Finance teams face a tough challenge when it comes to data. They must gather data that’s scattered across the enterprise to produce unified, accurate financial plans and reports. While every new data point is valuable, it also adds a risk of error. Fortunately, Microsoft Power BI’s data integration features can reduce the burden of searching for and correcting inaccurate financial data.
More than three-fourths of U.S. financial planning and analysis (FP&A) roles in the U.S. still require advanced use of Microsoft Excel. While Excel is the go-to choice for many financial professionals, it’s often used ineffectively. Companies can struggle to unlock Excel’s full functionality. Other times, multiple versions of the truth are created, leading to inaccurate or outdated business insights.
The problem is less about Excel and more about how companies use it. Inefficient processes, disparate systems and static spreadsheets can create a nightmare scenario for finance teams trying to ensure data accuracy. Fortunately, there’s a better way. Learn how you can integrate Power BI and data sources to streamline your work and improve data accuracy.
Data quality management (DQM) is a process that helps ensure data accuracy and consistency. DQM is pivotal for Power BI data modeling. It helps organizations maintain high-quality data, reduce errors and ensure data integrity.
DQM includes activities such as data cleansing, data validation and data standardization. Through this process, you check data against standards and rules as defined by the organization. These guidelines should ensure that data is accurate, up to date and otherwise meets the organization’s requirements.
Data cleansing improves data quality by removing corrupt or inaccurate data, such as duplicate records, spelling errors and nonstandard data types. Data validation confirms that data falls within parameters for accuracy and consistency. Data standardization ensures that data is presented in a consistent format, making it easier to analyze.
Power BI’s data integration capabilities help finance teams with DQM because they can establish a live connection to supported data sources and enrich results with more accurate data. For example, users can integrate financial data with external economic indicators, market trends or industry benchmarks. They add context while verifying the accuracy and relevancy of existing data.
Power BI also provides the ability to validate data by running tests that check whether the data is accurate and complete. Teams can set up specific criteria and run data validation tests against those to identify inconsistencies or errors, such as missing values or outliers. For example, you can check whether data falls within certain ranges, adheres to specific formats, or matches predefined patterns.
These capabilities can be combined for a comprehensive approach to providing high-quality and reliable data for companies using data modeling in Power BI. You’ll enjoy better accuracy, time and money savings, and the ability to make business decisions based on reliable data.
Power BI offers features that make it easier for finance teams to integrate and assess data, such as the ability to establish data connections to a wide range of sources. These include third-party apps and web services, databases and offline sources.
Power BI also seamlessly integrates with commonly used tools such as Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics and Google Analytics, expanding its functionality for users without having to leave the platform. Let’s take a look at key ways Power BI users can deploy these integrations to improve data accuracy.
With Power BI, finance teams gain a comprehensive understanding of how data flows through their organization. They can easily identify and address issues that might impact data accuracy.
Seamlessly integrate multiple data sources in Power BI so your finance teams can consolidate data into a unified view. From there, teams can track data’s origin, flow, accuracy and current status. Power BI also helps finance teams identify bottlenecks, data inconsistencies or potential errors that can occur during the integration process.
Additionally, Power BI offers robust data transformation capabilities, empowering finance teams to clean and shape their data before uploading it. This stage includes removing duplicates, handling missing values and standardizing data formats. Finance teams can remove data discrepancies, which increases accuracy and consistency across reports and analyses.
Finance teams using Power BI gain visibility into financial information. This helps them make more informed decisions while showing stakeholders what’s going on.
Power BI offers a range of data visualization options, including charts, graphs and interactive dashboards, helping finance teams present data that’s appealing to view and easy to understand. These visualizations can be customized to suit specific reporting needs, such as highlighting key trends or anomalies.
Reporting functionality is also improved through Power BI’s real-time data refresh capabilities. Finance teams can access up-to-date information so their reports and analyses are based on the most current data available. This improves decision-making quality because you’re not working with outdated or inaccurate information.
Power BI helps finance team members collaborate more effectively across the organization because everyone has access to the same information in a visually comprehensible format.
For example, teams can build insightful dashboards that provide a comprehensive view of the organization’s financial data. These dashboards can be shared with other departments, such as sales and marketing, allowing them to validate accuracy, better understand financial performance and make informed decisions for their departments or functions.
Power BI also integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft tools, such as SharePoint and Teams. You can create reports and dashboards with Power BI and embed them directly into your preferred channel. This integration offers another option for streamlined cross-functional collaboration and ensures everyone is working with the same set of information.
Human error, duplication and the inefficient use of static spreadsheets are just a few ways in which data becomes inaccurate without people realizing it. Even with the best database operators in place, error rates are high when using old-school spreadsheets. Even a single error can make a considerable impact.
As data sources continue to grow in volume and variety, FP&A only gets more complicated. You need the capabilities of Power BI and the right integration tools to streamline data gathering, consolidation and analysis.
Relieve your finance team from manual data pulling by giving them access to a single version of the truth. When you add Power BI Sync with Acterys, you can automate data extraction from existing spreadsheets, planning and write-back capabilities to any Power BI model, and automate the integration with your data warehouse.
Acterys integrates with a variety of systems outside finance, such as marketing and HR, so finance teams can synchronize their data and stop relying on manual and disparate systems.
You can run the Acterys application on Microsoft’s powerful and scalable Azure cloud-based solution or on your own on-premise Microsoft SQL servers. Either way, you can integrate all your multifunctional systems into Power BI while maintaining the standard of a single source of truth.
Power BI is a powerful tool for integrating data and analyzing it to gain insights, but there’s likely more you can do within your organization. Here are five tips for optimizing processes and maximizing your data’s value.
Data quality tools are software applications designed to identify and resolve data errors and inconsistencies. These tools can perform tasks such as data profiling, data cleansing and data standardization, helping you ensure the highest-quality Power BI data sets.
Manual data entry is prone to errors, such as typos and missing values. You can reduce these mistakes by automating data entry processes. Do this by integrating Power BI with other systems or using data integration tools to automatically import data from third-party sources. Automating data entry improves quality, saves time and reduces human effort.
Data validation is critical for checking the accuracy and integrity of data. In Power BI, you can use techniques such as data type validation, range validation and consistency checks to ensure that the data entered is valid and high quality. Data validation can also detect errors and inconsistencies, ultimately improving the quality of Power BI reports and dashboards.
Data governance refers to the overall management of data within an organization. Effective data governance policies keep data consistent no matter where it travels through the organization. Good governance includes tasks such as defining data standards, establishing data ownership and codifying data quality rules. When everyone follows the same best practices, you can achieve high-quality data sets in Power BI.
Data quality metrics can help you understand the health of your data and respond accordingly. Power BI helps you track data quality metrics such as data completeness, data accuracy and data consistency. Use these metrics to identify issues and take appropriate measures, such as cleansing, data enrichment or quality improvement initiatives.
Power BI’s data integration features, combined with its unparalleled visualization and analysis capabilities, make it an excellent choice for teams that need to streamline FP&A while providing high-quality, accurate results. It provides greater visibility and control, encourages more effective collaboration and helps you understand the story behind your data so you can make informed decisions.
While Power BI offers unmatched visualization and business intelligence features, the best way to leverage the platform for FP&A is by integrating it with purpose-built tools, such as Acterys. When you combine Power BI’s strengths with Acterys’ enterprise-grade extended planning and analysis (xP&A) capabilities, you can harness the full potential of Excel, Power BI and your data.
Start your Acterys trial today, and discover how you can get access to accurate information and on-demand insights.
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