Co-authored by Khaled Chowdhury and Lance Rubin, Mr. Excel, and the Financial Modeling Guru. Written as part of the series Financial Modelling Knowledge Hub.
If you have yet to encounter Power BI, you should. This tool has become a necessary skill set for finance professionals, and for good reason. Let’s explore why Power BI is a game-changer and how it complements Excel to unlock new levels of efficiency and insight.
What is Power BI?
Power BI has its roots in Excel and SQL data warehouses. Even today, Power Query and Power Pivot are still available in Excel, though they’re often overlooked. Power BI takes these capabilities to the next level, providing a low-code, drag-and-drop solution for data preparation, modeling, and visualization.
Why Power BI?
What gets measured gets managed. With the explosion of data and the increasing pace of business volatility, the demand for faster, more precise insights has never been greater. Power BI eliminates data drudgery, automates manual reporting, and, most importantly, provides one version of the truth to drive collaboration and actions.
Many finance and accounting teams remain tethered to Excel, often using outdated versions without leveraging its advanced tools like Power Query and Power Pivot. While Excel is a powerful tool, relying on it alone is no longer sufficient to deliver maximum value.
CFOs are now actively seeking professionals with Power BI skills, often paying a premium for top talent. The talent pool is still small, but as adoption grows, so will the competition. This is not a choice between Excel or Power BI but the combined skills in both tools to deliver optimum value. Hence, it’s necessary to have both in your tool belt.
Let’s highlight what you are missing out on and why you should be getting started.
If you can relate to any of the following, Power BI will be a massive win for you and your company:
- Cannot keep up with the business request or is out of capacity?
- Spending more time preparing your data or analyzing it?
- Producing critical analysis on a quarterly or monthly basis that should be done frequently on a weekly or daily basis?
- Do you need to be alerted when someone goes over budget or is the forecast run rate about to miss the target?
If these challenges resonate with you, it’s time to embrace the new and leave the old behind. Khaled has created some simple-to-understand videos and GIFs to help you get started—check them out!
Native Connectors & Power Query
Out = “Export to Excel”
In = “Get Data”
With over 100 native connectors, Power BI allows you to pull data from Excel, CSV, SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, and more. The best part? Manual data cleaning, trimming, copy/pasting, and finding replacements are a thing of the past. With Power BI, you can use click-and-drag transformations that are remembered for the next time you hit “Refresh.” Here’s a little secret: Power Query is also available in Excel. If you take away one thing from this article, let it be this: Learn Power Query. You’ll thank us later.
Out = “Manual Repetition”
In = “Scheduled Refresh”
No more being chained to your Excel files. Power BI can deliver updated information on your desired schedule with scheduled refresh, solving your capacity issues.
Data Modeling & DAX
Out = “1 million rows”
In = “Billions and trillions of rows”
Power BI’s engine has no limitations on the number of records it can handle. However, remember that big data isn’t inherently valuable—the right data is. Power BI eliminates the need for endless pivot tables and allows you to focus on creating value.
Out = “xlookup, vlookup, Index/match, Pivot Tables”
In = “Relationship & DAX”
No more writing 20 VLOOKUP columns to prepare your pivot tables. With Power BI, you can simply drag and drop fields to create relationships. DAX, the formula language for Power BI, allows you to calculate your KPIs dynamically. For example, time series calculations like MTD, QTD, YTD, or year-over-year comparisons can all be dynamically calculated. No need to manually update the spreadsheet to sum one more column.
Ready to take the next step? It might be time to learn a bit about DAX. Click here to get started.
Dashboards & Power BI Service
Out = “bound by cells”
In = “Interactive canvas”
Instead of being confined to rows and columns, Power BI allows you to present your analysis on an interactive canvas. As the saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” With Power BI, you don’t need to ask for reports for the last month or a specific region—everything is presented with interactive slicers and drill-through content. Your partners can explore the data themselves, introducing the world of self-service analytics.
Out = “Manually typed email alert (that are late)”
In = “Mobile & Automated Alerts”
Say goodbye to print.
Say goodbye to printing reports or sending late email alerts. With Power BI, you can access information on your mobile device as soon as it’s published. You can set up alerts to notify you when stock levels fall below a certain threshold or when a goal is met. All of these can be set up with the click of a button. One more notification on your phone is not going to hurt. This truly starts opening the paths to collaboration. You always get to communicate the output of your financial model, giving you an excellent avenue.
Our intention was to skim a little to give you an idea of why you should be looking into Power BI to create value by freeing up your capacity, improving your capability, better collaboration with partners, and, as a result, making better decisions.
Where can you learn more?
Both Khaled and Lance offer targeted Power BI training, particularly for accounting, finance, and FP&A professionals. Lance recently hosted a recorded webinar for CCH Wolters Kluwer to help accountants and finance professionals get started with Power BI:
Khaled has driven organizational transformations and now also works with organizations to help achieve culture change with real ROI. Data Crafters – Let’s Talk
You can also get started for free with these resources:
- Microsoft guided Power BI learning path
- Getting Started with Power BI: Step-by-Step Guide to Success
- Power BI Free Learning Path
If you had to teach this topic to school kids in a class, what key tips would you give them to focus on?
- First focus on the concept, then tools.
- Learn all the basics of Power BI and then focus on specific parts to narrow down.
- Practice more and more.
- Work with fellow mates and discuss.
- Participate in different challenges to showcase your skills.
What practical steps can people take to learn more?
The best way to learn Power BI is by practicing regularly. Try participating in Power BI challenges at least twice a month. Here are some great places to find challenges:
You can also join Power BI communities to interact with others and solve problems together:
These communities are great for posting your problems and finding solutions from others.
Where are good places (links) to find out more on a topic?
To dive deeper into Power BI, here are some excellent resources:
- Microsoft Learn: Power BI Training
- Power Query Resources: Power Query
Blogs to Follow:
- SQLBI Articles
- RADACAD Blog
- Power BI Tips
- The BI Accountant
- Excelerator BI
- Curbal Learning Portal
- Access Analytic YouTube Channel
For finance professionals, we’ll be adding some relevant Finance Transformation Recipes. If you want to explore live embedded Power BI dashboards built for accounting and financial data, check out these links on the Model Citizn website:
- Model Citizn Power BI Dashboards
- Model Citizn Power BI Dashboards 2
- Model Citizn Power BI Dashboards 3
Final Thoughts
Remember, you need to crawl before you walk or run. Tools like Power BI set you up to harness the power of data, and this process is sequential. Before diving into AI and machine learning, you’ll need to master these foundational tools. By automating and eliminating repetitive tasks, Power BI frees up your time, allowing you to focus on higher-value capabilities.
