What is and can Power BI for ERP software such as Business Central | ABC E BUSINESS

Organizations have more and more data: from ERP, finance, sales, purchasing, inventory and projects. But data in itself does not yet provide a benefit. It's aboutinsight: knowing what's happening, why it's happening and where you can make adjustments. That's exactly whereMicrosoft Power BI-especiallyin combination withMicrosoft Dynamics 365 Business Central-helps.

In this blog, we take you through the most important building blocks: what Power BI is, what you can do with it, why it strengthens ERP reports and how Business Central and Power BI together form a solid foundation for data-driven work.

1) What is and can Power BI do for ERP software?

An ERP system is often the "heart" of the organization: processes and transactions converge there. As a result, it also contains an enormous amount of valuable management information. In practice, however, many teams see that:

• Reports get scattered (Excel files, exports, loose lists);
• Figures are not always unambiguous ("which is the right turnover?");
• Analyses take time, allowing you to steer late.

Power BI makes it possible to turn ERP data (and data beyond) intoup-to-date, visual management information. Think KPIs, trends, deviations and signals that help you decide faster.

2) What is Power BI?

Power BI is Microsoft'sBusiness Intelligence and reporting tool that allows you to collect, model, analyze and visualize data from multiple sources in dashboards and reports. The goal: one central place where users can work with data in an understandable way.

Importantly, Power BI is not only intended for finance or IT. In fact, it is often deployed asself-service BI: more people in the organization can use insights, while still working with a shared "source of truth."

3) What can you do with Power BI in practice?

Combine data sources.

Power BI can bring together data from a variety of sources, such as ERP, Excel, databases and (cloud) applications. For example, you can combine financial results with inventory or sales data, and enrich that again with external or operational insights.

Build interactive dashboards.

Instead of static reports, you work with dashboards on which you can:

• filter (e.g. by period, product group or location),
• zoom in on details,
• discover connections between KPIs.

So you not only see "what" has happened, but you can more quickly investigatewhy and where it is happening.

Working as SaaS within the Microsoft ecosystem.

Power BI is available as a cloud solution within the Microsoft platform. At its core, that means no heavy local management burden, and access to ongoing development and new features through the platform.

4) Why use Power BI within an ERP system?

An ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system bundles processes such as accounting, inventory, purchasing/sales and projects. This provides many reporting possibilities, but ERP reports are often designed primarily foroperational details.

Power BI complements the ERP by translating it into:

• Management information ( KPIs and performance),
• Trend analyses ( developments over time),
• Comparisons ( departments, product lines, regions),
• Faster decision making ( more real-time and interactive).

5) The limitations of standard ERP reports (and how Power BI solves that).

Many organizations run into recognizable limitations with standard ERP reports:

• They are relatively static;
• Customization is often time-consuming or requires specialized knowledge;
• Management questions change faster than the reporting can keep up.

Power BI helps byenriching ERP data with visualizations and interactive analyses. The results are usually very concrete:

• Fewer manual rounds of Excel;
• Less cutting and pasting;
• More consistency in definitions and figures;
• Faster overview as well as detail when you need it.

6) Power BI for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Business Central is a modern (cloud) ERP system that brings together core processes. Power BI fits in well with this because Business Central offers standard integration options and you can start using dashboards relatively easily.

What this means in practice:

• You can use standard reports and data models (out-of-the-box);
• You can also createyour own dashboards via available links (such as APIs and connectors), tailored to your own KPIs and processes.

7) What Business Central data can you analyze (and for whom is that interesting)?

Virtually all relevant ERP information from Business Central can be translated into Power BI insights, including:

• Financial: sales, margins, costs, results, (budget) monitoring;
• Inventory & logistics: inventory positions, turnover rates, delivery performance;
• Purchasing & sales: performance by supplier/customer, lead times, margins;
• Projects & service: progress, hours, deviations, profitability.

This makes Power BI interesting for multiple roles:

• Management/direction: KPI dashboards and progress at a glance;
• Finance & control: deeper analyses, budget vs. actuals, forecasting;
• Purchasing/Sales/Operations: process bottlenecks, performance and improvement opportunities.

Want to get more return from Business Central by really making your ERP data "work" in Power BI? Then schedule a no-obligation consultation and find out which dashboards and insights have the most impact for your organization.