Pull trial balances via QBO and Xero reports APIs and automate flux analysis

In-depth guide

Steps

1. For QBO, call GET https://quickbooks.api.intuit.com/v3/company/{realmId}/reports/TrialBalance with date parameters (start_date, end_date) and accounting_method (Accrual or Cash) derived from the company Preferences entity; for Xero, call GET https://api.xero.com/api.xro/2.0/Reports/TrialBalance with the paymentsOnly and date parameters.
2. Parse the trial balance response for each platform: QBO returns a hierarchical Rows/ColData structure — flatten it to a list of (account_code, account_name, account_type, net_balance) tuples; Xero returns a similar Rows array.
3. Store the extracted balances in a flux analysis table keyed by (period, account_code, source_system) with columns for current_period_balance, prior_period_balance, and variance.
4. Compute the variance and percentage change for each account; apply configurable flux thresholds (e.g., flag accounts where absolute variance exceeds $10,000 AND percentage change exceeds 10%) to produce a list of accounts requiring explanation.
5. For flagged accounts, automatically query the transaction detail from the respective API (QBO TransactionList report, Xero Account Transactions endpoint) to retrieve the underlying transactions that drove the movement, attaching them to the flux exception record.
6. Generate a flux analysis report grouped by financial statement section (revenue, COGS, operating expenses, balance sheet) with the variance, percentage change, and transaction detail for flagged accounts; route the report to account owners for written explanations as part of the close package.