Alteryx has been really helpful

[jessinavaz]

Hello, I am currently taking an accounting class at CSUF. This class is about technologies in accounting, and we are currently learning about Alteryx. I am really enjoying Alteryx because it's so easy to organize and clean data that I would probably recommend it to everyone who uses large data sets. I wish I had known about this before because it really saves time, and as an accounting student, this tool is excellent when dealing with large excel files. Definitely a necessary software for businesses to have. 

Does anyone know which companies already use this software? 

[Luke_C]

Hi @jessinavaz 

Alteryx is in use across all of the Big 4 accounting firms, as well as across many mid-size firms. It's also used across many fortune 500 companies. Take a look at some of the use cases to get real life examples of how businesses are leveraging Alteryx.

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Use-Cases/tkb-p/use-cases

[JagdeeshN]

Hi @jessinavaz 

Welcome to the community.

I have seen a lot of firms use Alteryx within their Finance/Accounting/Tax space for the following purposes amongst many others:-

1. Many things DATA - This include Sourcing, cleansing, structuring, consolidating and migrating.

2. Process Automation:- I have seen Alteryx add a lot of value with regards to automation in this space. Think about AR, AP, Monthly close or any other repetitive task being automated using Alteryx.

3. Audit :- Alteryx can also be used to implement solutions for both process and data audits.

4. Reporting and Analytics

Please check out the below link for a more detailed writeup on how Accounting and Finance professionals are using the platform.

https://www.alteryx.com/input/blog/how-accounting-and-finance-professionals-can-use-data-to-gain-sup...

https://www.alteryx.com/input/blog/how-accounting-and-finance-professionals-can-use-data-to-gain-sup...

Hope this information helps.

Best,

Jagdeesh

[TheOC]

hey @jessinavaz 
Glad to hear you're loving Alteryx so far, thats always great to hear. 
I was going to link you the use-cases, but @Luke_C beat me to it! They're a great resource for also seeing where people have applied Alteryx to real scenarios. The weekly challenges are similar!

If you're new, be sure to have a look around the community - its really a fantastic place for learning. A couple of resources I would especially recommend knowing about are:

• Alteryx Designer Discussions - A place where users can ask questions about specific Designer workflows they are working on, and receive help from members on the community. Typical response time (from what I've seen) is under 10 minutes for someone to reply with a potential solution, so its a very quick resource for bespoke information. Additionally, you can search using the search function at the top right for specific issues if you happen to run into any that may have been faced by other users before.
• Alteryx User Groups - When I first got into Alteryx, I didn't join User Groups as I thought they would be very technical and that I would need plenty of experience before diving in. However, they really aren't. User groups are an incredibly friendly environment to discuss workflows, what's going on in the Alteryx World, and a great place to network with people in the community. Even better, with the world still being very much virtual at the moment, most of the User Groups (including the North East UK User Group, which I am currently a leader of) are hosting virtual events so they are easy to join.
• The Alteryx Academy - Easily the best place to learn about Alteryx and how to use it. I would especially recommend the learning paths which include short snippets of learning specific topics, including Alteryx for Excel users, which helped me translate a lot of my Excel knowledge over to Alteryx. There are also the weekly challenges, which are challenges delivered by Alteryx on a weekly basis, based around real-life situations and community submitted problems. They are a fantastic way to learn practical uses of Designer, and also its really interesting to see the many different approaches to answering the same problem. Once you have progressed with learning Alteryx, I would definitely recommend the Alteryx Certifications. They are free to do (Core and Advanced), and provide a useful benchmark for your knowledge. You can also just take them again in 7 days, in the case that you don't pass, so don't feel any pressure to know everything before you give them a go!

I hope you find Alteryx to be easy to learn, and intuitive to use. Do remember that almost every tool has an example workflow and help documentation if you right click the tool in the tool palette:

("Help" for the tool documentation, "Open Example" for the example workflow). 

And be sure to search for/ask for help on the community if you get stuck. Alternatively, feel free to drop me a message here on the community!

Cheers,
TheOC