FAQs

Can I share Blink Reports charts and dashboards with my customer? 

Yes! This is standard Google Spreadsheet functionality. You can share your report anonymously via a link, or share the spreadsheet to the email addresses of your customer, shareholders, etc. Security is managed with free Google Accounts which can even leverage 2-step authentication to securely share sensitive financial statements such as for publicly traded companies. And since only one copy of the report ever exists in the cloud everyone sees the same up-to-date figures. No more email file attachments that quickly become out of date! 

What computer systems/platforms does Blink Reports support? 

Blink Reports shares its system requirements with Google Spreadsheets. This also means your reports can be viewed instantly on mobile devices such as iPads, iPhones, and nearly anything running Android. It integrates fully with Google Drive, so Google Apps for Business and Gmail users will see reports shared with them in Google Drive automatically.

Can I view a profit/loss balance for multiple fiscal years' worth of data? 

Not in a single column, since the Xero API limits start and end date ranges to within 365 days of each other. You can, however, cross a fiscal year-end (e.g. from 1 June 2012 through 31 May 2013). To view profit/loss data for multiple years' worth of data, you can use the =XeroPL() function multiple times in the spreadsheet to gather data from different date ranges and then simply sum them up.  

Can I publish Blink Reports charts and dashboards to a website? 

Yes! This is standard Google Spreadsheet functionality. From within any Google Spreadsheet click on the top right corner down arrow menu and choose "Publish Chart." Copy the provided HTML and paste it into your web page and you'll see something like the live, interactive chart below.

For example:

<iframe height=600 width=750 src="http://docs.google.com/a/interlockit.com/spreadsheets/d/1SLdgzTJfPmjfaKR9LNnftiThr7CCC

Bldoe2jFrz7YbM/gviz/chartiframe?oid=214345095" seamless frameborder=0 scrolling=no></iframe>

I've made changes to my data, but my spreadsheets aren't updating. What's going on? 

This is normal behaviour because Google Spreadsheets doesn't know when your Xero financial data is updated and Xero doesn't provide a webhook/event trigger to let Blink Reports know of the change. This is the purpose of the first ReCalc parameter in the Blink Reports formula. It's cell B26 on the Report Parameters workbook template we provide to new users. It doesn't matter what you enter in the cell; the spreadsheet will update whenever that value is changed. 

I disconnected Blink Reports from my Xero account and now I see '#ERROR!' on my spreadsheets. What happened?

Re-authorizing the application should solve the issue by clicking on the Blink Reports menu and choosing Authorize with Xero.

Once you've re-authorized, follow the instructions displayed, and you should be good to go! If you still have issues, e-mail us at support@blinkreports.com.

I had some information in a cell and when the spreadsheet updated, everything disappeared and the data was replaced with '#REF!'. What happened? 

This happens because of the way information is written to the spreadsheet; everything that's to the right of or below the formula can be overwritten when the spreadsheet updates. The exact number of rows/columns written will vary to match the report output for the given parameters. To prevent your data from being overwritten, make sure any manual additions, notes, or other information you add to your spreadsheet are located either to the left of or above the formula. Delete any data you may have entered in the output range of the Blink Reports formula to eliminate this '#REF!' error. 

I have multiple companies authorized to Blink Reports in Xero, but none of my formulas update. Why?

If you've authorized multiple Xero organizations to your Blink Reports spreadsheet, you will have to enter the ID number of that company into the Company ID field on the Report Parameters sheet. Without this, our formulas won't know which company you're trying to pull the data from and will return an error. To find your ID numbers, click the Blink Reports menu, then click "Authorized Organizations" and copy the Company Code.