Notes from the desk · 16 articles
Written by Collins for the people who keep the business running in Excel. Each guide shows you what to check, why it matters and how to fix it, in one short read.
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Ask Copilot or ChatGPT a question about your spreadsheet and you may get a confident answer that is simply wrong. These seven problems cause most of those errors, and each one takes minutes to find.
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AI assistants like Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT can only answer from the data you give them. If that data is messy, duplicated or shared too widely, the answers will be too. Here is a practical checklist to run before you switch AI on.
Your total looks too low, but every cell seems to hold a number. The usual cause is numbers stored as text. Here is how to spot them, fix them, and stop them coming back.
A monthly management report in Power BI should show the right KPIs, refresh automatically, and be readable in under two minutes. This guide covers structure, data preparation, and the key design decisions that separate a useful report from a complicated one.
DAX is the formula language that powers Power BI calculations. You do not need to master it, but understanding the basics will save you hours of frustration and make your dashboards far more reliable.
If your month-end close takes more than half a day, your spreadsheets have more than three people editing them, or your numbers do not agree across departments: it is time to move on.
Connecting Excel to Power BI is straightforward. Making the connection reliable, automatic, and maintainable is less obvious. Here is the full picture, including what to avoid.
Both are excellent tools but they suit different setups. We compare cost, learning curve, data connectivity, and sharing options from the perspective of a UK SME that does not have an IT department.
Most service businesses track revenue. Few track the metrics that actually predict whether revenue will hold. These five KPIs give you a complete picture of performance without overcomplicating your reporting.
A cash flow dashboard in Power BI gives you a live picture of money in, money out, and net position, without rebuilding the same spreadsheet every month. Here is how to structure it correctly.
A KPI dashboard is not a report with charts. It is a decision-making tool. This guide explains how to define the right KPIs for your business and what makes a dashboard actually useful.
Most Power BI problems trace back to a poorly structured data model. Understanding what a data model is (and what a good one looks like), is the most valuable thing you can do before building any dashboard.
Most dashboard problems start with the data, not the design. Before you open Power BI or Tableau, your source files need consistent structure. Here is how to get there.
Excel is familiar and flexible. Tableau is purpose-built for visualisation. For a small business choosing between them, the answer depends on what you actually need, not what sounds most impressive.
Building on the basics: this guide covers transaction categorisation, budget vs actuals tracking, and setting up automatic bank feed refresh for a live cash flow dashboard.
Not every automation project needs a developer or a data warehouse. These five quick wins eliminate the most common manual reporting tasks in UK SMEs, using tools you probably already have.
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