Our client needed a solution that went beyond just displaying the P&L statement – it had to empower full, independent financial management without a dedicated IT department. This meant the P&L statement structure needed to be fully dynamic, and give users the ability to customize it on the fly.

Context & Starting Point

A leading publishing and literature distribution company was seeking a clear, accurate, and flexible solution to view its financial performance.
Their existing approach relied on exporting data from the accounting system and managing it in Excel manually. This process was highly time-consuming, error-prone, and too slow, leaving the management with delayed insights.

Our goal was to create a modern financial reporting system that would deliver up-to-date P&L statements and precise financial indicators at any time.
The company needed a tool that would provide a comprehensive view of the business – across time periods, teams, products, accounts, and suppliers –allowing for quick comparisons between the plan and past performance.

Project Challenges & Goals

Our client needed a solution that went beyond just displaying the P&L statement – it had to empower full, independent financial management without a dedicated IT department.
This meant the P&L statement structure needed to be fully dynamic, and give users the ability to customize it on the fly.

The main project goals consisted in:

• delivering a clear, flexible P&L statement view, with the option of a detailed breakdown by teams, products, accounts, and suppliers;
• enabling users to modify the P&L statement structure and calculations independently, without IT support;
• displaying data at different levels – absolute, relative, year-on-year, YTD and LY;
• enabling drill-down to the level of accounts, products or specific transactions;
• enabling the update of plans, which will be reflected automatically in the reports.

We aimed to give the leadership an accurate, up-to-date view of the company’s financial performance – anytime, anywhere, without the need to wait for month-end reports.

Solution

Based on the said requirements, we created a financial BI solution, featuring a reporting layer in Power BI connected to a data warehouse on the Microsoft Azure platform.
The data warehouse pulls data from the accounting system – journal entries, the general ledger, and master data for individual teams, products, suppliers, and other levels.
All data is consolidated and unified into a single data model, which forms the basis for the compilation of the P&L statement and its analysis.

The structure of the P&L statement is defined in a separate configuration table. A financial analyst can simply:

• modify the structure of the P&L statement;
• add or remove rows;
• modify formulas for calculating individual items;
• change the order or regroup data.

Any change to the P&L statement structure is immediately reflected in the Power BI reports – no IT intervention or new version of the document is required.
This gives the finance team full control over how the P&L statement is calculated and displayed.

Our solution also includes the ability to update the P&L plan. Planned values are stored in the data warehouse and automatically processed by Power BI, enabling effortless comparisons between actuals and the plan, year-on-year analysis, YTD and LY comparisons, both in absolute and relative values.

The report offers multiple perspectives, including:

• comprehensive overview of the entire company;
• detailed analysis by department;
• drill-down to the level of a specific account from the accounting journal;
• views by product and supplier;
• year-on-year comparison in absolute values and in %;
• YTD view of the data, including year-on-year comparisons in absolute values and in %;
• comparison of actuals vs. plan, both in absolute and relative values in %.

Results

With the new solution in place, the company gained a precise and reliable tool for managing its financial performance.
The P&L statement, which once took days to prepare, is now instantly available to authorized users and always reflects the latest accounting data.

The finance team has full control over the P&L structure and calculations, with overall insight into how each metric is defined and computed.
With the drill-down capability, analysts can instantly explore the detailed breakdown of costs and revenues, identify the root causes of variances, and uncover opportunities for improvement.

Plan vs. actual comparisons are now automatic and available in multiple formats
– absolute, relative, year-on-year, YTD, and LY.
The company leadership benefits from a single, unified environment that provides a complete overview of business performance – historical, current, and forecasted.

By implementing this BI solution, the company eliminated manual spreadsheet work, reduced errors, and significantly accelerated reporting process.
Instead of processing data, the finance team can now focus on what truly matters: interpreting insights and driving strategic decisions.

What are the Practical Implications?

A modern financial reporting with Power BI represents a fundamental shift for businesses – from static reports to live performance management.
Companies that have relied on manual data processing can now gain:

• immediate overview of the financial management;
• the ability to manage reports without depending on IT;
• more accurate analysis and prediction;
• time savings and greater data certainty.

A real-time P&L reporting is no longer a vision. It’s a practical, scalable reality powered by Power BI and modern Microsoft Azure architecture.

As the company’s CFO said:
“Preparing the P&L used to take us days. Now, it’s always available, exactly the way we need it.”

Key Benefits

a dynamic P&L statement structure managed by users;

the ability to modify calculations and hierarchy without IT support;

a detailed drill-down to the level of the accounting journal;

plan vs. actuals, year-on-year, YTD and LY comparisons.

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Conclusion

With Power BI reporting, the company shifted from manual data processing to a modern, automated financial management.

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‍Client:

Grada Publishing, a.s.

Specialisation:

Publishing and book distribution

Services Provided:

Financial reporting with Power BI, DWH and Azure services

Conclusion

The implementation of financial reporting in Power BI enabled the company to transition from manual data processing to modern, automated financial management.