How to Build Custom Power BI Solutions

Have you ever wondered how to build custom Power Bi solutions using QuickBooks connector? For modern small and medium businesses, QuickBooks Online (QBO) provides a robust platform to manage core financial processes including accounting, invoicing, inventory and reporting. However, even sophisticated systems like QBO have limitations for data analysis which can prevent growing companies from unleashing the true value of their business information for strategic decision-making.

Let’s dive into a real-world example of how we used Power BI and QuickBooks connector to create a custom solution for a client. Our client, a restaurant group operating 12 cafe locations across a major metro area was responsible for preparing a comprehensive monthly financial report for their board of directors. This report, which included a balance sheet, income statement, and various performance metrics, was previously created manually in Excel and then exported to PDF for distribution.

To address the client’s needs, we developed a custom Power BI solution that seamlessly integrated with their QuickBooks data. The solution was divided into two main components: a visual-focused dashboard and a table-based report.

The Visual Dashboard

The visual dashboard was designed to provide a high-level overview of the client’s financial performance. Using Power BI’s intuitive drag-and-drop interface, we created a series of interactive visualizations that showcased key metrics, such as:

• Last 13 months’ revenue by customer
• Last 13 months’ revenue by meal type
• Breakfast, lunch, and snack average revenue per meal
• Last 13 months’ average cost per meal and COGS as a percentage of revenue
• Overtime and regular hours over the last 13 months
• Average days sales outstanding (DSO) and days payable outstanding (DPO)
• Meals per direct labor hour
• Last 13 months’ volume by customer and trailing 12-month revenue by customer

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