Power BI, set up properly for a small business

Power BI is Microsoft's tool for interactive reports and dashboards. Plenty of businesses have heard they should use it but aren't sure where to start. We'll tell you honestly whether it suits you, then set it up so it's genuinely useful.

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Sales dashboard

Jan to Oct

Region
Show
Total, Jan to Oct
£465k
Monthly average
£47k
Oct
£56k
Oct was the best month for sales across all regions, at £56k.

Try it: choose a region, switch to orders, or click a month. Sample data, for illustration only.

This might help if…

  • Someone has suggested Power BI, but you're not sure what it would do for you.
  • You've tried Power BI before, but the reports never quite got finished.
  • Your Excel reports have become slow, fragile or hard to share.
  • You'd like managers to explore the figures themselves, without asking for another spreadsheet.

What we can do

A straight answer first
Whether Power BI is right for you, when Excel is still the better choice, and which licences you'd actually need.
Connecting your information
Power BI can read spreadsheets, accounts software, databases and many online systems. We set up the connections so nobody has to export and paste.
Clear report pages
The figures you care about, which people can click into to see one month, one region or one customer.
Automatic refreshes
Reports that update on a schedule, so the figures are current whenever someone opens them.
Sharing with the right people
Each person sees the reports meant for them, whether they're in your team or one of your clients.
Fixing existing Power BI reports
If you have reports that are slow, wrong or half-finished, we can often put them right rather than start again.
A proper handover
Plain-English notes and a walkthrough, so your team can use the reports and make small changes with confidence.

Power BI is one way to build dashboards and reports. For some businesses a well-built Excel dashboard is all they need.

If your reports start life in spreadsheets, improving those spreadsheets first often makes the move to Power BI much smoother.

Try an interactive example of a BI dashboard that brings a CRM, a spreadsheet and accounts software together.

What you end up with

  • One set of up-to-date figures everyone looks at
  • Reports people can explore for themselves
  • A setup you understand and can keep running

Words you might hear from us

Power BI
Microsoft's software for interactive reports and dashboards. Reports are built on a computer, then shared online so people can view them in a web browser or on a phone.
Licence
Building reports in Power BI is free, but sharing them with other people needs a paid licence. We'll explain exactly what you'd need before you spend anything.
Refresh
When Power BI fetches the latest information from your spreadsheets or systems. It can happen automatically, on a schedule you choose.

Guides on this topic

Other ways we can help

  • Dashboards & reports

    Turn pages of figures into a clear view of how things are going.

    We can turn pages of figures into a single page showing the handful of numbers you actually keep an eye on.

    Find out more

  • Improving existing reports

    Make the spreadsheets and reports you already rely on quicker and easier.

    If someone in your team spends every Friday copying figures between spreadsheets to produce the same report, we can often make that much quicker.

    Find out more

  • Organising your information

    Bring information from different places together, so reporting gets easier.

    We can bring information from different places together so your team isn't maintaining the same details in several spreadsheets.

    Find out more

  • Client portals

    Secure areas where your clients log in to see their own reports, data and documents.

    Instead of emailing every client the same monthly report, give them a login where their latest figures, documents and invoices are always waiting.

    Find out more

Show us what you're working with.

Send us a short note about the spreadsheets or reports that are taking up too much time. We'll arrange a friendly, no-obligation chat and suggest the simplest way to improve things.

Book a free discovery call