Enhance Xero P&L in Power BI

1. Power BI – Enhance Your P&L Dashboard Business Analytics Blog https://www.bensound.com/ (energy) https://www.bensound.com/

2. Enhance Your P&L Dashboard Smarter Visuals, Sharper Insights Transform your Xero-based Profit & Loss report into a branded, interactive Power BI dashboard that speaks clearly and confidently, whether you're presenting to stakeholders or refining internal reporting. From data to decisions—let your dashboard do the talking.

3. P&L Dashboard Before: Functional but Flat • Current P&L dashboard: • Accurate, BUT visually underwhelming • Lacks branding, cohesive colours & interactive elements that guide users • Manually scan for trends

4. Visual Design: Make It Yours • Add Your Business Logo • Navigate to the insert tab, hover over the image icon and insert your chosen image so that you can: • Place your company logo prominently. • Position it top-left or top-right for brand recognition. • Ensure it scales well across devices - test on desktop and mobile.

5. Visual Design: Make It Yours 2. Apply Brand Colours Extract colour codes from your logo and apply them consistently: Colour Examples:

6. Visual Design: Make It Yours 2. Apply Brand Colours Or Custom theme in the view panel If you don’t already have a theme set, you can set the colours directly on a visual. By selecting Format Your Visual Icon and locate to the column dropdown. The categories dropdown allows you change each colour or select the colour to apply to all categories.

7. Visual Design: Make It Yours 2. Apply Brand Colours Enter your Hex value for your colour preference • Use these in: • Chart bars and lines • Card backgrounds • Slicer headers and buttons

8. Visual Design: Make It Yours • 3. Rounded Borders • In the Format pane, set border radius under “Shape” or “Visual Container.” • Rounded corners soften the layout and modernize the look. • Apply to cards, slicers, and charts for consistency.

9. P&L Dashboard Glow-Up: Brighter, Bolder, Better: The dashboard transforms from static tables into a sleek, branded, and interactive experience that turns financial data into clear, actionable insight.

10. Expense Visuals: Chart Choices That Clarify: • Horizontal Bar Chart: Total Expenses by Account • To build this visual, select the clustered bar chart and select the Total Expenses for the X-axis and Account for the Y-axis. • Why Choose a Horizontal Bar Chart: • Ideal for long category names like Audit & Accountancy Fees, Printing & Stationery, etc • Sort descending to highlight top spend areas – Marketing, Rent & Purchases

11. Expense Visuals: Chart Choices That Clarify: Horizontal Bar Chart: Total Expenses by Account Using tooltips can show exact values and percentages

12. Expense Visuals: Chart Choices That Clarify: • Column Chart: Administrative Costs by Month • To build this visual, select the clustered column chart and select the Date (Month) for the X-axis and Total Administrative Costs for the Y-axis. • Why Choose a Column Chart: • Reveals monthly trends and spikes - August stands out as the highest • Add data labels and consistent colouring for clarity • Consider conditional formatting to flag outliers

13. Expense Visuals: Chart Choices That Clarify: Column Chart: Administrative Costs by Month Add on: Using tooltips can show exact values and percentages

14. Expense Visuals: Chart Choices That Clarify: • Line Chart: Expense % of Revenue • To build this visual, select the clustered column chart and select the Date (Month) for the X-axis and Expenses % of Revenue (see later in the blog for a breakdown of the DAX) for the Y-axis. • Why Choose a Line Chart: • Tracks efficiency over time. • Plot months on the x-axis and percentage on the y-axis. • Highlight months like August (69.0%) where expenses exceed typical thresholds. • Add a benchmark line (e.g. 45%) for context.

15. Interactivity: Let Users ExploreClick one bar to filter the other charts

16. Edit Interactions: Filter vs Highlight In the above example we have the interaction set to filter, but it can also be set to highlighte.g. here is the same interactivity but changed to highlight, where the selected value highlights how much of the total it represents • To customize how visuals respond to slicers: • Go to Format → Edit Interactions • Choose: • Filter: updates visuals based on selection • Highlight: emphasizes selected data while showing full context • Use Filter for deep dives (e.g., isolating Marketing) and Highlight for comparative views.

17. The Final Output: A Dashboard That Delivers The complete dashboard brings expense data to life, highlighting cost drivers, monthly trends, and efficiency in one clear, interactive view.

18. Final Thoughts: • Transforming Tabular Data into Insightful Reporting • Simple setup unlocks rich, interactive dashboards • Clean visuals benefit businesses of all sizes • Built from Xero export—easily adaptable to other systems • Designed for real users: practical, clear, and impactful

19. Business Analytics Blog - Select DistinctCredit: elle.harrison@selectdistinct.co.uk If you have any questions on this or any other topics, please get in touch. Visit our Updated Blog