Power BI is a great tool. Millions of companies use it, and for good reason: it connects data from anywhere and presents it beautifully. That's why, when a group with several entities wants to move off Excel, it's usually the first thing they try.
And that's where the surprise comes. The dashboard looks spectacular, but the consolidation still comes out of a spreadsheet. Because Power BI shows data. It doesn't know what an intercompany elimination is, or how to map two charts of accounts, or which exchange rate to use for the balance sheet and which for the P&L.
All of that has to be built. And someone builds it: a consultant, someone from IT or the CFO themselves, late at night. When that person leaves, the model freezes.
Two tools, two different questions
| Power BI | Fibady | |
|---|---|---|
| What it's for | Visualising any business data | Closing, consolidating and planning the group's finances |
| Accounting logic | Built by whoever implements it | Included: chart of accounts, consolidation, P&L, balance sheet, cash flow |
| Multiple entities and currencies | Custom modelling | Native, with entity detail and two currencies side by side |
| Budget and variances | Another source to integrate | In the same place, by department and with sign-offs |
| Who maintains it | A technical profile | The finance team |
| Getting to the entry | Depends on the model | Every number opens down to the entry behind it |
It's not one or the other
Power BI can stay the place for sales, operations or inventory. What changes is where the financial number comes from: it stops being a handcrafted model and becomes a close that comes straight from each entity's ERP, the same way every month.
The question to ask is simple: who builds the consolidation that feeds your dashboard today? If the answer is "one person with an Excel file", the problem isn't the visualisation.