Executive Dashboard in Dublin: Power BI or Custom Build

The verdict in three sentences

An 80-person SME whose financial controller spends 3 days a month consolidating sales, margin and cash from 4 tools can bring that work down to 2 hours. Power BI Pro (USD 14 per user per month) with EUR 8,000 to 20,000 of data modelling is the right choice when users are internal staff comfortable with Microsoft tools. A custom web dashboard at EUR 15,000 to 35,000 wins when you need to share with field managers, shareholders or franchisees, or encode business rules that Power BI makes complex.

Where the 3 days of reporting go

In a typical Dublin SME (wholesale, food production, technical services), the numbers are scattered: the CRM for pipeline, the ERP or sales system for revenue and margin, accounting software for profit, the bank for cash. Every month end, someone exports, pastes into Excel, fixes customer code mismatches, then sends a PDF to the MD 10 days late. The decision arrives when the next month is already half gone.

The bulk of a dashboard project, whatever the tool, is building a clean data warehouse: automatic connectors, harmonised customer and product master data, margin rules validated once and for all.

Power BI or custom: the numbers side by side

For 15 internal users, Power BI stays cheaper over 3 years. Beyond 40 to 50 readers, or as soon as a store network needs to see its own figures, custom becomes competitive, and it lets you add actions (budget approval, forecast entry, cash alert by SMS).

Mini case study

Patrick, MD of an 80-person agricultural equipment distributor in Dublin (EUR 14 million revenue), sees his financial controller spend 3 days a month on reporting, or 36 days a year at EUR 450 loaded daily cost: EUR 16,200 a year. He picks Power BI with EUR 14,000 of modelling and 15 licences. First-year cost: 14,000 + 2,300 + 2,500 maintenance, or EUR 18,800. Reporting drops to 2 hours a month, and numbers arrive on day 2 instead of day 10. Counting time saved alone (about EUR 15,300 a year), payback takes 14 months. The real gain lies elsewhere: a 1-point margin slip on one product line caught 8 days earlier is worth several thousand euros on its own.

FAQ

Does an SME dashboard need a data warehouse?

A lightweight warehouse is enough, often a PostgreSQL or Azure SQL database at EUR 30 to 150 a month. It stops every report from redoing its own calculations and guarantees identical numbers everywhere.

Does Power BI connect to our accounting software?

Native connectors cover Excel, SQL and many SaaS tools; for Sage, Xero or local ERPs, you often go through an intermediate database or API, for EUR 2,000 to 6,000 depending on the software.

How many KPIs belong on an executive dashboard?

Aim for 8 to 12 on the main page (revenue, gross margin, order book, 13-week cash, DSO, stock), then a drill-down per business line. Beyond 15 on one screen, readability suffers.

How long until the dashboard is live?

Allow 6 to 10 weeks for Power BI and 8 to 14 weeks for custom, including 2 weeks of data validation with the finance team.

Can we start with Power BI and move to custom later?

Yes, and it is often the right path: the data warehouse built at the start, about 40% of the budget, is reused as is by the web dashboard.

Let's scope your project. List your data sources and the 10 numbers you check every month: we will price a dashboard between EUR 8,000 and 35,000 depending on the option, live in 6 to 14 weeks. Detailed quote within 48 h. WhatsApp +221 77 596 93 33.