The Problem with Getting BreatheHR Data Into Your Sheet
BreatheHR holds your employee records, absence history, salary data, expense claims, and training logs. That data is useful, but it is trapped. When payroll needs an absence export, when the board wants headcount by department, when a compliance audit requires proof of training completion, someone has to go get the data out manually.
The BreatheHR UI is built for HR admins managing day-to-day records. It is not built for bulk exports, cross-department analysis, or pushing bulk changes back in. That gap between "the data is in BreatheHR" and "the data is in a sheet I can work with" is where most HR teams lose time.
Below are the four ways people typically move BreatheHR data into Google Sheets. Only the last one handles both the export and the analysis without asking you to write a single formula.
Method 1: Export a CSV and Import It Into the Sheet
BreatheHR has CSV export functionality for some report types. You navigate to the relevant report, set your filters, download the CSV, open Google Sheets, import the file, and then start cleaning: fixing date formats, splitting name fields, removing columns you do not need, adding calculated columns payroll is expecting.
When this works:
- You need a one-time export of a small, clean data set
- The report BreatheHR offers matches exactly what you need
- You have time to do the cleanup manually
When it breaks:
- BreatheHR's built-in reports do not cover your exact combination of fields
- You need to join data from two sources, such as absences with salary information
- The export runs on a schedule and someone has to do this every month
- You delete the wrong sheet mid-cleanup and lose thirty minutes of work
The problem is not the first export. It is the fourteenth. Every payroll cycle, every quarter, every annual review, someone repeats the same thirty minutes of cleanup. That time compounds.
Method 2: Use Zapier or Make to Sync BreatheHR When Records Change
The automation route connects BreatheHR to Google Sheets via a trigger. When a new employee is created in BreatheHR, Zapier writes a row. When an absence is approved, Make appends the record.
This works for event-driven moments:
- New employee added → row written to the onboarding tracker
- Absence approved → record logged in the attendance sheet
- Expense submitted → entry appended to the expense log
This fails for analytical or batch work:
- Anything that needs a snapshot of all records as of a specific date
- Anything that summarizes across departments or compares periods
- Anything that requires logic, such as flagging employees who have not completed a training course
- Bulk updates flowing the other direction, from the sheet back to BreatheHR
Event-driven automations capture what just changed. They do not understand what the whole data set means. When payroll needs every absence in April, not just absences added since the last sync, event-driven automation is the wrong tool.
Method 3: The Previous Generation, HR Data Connector Add-Ons
Until recently, the best option for recurring BreatheHR exports was a category of connector add-ons that linked HR systems to spreadsheets. You authenticated the connection, mapped your BreatheHR fields to sheet columns, saved the configuration, and ran the sync on a schedule.
That was a real step up from manual CSV imports. The field mapping was saved, the columns arrived in the right order, and the team did not have to repeat the same import dance every month.
But the thinking was still on you. The connector moved the data; it did not tell you which employees were missing mandatory training, it did not calculate absence rates by department, it did not approve expense claims under a threshold before writing the record back. Those decisions all required formulas, pivot tables, or manual review after the sync ran. And when BreatheHR changed a field name or the HR team needed a different combination of fields, someone had to go back into the connector configuration and remap it.
This is the category we think of as the previous generation. It worked, but it asked a lot of the operator.
The Easy Way: Using SheetXAI in Google Sheets
There is a different way. SheetXAI is an AI agent that lives inside your Google Sheet. It reads your sheet, connects to BreatheHR, and handles the export, the cleanup, the analysis, and any bulk updates back to BreatheHR in a single prompt. No field mapping, no formula setup, no connector configuration.
Example 1: Your Data Is Already Described in the Sheet
You have a payroll sheet open with a header row showing the columns you need: employee name, absence type, start date, end date, and total days. You want April's absences from BreatheHR.
Pull all BreatheHR absences between 1 April and 30 April into this sheet. Include employee name, absence type, start date, end date, and total days. Group by employee name.
SheetXAI reads the sheet, calls BreatheHR, pulls the absences for that date range, groups them, and writes the results into your sheet. Your payroll data is ready before you have finished your first coffee.
Example 2: The Data Lives in BreatheHR and You Need to Act on It
You have a sheet of approved promotions, new job titles and new salaries for fifteen employees, and you need to push all those changes back to BreatheHR.
For every row in this sheet with an employee ID in column A, a new job title in column B, and a new salary in column C, create a BreatheHR employee change request. Write "Done" into column D when each request is submitted.
SheetXAI reads the sheet, calls BreatheHR for each row, submits the change requests, and writes confirmation back. One prompt moves fifteen records. No clicking inside BreatheHR, no copy-pasting values into individual employee profiles.
Which Method Should You Use
For a one-time export of a clean, simple data set, a CSV download is fine. For event-driven logging where a new row should always appear when a new employee is added, Zapier or Make are a reasonable fit.
For anything analytical, batch-oriented, or bidirectional, pulling absences for a date range, auditing training completion across sixty employees, approving expenses under a threshold, pushing promotions back to BreatheHR from a sheet, SheetXAI is the only option that handles both the data movement and the decision logic in one prompt without configuration.
If your HR team runs these exports more than once a month, the setup time on the first SheetXAI prompt pays back before the month is out.
Try It
Get the 7-day free trial of SheetXAI and connect it to BreatheHR from inside any Google Sheet. The BreatheHR integration is included in every plan.
For specific workflows, see how to bulk-create employee records from a sheet, how to pull absence records for payroll, or browse the full integrations directory.
More BreatheHR + Google Sheets guides
Bulk-Create BreatheHR Employee Records From a Google Sheet
Stop adding new starters one by one in BreatheHR. SheetXAI reads your onboarding sheet and creates all the employee profiles in one prompt.
Export the Full BreatheHR Employee Directory Into Google Sheets
Pull every employee, department, job title, and start date out of BreatheHR and into a Google Sheet for headcount reporting in one prompt.
Pull BreatheHR Absence Records Into Google Sheets for Payroll
Export every absence taken in a date range, grouped by employee and type, into a Google Sheet before payroll runs, in one prompt.
Export and Bulk-Approve BreatheHR Expense Claims in Google Sheets
Pull all pending expense claims into a sheet, review totals by employee, and approve every claim under a threshold in a single prompt.
Generate a BreatheHR Salary Audit Sheet for Pay-Band Review
Export every employee's current salary and department from BreatheHR into one Google Sheet view to spot pay-band gaps before the annual review.
Build a BreatheHR Training Completion Audit in Google Sheets
Pull all employee training records from BreatheHR and flag who has not completed mandatory courses, in one prompt, ready for the compliance review.
Push Bulk Employee Change Requests From a Sheet to BreatheHR
Have a sheet of approved promotions or salary updates? SheetXAI pushes all the change requests to BreatheHR at once, no BreatheHR clicking required.
Export a BreatheHR Department Absence and Bonus Summary to Google Sheets
Pull absence totals and bonus amounts for every employee in a department from BreatheHR into one sheet view for management review.