Data visualization is key for companies that want a better understanding of where their business currently stands and which areas could increase productivity to enhance efficiency and generate more profits. There are many data visualization software options on the market, and it can be difficult to figure out which solution is best for your business. One such data visualization tool is Microsoft’s Power BI, which many notable corporations use to provide valuable business insights into their company operations.
Power BI particularly benefits those in the financial sector or those who want a way to analyze their company’s financial health. Learn more about Power BI and how to use it for finance below.
Key Benefits of a Power BI Dashboard for Financial Health
Power BI can be used for many different functions within a business’s operations, but it shines when it comes to helping organizations with their financial health. Many organizations have already discovered the benefits of using Power BI for financial health and business needs, especially regarding the following.
Impactful Data Visualizations
Perhaps the main reason that organizations choose to use Alteryx and Power BI in the first place is its incredible data visualization capabilities. With this software solution, users can quickly generate beautiful and interactive data visualizations in a line chart, bar graph, or another form that makes it easy to spot and comprehend trends. This makes it easier for users to distribute data visualizations that enable more people, especially those who don’t necessarily have a background in data science, to understand the data and create solutions to combat the weak areas the data visualizations bring to light.
Powerful Forecasting Capabilities
With today’s technology, we still can’t see into the future. The next best thing, however, is forecasting using business intelligence solutions and existing data to predict how certain decisions can generate outcomes.
Power BI allows users to run forecasts that help them predict what may happen if specific actions are taken or to look into the past and see how results may have been different with other decisions. Although these forecasts can’t predict outcomes perfectly, they can help your company make better and more informed decisions using your available data.
There are dozens of more advantages that Power BI provides to businesses of all kinds and in all industries, but it can take some time to figure out which functions benefit your company the most. Even still, Power BI is an excellent tool for measuring an organization’s financial performance, which makes it worth the investment alone.
Data Consolidation
Organizations use several software solutions simultaneously for different purposes, making it hard to aggregate the data to see the bigger picture of the business’s performance. With Power BI’s Power Query tool, Power BI users can quickly consolidate business data from multiple data sources, such as Microsoft Dynamics, into one place for further analysis.
Users without programming backgrounds may find Power Query difficult. For users who need a simpler way to get data from many sources and consolidate it, we’ll typically recommend Alteryx. Alteryx uses a simple drag-and-drop interface to make working with data and getting it ready for Power BI MUCH easier.
For additional information on Power BI and Alteryx: Vendor Round-up: Comparing Alteryx, Tableau, and Power BI for Data Visualization and Data Wrangling
Why Measure Financial Performance?
Organizations are full of busy employees constantly working to deliver better outcomes, and it’s easy for something like measuring financial performance to move to the back burner or not get measured at all. Many business leaders only focus on selling more units to make a larger profit without investigating other aspects of the company’s financial performance that also greatly impact the company’s bottom line.
Companies should measure financial performance because those details can gauge how effective the organization is at using the funds available from the company to create revenue. Measuring economic performance is essential because it can help steer the company in the right direction if they aren’t using company assets efficiently to increase profitability. When financial performance is poor, high sales figures may not be enough to overcome such inefficiencies, and the company can find itself in economic trouble.
Fortunately, with the many software solutions available today it doesn’t have to take hundreds of hours of employee labor to begin financial planning. These powerful systems can help your company collect important data about key financial performance indicators and give insight into which areas of your company’s financial health are lacking. From there, you can make strategic pivots to help your company reduce expenses, increase net income, and ultimately, make your operation more profitable than ever.
Understanding Power BI Dashboards for Optimal Performance
One of the best aspects of Power BI is the option to customize the reporting and measurements on your system by using different types of dashboards. Dashboards display data visuals in a clear, easy-to-understand manner, explaining the big picture of what the data says. These data visuals are displayed on one page, making them less overwhelming to view and easier to understand, though users can dive more deeply into the related reports for more detailed information.
There are several available dashboards for all types of businesses, but these are perhaps the most useful for those wanting to measure the financial performance of their organization:
Ad Display Campaign Dashboard for Digital Marketers
Digital marketers that rely on website ads to promote products and services can greatly benefit from the ad display campaign dashboard. Over time, this dashboard displays numerous crucial digital marketing metrics, like gross clicks and click-through rates to help a business know which types of digital ads seem to work best. This can make your digital marketing campaigns work more effectively to generate even more sales and substantially increase your company’s profits.
Finance Dashboards for Tracking Key Finance Metrics
Numerous financial and cash management dashboards for Power BI can help a company measure key financial metrics that would typically require a balance sheet, like profit, cash flow, revenue, capital structure, accounts receivable, and so much more. These dashboards make it simple to visualize the data your company has collected, which makes it easier for everyone to see where the company may be doing well financially and which areas need improvement.
Marketing Campaign Dashboard for Comparing Different Campaigns
Marketing typically involves a lot of trial and error to figure out which type of messaging works best for your target market. The marketing campaign insights dashboard on Power BI can help you see dozens of key metrics, like the amount spent on all campaigns, how each campaign performed, and which was the most effective. It can also display vital demographic information, helping your marketing team understand which types of people responded most to certain messaging.
Sales Scorecard Dashboard for Comparing Sales to Previous Years
One important financial performance measure is how your company is doing sales-wise compared to the year before. Companies continually strive to grow sales and bring in more profits than before, and this dashboard can tell you how your sales stack up compared to the previous year. The sales scorecard dashboard can also give you information about the sales figures of different sales teams and insight into which channels are most profitable.
Sales Analysis Dashboards for Measuring Performance of Different Regions
With the sales analysis dashboard, you can access key insights into how much revenue is generated by different regions of the company and how many units are sold. This powerful dashboard can even tell you the value of discounts offered by staff, which can help your company create rules and regulations as needed to ensure profits stay as high as they should be.
Product Sales Dashboard for Analyzing Sales Channels
Companies that sell products via numerous e-commerce channels may have difficulty knowing which channels are most profitable. This dashboard displays the performance of each channel and how it compares to the prior year. This can inform your team about which channels to lean into and which to phase out to increase sales efficiency.
These are just a few of the many dashboards available to integrate with Power BI, which is so versatile, and a dashboard is available for almost any function or visualization your company needs. It can be fun but also overwhelming to experiment with the numerous available options, which is why many companies turn to a trusted consultant for help with getting the program started within their organization.
The Bottom Line
Power BI is a fantastic tool for assessing the status of your company via numerous different metrics, and its data visualizations can help your company make better decisions moving forward. Its platform is relatively user-friendly, but it can take plenty of trial and error to figure out how best to use the tool to get the most benefits. Fortunately, you can drastically reduce the time it takes to implement the system into your organization by working with a consultant who knows the system in and out.
Are you ready to power up your Power BI finance dashboard? Let the experts at Capitalize Analytics help you integrate financial data with Power BI. Contact us today.