CFOs have always relied on consolidated data and analytics to make better financial decisions. Post pandemic, as companies put a more robust digital process in place, the need for real-time data has increased exponentially. CFOs also need one location to announce their strategic decisions and improve overall efficiency and effectiveness. Each transaction with customers/suppliers provides new data, which CFOs can use to their advantage.
CFO dashboard with Power BI can quickly pull together data, create a comprehension dashboard, and put data within reach. Instead of logging into ERP systems and executing complex queries – live data is processed and presented automatically.CFO dashboards with Power BI typically include the following key reporting areas to improve efficiency and drive data-driven decision.
- Cash Flow
- Orders
- Order to Cash
- Opportunities to Sales
- AR Aging
- Current Ratio
- Budget Variance
- Inventory
- CapEX and OpEx
- HR
- Profit and Loss
- Trend Reports
- EBIT & EBITDA
- Forecasts
Other than these, Power BI dashboards for D2C or B2C to measure growth holistically across all channels. They can have view of Platform/vendor metrics, product growth metrics, seasonal growth, and even brand/product growth across various platform/vendor channels. This enables them to take smarted budget allocation decisions across brands. In addition to these LTV and RFM dashboards strike a balance between the cost to acquire new customers, and maximizing long term margin. Working with DTC brands, we’ve seen the growth impact based on these business metrics.
Understanding which KPIs to use for specific industry for a CFO is only half the battle. The data gathering, processing, and visualization is very crucial. Without proper too like Microsoft Power BI, finance team would spend weeks gathering and crunching data, only to realize they are referring to an outdated information.
By visualizing data CFO and the team can quickly spot trends and abnormalities and then take action to improve service to customers by providing a clear view of business health. By using Microsoft’s Power BI on cloud, CFO Dashboards can access data on demand, and provide executive teams and other functions with analytics, gaining these key advantages.
- Affordable Cost of Licenses – The standard user license is $10 USD per user per month. If you are using Office 365 (O365), you may already have a license.
- Easy to use and understand – Power BI is easy to learn and Microsoft offers training videos and also offers great support from the Power BI community.
- Rich Visualization – Quickly build a variety of graphs and visualizations to consolidate and explore data.
- Enable Self-Service – Users can explore the data and drill into to see details and get a deeper understanding of their data. No different reports need to be built on the same data to provide more detailed view.
- Real-time Data Analysis – Access your data via the Power BI app on your smartphone or tablet without needing to VPN to the network.
CFOs, executives, and investors are adopting language of reporting and embracing a learn and evolve culture and mentality.
The tool is not reserved only for enterprises, this affordable solution allows even SMEs to benefit from power of business intelligence and improve their competitiveness. Ready to get started on your Dashboard journey? Reach out to us and we can show you financial dashboard examples to see what is possible.
