Our fi nance team can view performance quickly.
“We’ve created an overview dashboard for our fi nance team that contains a broad range of information. The data is arranged so that they can run through it in a few minutes and get a general understanding of business performance.”
Having a closer view of fi nancial data helps us fi nd exceptions.
“McLeod IQ gives us a way to track fi nancial data in near real-time, which allows us to catch anomalies. For example, if we’re looking at expenses and see a spike that doesn’t make sense, we mark it and then take a deeper dive to fi nd out what caused that spike. Maybe an expense was reclassifi ed or something slipped through the cracks. In one way or another, it exposes something that we need to address. In this way, McLeod IQ helps us with continuous improvement.”
IQ-driven insight helped the billing team cut our days-to-bill in half.
111001$
“We built dashboards for our billing team that showed them how long it was taking an order to be billed. We set goals and used conditional formatting in the display to indicate progress towards those goals. Visuals present in green if they’re meeting their goal and red if they’re not. Through their hard work, we’ve cut our average days- to-bill from 9 days to 4.5 through the fi rst half of 2020. This improvement in our cash fl ow was crucial in helping stabilize the
company in the unprecedented second quarter of 2020 as we weathered the onset of the pandemic.”
Our CFO can keep his fi nger on the pulse of the company.
“When our fi nancial statements are closed for the month, our CFO has immediate access to all that information. He can analyze it from a trend perspective and from a macro level down to a granular level. This provides an eff ective way to keep a close watch on the overall health of the business.”
People across the enterprise use the IQ data.
“We push dashboards to the management team and to individuals to monitor KPIs. We installed dashboards
around the offi ce to display near real-time KPIs. We also use the Power BI mobile app so information is accessible when we are away from the offi ce.”
Intelligent dashboard design delivers a user-friendly experience.
“We tailor the design of the Power BI dashboards to be easily consumed by the end user. You do not want to overwhelm anyone with information who is not a power user. Sometimes boring is better. In the Marine Corps I learned the value of KISS—Keep it simple, stupid. You can put a ton of bells and whistles on these dashboards, but what I try to keep in mind is the message that the data should be revealing. I don’t want that message to get lost behind an overcrowded display of graphics. We repeat design elements so that users don’t have to relearn each dashboard they encounter. For example, the current year is always in light green and last year is always in dark gray. Many of our dashboards also have a section at the top that gives a snapshot or brief understanding of the focal point, and then the rest of the dashboard tells the story behind the snapshot information.”
Interactive dashboards make deeper insight possible.
“The interactive reports make it easy for users to drill down into the data in ways that are not as easily accomplished in traditional fl at spreadsheet methods. For example, users can move between date ranges, going from a monthly view down to weekly or daily, and slice between GL accounts or between diff erent TMS databases.”
Dashboards provide views that help us spot cyclical trends.
“We use historical data to detect trends by creating charts and graphs that track revenue across all twelve months from multiple years. This allows us to look for cyclical trends or seasonality changes that repeat each year. We then use these insights to plan ahead and ensure we’re not caught off guard by a sudden increase or decrease in demand and shifting rates.”
We can build analytics that are versatile and can be easily modifi ed to fi t the specifi c needs of end users.
“After a dashboard is created, we frequently hear people say, ‘That’s great, but we would like to see it presented this way,’ or ‘Can you add this data into it?’ Maybe someone wants to see a metric broken down by revenue
® 57
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72
