Modern tools to support Power BI in financial management

Power BI is the leading BI solution on the market, and for good reason. Power BI makes it easy to share and visualize data, and cloud computing allows it to go wherever work takes you. Power BI also enables agile processing of large amounts of data, reusable data sets and indicators, and the merging of existing data sets. Power BI is a user-oriented tool: the information you need is easily accessible to everyone, filterable and drillable, or alternatively, can be delimited by row.

Power BI contains a rich set of functionalities and visualizations. In addition, Power BI users have access to custom visualizations, of which there are hundreds available on the service. Custom visualizations can be made by anyone, which can lead to variations in the quality if the visualizations. You can also choose complementary tools to accompany Power BI to enhance your visualizations, as well as many other functionalities.

Power BI and Inforiver as a finance manager’s tool

If you need high-quality visualizations for your reports, Inforiver has them. But Inforiver is also much more – at its best, it acts as the right hand of Power BI, and complements Power BI’s tools, making reporting even more straightforward. 

For many people who have used Excel for reporting, Power BI can sometimes be a bit of a headache, as certain functionalities are more challenging in Power BI than in Excel – for example, you cannot enter new figures or other data into graphs. It is also difficult to produce paginated reports. This is where Inforiver steps in.

Inforiver allows you to add new rows and columns or new calculations to existing tables. This enables, for example, the collection and updating of forecasts directly from the Power BI report. From there, the data flows back to the data warehouse, and can be used for other purposes.

Inforiver also provides tools for creating different scenarios and paginated reports. For example, page breaks can be made according to the desired hierarchy, standard headers and footers can be easily added, and the distribution of reports can be timed or limited by target groups. Together, Power BI and Inforiver make a finance manager’s everyday life smoother. Pinja provides you with Inforiver licenses and our experts will help you get the most out of Inforiver. Find out more about Inforiver’s features. 

The basics also matter when it comes to data visualization

While new features and complementary tools bring significantly more possibilities for data visualization, the basics should not be forgotten. Identifying the target audience, clear visualizations, the use of colors and the order in which information is presented in the report are key to building understandable reports.

As regards to the target group, it is worth considering:

• what preconceptions they may have about the topic,
• whether the data is previously known to them,
• whether there is a need to limit the visibility of information,
• and most importantly, what you would like the target group to do after seeing the report.

But when it comes to the visualization of information, less is often more:

• focus on clear descriptors and a sufficiently sparse layout
• often the most important things should be placed in the top left corner, where the eye can reach them most easily
• use colors consistently, and minimize unnecessary visual stimuli

Have you become interested?

If you need help and perspective on your organization’s reporting or data management, check out Pinja’s Business Intelligence services: From data searching to data-driven decision-making

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