1. Create a calculated field “Aging Bucket” to categorize invoices based on due dates:

  1. Drag 'Aging Bucket' onto the Rows shelf.

  2. Drag 'Open Invoices Amount' onto the Columns shelf.

  3. Format the chart using colors to indicate urgency. For instance, you might make the 'Overdue' bucket a light red.

Worksheet 3: Top Vendor Payables (Bar Chart)

This chart shows which vendors you owe the most money to.

  1. Create a new worksheet.

  2. Drag 'Vendor Name' to the Rows shelf.

  3. Drag 'Open Invoices Amount' to the Columns shelf.

  4. Sort the chart in descending order to see which vendors you're most indebted to.

Worksheet 4: Payable Trends (Area Chart)

This chart helps visualize how your AP balance changes over time.

  1. Create a new worksheet.

  2. Drag 'Invoice Date' to the Columns shelf.

  3. Drag 'Open Invoices Amount' to the Rows shelf.

  4. Change the chart type to an area chart to make trends more apparent.

Step 4: Assemble Your Interactive AP Dashboard

Combining Worksheets

With all your worksheets built, it's time to assemble them into a cohesive dashboard.

  1. Create a new dashboard by dragging your desired worksheets onto a canvas in a grid layout.

  2. Arrange and resize components to fit well and logically.

Making It Interactive

To ensure your dashboard is not just static but interactive:

  • Add a filter from your AP summary worksheet and use it across all worksheets, so your dashboard updates together.

  • Ensure that users can click on charts to highlight related data across the dashboard.

  • Edit tooltips to provide more information when hovering over data points, including vendor names and payment periods.

Final Thoughts

An AP dashboard in Tableau moves you from reactive firefighting to proactive cash flow management. You're in control of your company's finances, ready to seize opportunities that benefit your business. While creating dashboards may initially require technical knowledge and time to understand your data, the results are rewarding - streamlined processes, automated updates, and in-depth insights. Keep your business thriving by taking advantage of these powerful Tableau capabilities.