Power BI reports that connect to your data and stay right on their own.
A Power BI consultant based in the North West, building dashboards and report packs that pull straight from the systems you already use — no manual export, no rebuilding the same file every month.
Good for ongoing, numeric, multi-source reporting. Not everything needs it.
Power BI earns its keep when the same report gets produced repeatedly, from data that already lives in a system, and more than one person needs to see it. It's the wrong tool for a single ad-hoc calculation, a document-heavy output, or a one-off number someone needs by the end of the day — Excel or a plain analysis answers those faster and cheaper.
Good fit
- A report produced weekly, monthly or continuously
- Data that already sits in a system, not just in someone's head
- More than one person needs to see or slice the same numbers
- You want to filter by region, product or period without asking someone to rebuild it
Better as Excel, or something else
- A one-off calculation or a single answer needed by tomorrow
- A budget or model people need to type numbers directly into
- Small, irregular datasets that change shape every time
Built in the PBIP project format, not a single .pbix file passed around by email.
PBIP splits a Power BI report into readable project files — model, report layout and settings each as their own folder of text-based definitions, rather than one binary blob. That sounds technical, but it's the difference between a report you can safely change and one you're afraid to touch.
Version control
Every change to the model or the layout is tracked. If a change breaks something or a figure looks wrong after an edit, I can see exactly what changed and roll it back — instead of guessing which of ten copies is the right one.
Scheduled refresh
The report connects to your live source and refreshes on a schedule you set — overnight, first thing, or several times a day — so the numbers on screen are always current without anyone opening a file.
When a refresh fails
A source can be offline, a column can be renamed upstream, or a login can expire. When that happens the report doesn't quietly show stale numbers as if they were fresh — I set up an alert so a failed refresh gets caught and fixed, not discovered a week later in a meeting.
Sometimes you just need a report, not a live system.
A board pack, a client-facing summary or a one-off review doesn't always need a connected, refreshing dashboard behind it. I also build polished, point-in-time Power BI reports for a single date range — delivered as a PDF, a deck, or a locked report file — built to the same standard, without the ongoing connection.
Consistent, every time
Same layout, same definitions, same rounding rules month to month, so a reader can compare this month's pack to last month's without re-learning it.
Meeting-ready
Delivered in the format you actually present from — PDF, PowerPoint, or a Power BI file you open and click through — with nothing left half-finished for you to tidy up.
I connect to what you already have.
Most businesses don't have one clean database — they have a mix. Part of the work is making sense of that mix before it ever reaches a chart.
Databases
SQL Server and most standard business databases, connected directly so the report pulls live rather than from an export someone remembers to run.
Spreadsheets & CSV exports
Excel workbooks, Google Sheets and CSV exports from whatever system produces them — brought in and structured so they behave like a proper data source, not a one-off file.
CRM & other exports
Data pulled from your CRM or other line-of-business software, joined against your other sources so the report tells one consistent story instead of three separate ones.
Built for teams without an in-house analyst.
You don't need a data team to have a proper reporting system — you need someone to build it once, connect it properly, and make sure it keeps working. That's the gap this fills: a small or growing business that wants dashboard-quality reporting without hiring for it.
What you get delivered
- The PBIP project files, so the work is yours, not locked to me
- A published report connected to your data source
- Scheduled refresh configured and tested
- A short explanation of what each measure means and how it's calculated
How a build runs
- I map your sources and agree the questions the report needs to answer
- I build the model and layout, checking figures against your existing reports as I go
- I set the refresh schedule and confirm it runs cleanly a few times before handover
- Ongoing upkeep is optional, on a monthly retainer, with no minimum term
Both are legitimate answers. Here's how to tell which one you need.
| Question | Power BI | Excel |
|---|---|---|
| How often is it produced? | Continuously or on a schedule | Occasionally, or built once and reused manually |
| Where does the data live? | A system or database you can connect to directly | Figures typed in, or a smaller file-based dataset |
| Who uses it? | Several people, filtering and slicing their own view | One or two people, working the same layout each time |
| Does it need editing by hand? | No — it refreshes from source | Often yes — it's a working model, not just an output |
| Typical output | Interactive dashboard, filtered by whoever's viewing it | A specific workbook: budget, reconciliation, schedule |
Let's see what your data can actually connect to.
Send over what you're currently working from and I'll tell you honestly whether Power BI is the right fit, and what a build would involve.