With Power BI, Controllers can evaluate, analyze, and visualize financial data quickly and efficiently. Employees benefit from interactive dashboards that make important key figures visible at a glance. As a result, financial developments can be monitored in real time and well-founded decisions can be made. Power BI helps to present complex data in an understandable way and enables data-based management of corporate finances for greater transparency and accuracy.

Power BI and data analytics enable controllers to quickly visualize financial data and gain deeper insights into business performance. Through interactive dashboards and precise analyses, well-founded, data-based decisions can be made.

Benefits for you as a company:

• Quick data evaluation: Real-time visualizations enable immediate analysis of financial data.
• Better decision-making: Detailed analyses support well-founded strategic decisions.
• Process optimization: Automated reporting and dashboards save time and reduce sources of error.
• Transparency: Clear and understandable visualizations promote communication and collaboration between departments.
• Flexibility: Customizable dashboards and reports provide accurate and adaptable financial analysis.

1. Introduction to Power BI & Data Analytics for Controllers

• Why Power BI for Controllers? : Overview of how Power BI is used as a powerful tool for data analysis and visualization in finance
• Benefits of data analysis in finance: How controllers benefit from data-driven decisions and how Power BI supports this transformation
• Integration of financial data: Which financial data sources can be easily integrated into Power BI (ERP systems, Excel, CSV files, etc.)
• Real-time data analysis: Why the ability to perform real-time data processing in Power BI is a key advantage

2. Power BI basics

• Power BI: A brief introduction: overview of Power BI's user interface and key features (data querying, modeling, visualization, and reporting)
• Data import and preparation: How data can be imported and prepared from various sources (Excel, databases, APIs)
• Data modeling in Power BI: How controllers create data models, establish relationships between data sets, and efficiently structure the database
• DAX (Data Analysis Expressions): Introduction to the most important DAX formulas to create user-defined key figures and calculations

3. Analyze & visualize financial data

• Creating financial figures and KPIs: How controllers can use Power BI to calculate and visualize important financial figures such as turnover, profit margins, liquidity, cash flow, etc.
• Financial reporting and dashboards: How to create interactive dashboards and customized financial reports that show key figures at a glance
• Trend analysis and forecasts: Use Power BI to analyze historical data and visualize future trends and forecasts, e.g. for budgeting and forecasting
• Cost accounting & profitability analysis: How Power BI helps with the analysis of cost centers, profitability and margins and presents the results clearly

4. Efficient use of data analytics

• Data filtering & drill-down techniques: How controllers gain deeper insights into data, access specific details through filters and drill-down functions, and make data-based decisions
• Analysis tools for financial data: Using Power BI for specific analysis tools, such as identifying outliers, patterns, and relationships in financial data
• Scenario and what-if analyses: How to create scenario analyses and hypothetical financial forecasts with Power BI to evaluate various potential business strategies
• Automating reports: How controllers can automatically generate and distribute regularly updated financial reports to save time and improve efficiency

5. Visualization techniques for controllers

• Create beautiful financial dashboards: Best practices for designing dashboards that are easy to understand and interactive
• Visualization options for financial data: Which visualizations (bar charts, line charts, pie charts, heat maps, etc.) are best suited for which financial data
• Interactive reports and drillthrough: How to create interactive reports that allow users to get more detailed information by clicking on charts and data points
• Reporting for different target groups: How controllers can tailor and present reports for different stakeholders (management, investors, financial departments)

6. Power BI for financial planning and budgeting

• Budgeting with Power BI: How controllers can perform and visually monitor budgeting processes with Power BI
• Comparison of target/actual data: How controllers can compare planned values with actual values and analyze variances
• Forecasts and trend analyses: How to use Power BI to make accurate forecasts for future fiscal years based on historical data and planned scenarios

7. Best practices and case studies

• Effective data integration: Successful examples of how companies have used Power BI to integrate financial data to optimize their business processes
• Continuous improvement of reporting: Tips to continuously improve reporting and data visualization to meet stakeholders' needs
• Case study — Implementing Power BI in finance: A case study using Power BI to analyze financial data, build dashboards, and achieve automation

8. Risks and challenges

• Data quality and security: How important high data quality and data protection are, particularly when analyzing sensitive financial data
• Technological barriers to implementation: What challenges exist when setting up Power BI and how they can be overcome
• Changing the way the financial sector works: How the role of the controller is changing as a result of the use of Power BI and what new skills are required

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