Case study · Finance
Management accounts the day after close
Finance teams in growing businesses spend days building the monthly pack in Excel. This is how we built management accounts, KPIs and a rolling cash flow forecast in Power BI from the ERP, so the board pack is ready as soon as the books close.
Project overview
Finance reporting on Power BI.
- Industry
- Cross-industry finance
- Client
- Confidential
- Solution
- Management accounts
- Platform
- Power BI
- Timeline
- 6–10 weeks
- Team
- 2 people
- Source
- ERP general ledger
- Forecast
- 13-week cash flow
- Users
- Finance, directors, board
Expected business outcomes
What the client set out to gain
Time saved on the pack and earlier sight of cash are the main benefits.
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2–4 days
Saved each month on the board pack
P&L, balance sheet and KPIs refresh from the ledger.
Target range; depends on pack complexity
-
13 weeks
Rolling cash visibility
Cash flow forecast from receivables, payables and planned payments.
Updated weekly from the ERP
-
One
Version of the numbers
Directors and finance use the same model and definitions.
Where the old spreadsheet pack is retired
Business challenges
How management reporting worked before
The ERP holds the numbers; Excel builds the story.
Pack
Trial balance exported and rebuilt in Excel every month.
Budget
Budget in a separate workbook, compared manually.
KPIs
Operational figures collected from managers by email.
Cash
Cash forecast in a spreadsheet updated when someone has time.
Board
Directors receive a PDF with no way to drill into the numbers.
Proposed solution
What the Power BI build covers
A finance model built on the general ledger and budget.
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P&L and balance sheet
Management layouts with drill-down to transactions.
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Budget and forecast
Actual versus budget and forecast by department and period.
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Cash flow forecast
A 13-week forecast from receivables, payables and payroll.
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KPIs
Gross margin, overheads, debtor days and other agreed measures.
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Board view
A concise board page with commentary fields.
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Access control
Directors see summaries; departments see their own costs.
Project requirements
What the client asked us for
The request was to stop building the pack by hand. We replicate the existing pack first, so the board sees familiar numbers, then improve it.
The cash forecast is often the most valued part, because it answers the question directors ask most.
What the project had to deliver
- 01A pack that refreshes itself
- 02Budget comparison built in
- 03Weekly cash visibility
- 04Drill-down instead of questions
Key challenges & considerations
What made it harder, and what we did
-
Chart of accounts that doesn't match management layouts
What we did
A mapping table, maintained by finance, turned the chart of accounts into the management layout.
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Budgets kept outside the ERP
What we did
Budgets were loaded into the model from a controlled template.
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Manual adjustments made in the pack
What we did
Manual adjustments were moved into the ledger or into documented rules.
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Directors used to PDFs
What we did
The pack matched the old PDF first, then added drill-down so that directors moved across by choice.
What we watched for
- Match the old pack first
- Keep account mappings maintainable by finance
- Remove manual adjustments from the process
- Put the cash forecast on page one
Development process
Replicate, then improve
The first version matches the current pack exactly.
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Mapping
Ledger accounts mapped to management lines.
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Model
Finance data model with budgets built.
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Pack replica
Current pack rebuilt and reconciled.
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Cash forecast
13-week forecast added and tested.
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Handover
Finance team trained to maintain mappings.
Technology stack
Power BI on the ledger
Direct connection to the ERP with a small data store where needed.
Reporting
- Power BI
- Paginated reports
Sources
- Business Central API
- ERP general ledger
- Budget files
Data
- Dataflows
- Azure SQL
Governance
- Row-level security
- Scheduled refresh
Quality assurance & deployment
Every figure reconciled before anyone relied on it
A dashboard is only useful if its numbers are believed. Each measure was reconciled to its source, and to finance where money was involved, before the report was released.
- Each measure reconciled to its source system
- Financial figures signed off by finance
- Data quality checks on every refresh: completeness and freshness
- Row-level security tested with real user accounts
- Report performance tested at full data volume
Deployment
- 01Cash forecast13-week forecast added and tested.
- 02HandoverFinance team trained to maintain mappings.
- 03Deployment pipelinesReports moved from development to test to production through controlled pipelines.
- 04Adoption and warrantyTraining for report users and builders, usage reviewed, and six months of free bug fixing.
Final deliverables
A board pack that builds itself
The monthly pack is ready as soon as the books close, with drill-down for any question and a rolling cash forecast updated weekly.
Finance spends the saved days on analysis and commentary.
- Automatic management accounts
- Budget comparison
- 13-week cash forecast
- Board-ready views
Handed over to the client
- 01Data model and pipelinesDocumented and scheduled
- 02Reports and dashboardsPublished with security roles
- 03Measure definitionsEvery figure documented
- 04TrainingFor report users and report builders
- 05Six-month warrantyFree bug fixing after delivery
Success metrics
How success is measured
| Measure | Outcome | How it is measured |
|---|---|---|
| Saved each month on the board pack | 2–4 days | Target range; depends on pack complexity |
| Rolling cash visibility | 13 weeks | Updated weekly from the ERP |
| Version of the numbers | One | Where the old spreadsheet pack is retired |
Verified reviews
What clients say about our custom software work
Verified reviews from our clients on the same kind of work, published on Clutch.
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Custom Software Development
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The work produced by the team was of exceptional quality.
Jon Thies
CTO, Model Rocket Feb 2022 – Mar 2023
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Silver Scintilla was responsive, respectful, and enjoyable to work with, quickly addressing any questions or requests.
DeShawn Brown
CEO & Founder, Lithios Jun 2021 – Nov 2022
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Custom Software Development
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Silver Scintilla provided the best solution with scalable functionality, personalized features, and robust security.
Suheb Khan
Director, Collaborative Insight Technologies Jul 2020 – Jun 2022
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