What is Power BI?

Microsoft Power BI website describe it as;

“Power BI is a suite of business analytics tools that deliver insights throughout your organisation. Connect to hundreds of data sources, simplify data prep, and drive ad hoc analysis. Produce beautiful reports, then publish them for your organisation to consume on the web and across mobile devices. Everyone can create personalised dashboards with a unique, 360-degree view of their business. And scale across the enterprise, with governance and security built-in.”

Ok, so it's an analytics software. There are lots of different analytics software on the market. Why does this particular software deserve special attention for an accountant?

The answer to this lies in what is under the hood of Power BI. Power BI is essentially the combination of Power Query + Power Pivot (Microsoft Excel Add On’s) + the Visualisation software of Power BI to create Reports and Dashboards with your data. It is a seamless integration between Microsoft Power BI and Microsoft Excel.

We spend our lives as accountants playing with Microsoft Excel. Spreadsheets filled with columns of data and formulas. It's our bread and butter for reconciliations, financials, budgeting and working papers. Power BI is simply Microsoft Excel on Steroids. All the performance and customisation with the added comfort of no longer getting worried that the excel spreadsheet carries errors brought forward by using the same template month on month.

Learn more - Have a read of  'Power BI VS Spotlight / Fathom / Futrli'