BI Financial Dashboard

End-to-end design and implementation of an interactive Power BI dashboard for executive financial reporting.

To modernize the client’s financial reporting, I led the transformation from fragmented Excel spreadsheets into a centralized Power BI solution. The goal was to eliminate manual processes, enable interactive drill-downs, and deliver reliable, timely insights for executive decision-making.

Objectives

  1. Automate data ingestion from the ERP to reduce manual Excel work.
  2. Enable granular drill-downs for department-level analysis of budget variances.

My role

  • End-to-end project ownership: requirements gathering, data modeling, and dashboard design.
  • Built a Star Schema data model integrating multiple data sources.
  • Developed advanced DAX measures and crafted the UX for efficient navigation.


Tech Stack
Platform Microsoft Power BI
Backend SQL, Power Query
Modeling DAX (Data Analysis Expressions)
Design Figma (Prototyping)
Report Architecture

The solution is structured into distinct navigational areas:

  • 01_Executive_Cockpit High-level KPI cards & trends
  • 02_PnL_Deep_Dive Income statement matrix & waterfall
  • 03_Cash_Flow_Dynamics Liquidity & Opex analysis
  • 04_Geo_Performance Sales distribution maps

The Challenge: From Fragmented Files to One Truth

The client previously relied on multiple Excel exports merged manually, causing:

  • Data latency: reports available ~10 days after month-end
  • Inconsistency: conflicting metrics across departments
  • Limited interactivity: static reports prevented root-cause analysis

The main technical challenge was designing a data model to handle mixed granularities: quarterly budget vs. daily transactional actuals.

Conceptual representation of the Star Schema designed to handle multi-grain facts (Budget vs. Actuals).

Methodology & Implementation

Following Kimball methodology, the solution included:

  1. ETL & Staging: Power Query cleaned inconsistent taxonomy and unpivoted legacy files.
  2. Data Modeling: Star Schema with central Fact Table (General Ledger) and conformed Dimensions (Calendar, Cost Center, Customer).
  3. DAX Engineering: Calculation groups enabled dynamic “Month-to-Date”, “Year-to-Date”, and “Same-Period-Last-Year” views.
  4. UI/UX Design: Grid-based layout with sidebar navigation for clarity and dark mode aesthetics.
Top: An example of a dashboard tab. Bottom: Snippet of the DAX logic used for dynamic time intelligence.

Results: actionable insights

The dashboard became the primary tool for the Board of Directors, shifting the finance team from manual data gathering to strategic analysis.

  • Reporting latency: reduced from ~10 days to [INSERT METRIC]
  • Decision-making: executives access real-time KPIs and drill-downs
  • Data quality: consistent metrics across departments

Note: To maintain confidentiality, all company names, locations, dates, and specific proprietary values have been anonymized or modified. The analysis focuses on the technical methodology and challenges encountered during the project.