Budget vs actual, by department
Variance to plan for every cost centre, with drill-through to the transactions behind an overspend. Answers “where did the month go wrong, and who owns it?” See Power BI for finance.
See it before you brief it
Power BI dashboard examples, industry by industry
Browse Power BI dashboard examples by industry, see the decisions each one is built to support, and tell us which comes closest to what your team needs. We build your version on your data, from prepaid hours.
Representative dashboard — sample data
How to use this page
Start from the closest example, not a blank page
Most people who ask for a dashboard already know the decision they are trying to make and have no idea what the screen should look like. Working from an example fixes that in one conversation: you point at the layout that matches how you run the business, we adapt it to your data, and the scoping call stops being abstract.
Every visual here is a representative layout on sample data. Client work stays confidential, so nothing on this page is a real customer report. What is real is the structure — the metrics each view carries, the systems the data comes from, and how much of a prepaid block a first build typically consumes.
Examples on this page
- Budget vs actual
- Retail sales & stock
- Job costing & WIP
- Patient flow
- Utilization & realization
- ARR & churn
Try us risk-free for 4 hours
Buy a block of prepaid Flex hours and, if you're unhappy within the first 4 hours, we refund you in full — no questions asked. Hours are deducted only for work you've reviewed and approved, and they never expire.
Six starting points
The layouts teams ask for most
Each one is a real reporting pattern we build repeatedly, described by the question it answers rather than the charts it contains.
Retail sales and stock position
Trading performance by store, channel, and SKU next to stock cover and slow movers. Answers “what is selling, and what are we about to run out of?” See retail dashboards.
Job costing and WIP
Committed cost, change orders, and margin by job against the original estimate. Answers “which jobs are quietly losing money?” See construction job costing.
Patient flow and capacity
Referrals, wait times, throughput, and no-show rates by site and clinician. Answers “where is the bottleneck this week?” See healthcare reporting.
Utilization and realization
Billable hours, effective rate, and write-offs by person and client. Answers “are we busy, or are we profitable?” See professional services dashboards.
ARR, expansion, and churn
Recurring revenue split into new, expansion, contraction, and churn, with cohort retention. Answers “is growth real or is it churn we haven't seen yet?” See SaaS metrics dashboards.
What makes an example worth copying?
A good dashboard example is not a gallery of charts. It is evidence that somebody thought about the decision first: who opens this, how often, and what they do differently as a result. The layouts above each answer one recurring question for one named role, which is why they survive contact with a real business.
The weak examples you will find elsewhere share a pattern — twelve visuals competing for attention, no clear owner, and no action attached to any number. They demo well and get abandoned in a month. When we adapt an example for you, the first thing we cut is anything nobody has ever made a decision from.
Which example fits your data?
Fit is usually decided by your source systems rather than your industry. A distributor running everything through one ERP is a simpler build than a five-location practice with a separate scheduling system, even though the finished screens look similar. The table below maps each example to the systems it normally draws on and the realistic scope of a first build.
| Example | Question it answers | Typical data sources | Typical first build |
|---|---|---|---|
| Budget vs actual | Where are we against plan, and who owns the variance? | Accounting system (QuickBooks, Xero, Sage Intacct, NetSuite) plus a budget workbook | Fits a Starter block for a single entity |
| Retail sales & stock | What is selling, and what is about to run out? | POS or e-commerce platform, inventory, marketing analytics | Starter to Growth, depending on channel count |
| Job costing & WIP | Which jobs are losing money before they finish? | Project or field system plus the accounting ledger | Growth block is typical — cost coding drives the effort |
| Patient flow | Where is the capacity bottleneck this week? | Scheduling and practice-management extracts | Growth block; governed extracts, not live clinical systems |
| Utilization & realization | Are we busy, or actually profitable? | Time and billing, CRM, accounting | Fits a Starter block for a single practice |
| ARR & churn | Is growth real, or churn we have not seen yet? | Billing platform, CRM, product usage | Growth block — revenue definitions take the time |
How much does a dashboard like these cost?
Every build runs on prepaid Flex hours that never expire: Starter is 20 hours at $125/hr ($2,500), Growth is 40 hours at $115/hr ($4,600), and Power is 80 hours at $100/hr ($8,000). A focused first dashboard — one audience, one decision, a handful of sources — usually fits inside a Starter block, and we tell you the hours before work begins rather than after.
The variable that moves the number is rarely the visuals. It is how clean the underlying data is and how many definitions are contested. If three people in the business calculate revenue three ways, that conversation happens during the build, and it is worth the hours it takes. For market context beyond our own rates, see our breakdown of dashboard development cost ranges.
How do you turn an example into my dashboard?
You send the example that fits and the decisions you need it to support. We map your sources, confirm the definitions that matter, and reply with a scope estimate in hours. After approval, most first builds ship within 3–5 business days, published into your own workspace with scheduled refresh configured against Microsoft's data refresh guidance (opens in new tab).
Nothing is copied wholesale. The example sets the shape of the conversation; your model, your fields, and your business rules decide what actually gets built. If you want to see the layout craft behind these screens first, read our guide on how to design a Power BI dashboard.
Who this page is for
It is written for the owner, controller, or operations lead who has been asked to “get us a dashboard” and wants to arrive at the conversation with an opinion. If you already know your metrics and simply need senior hands to build it, go straight to custom dashboard development.
What every example includes
- A named audience and decision
- A governed semantic model beneath it
- Scheduled refresh, not manual exports
- Documentation your team can extend
- Full ownership, in your workspace
3–5
business days, typical
Prepaid
hours, never expire
You
own everything
Most first dashboards fit inside one Flex block, and hours deduct only for work you approve. See Flex pricing.
How it works
From “that one” to your own dashboard
- 1
Pick the closest fit
Tell us which example matches how you run the business and what you would change about it. Screenshots of what you use today help more than a spec document.
- 2
We scope it in hours
We map your sources, flag the definitions that need a decision, and send an estimate in hours. Nothing is billed until you approve it.
- 3
Build, refresh, hand over
A senior US-based engineer builds it on your data, sets scheduled refresh, and publishes to your workspace with documentation you own.
Representative perspective
We had been describing what we wanted in words for months. Pointing at a layout and saying “that, but with our regions” got us to a scoped build in a single call.Controller, multi-site services business
Representative perspective
The useful part was being told which visuals to drop. We asked for fourteen and shipped six, and the six actually get opened on Monday mornings.Operations director, regional distributor
Tell us which example is closest and we'll scope your version
Send the layout that fits and the decisions it needs to support. We'll reply with the hours it takes — and if the honest answer is that you need something simpler, we'll say so.
FAQ
Questions about these examples
No. Every visual on this page is a representative layout built on sample data, and it is labelled as such. Client work is confidential and we will not publish it, even anonymised. What the examples show honestly is structure: the questions a dashboard answers, the sources behind it, and how a first build is usually scoped.
Yes, and that is the usual starting point. Pick the example closest to your situation, tell us which decisions you need it to support, and we scope the build in hours before any work starts. Your version is built on your data and your definitions, not copied from a template.
You buy prepaid Flex hours: Starter 20 hours at $125/hr ($2,500), Growth 40 hours at $115/hr ($4,600), or Power 80 hours at $100/hr ($8,000). A focused first dashboard usually fits inside a Starter block. Every task is scoped and approved before hours are deducted.
Access to the source systems, one person who can confirm business definitions, and a short list of the decisions the dashboard should support. Most delays come from definitions rather than data, so agreeing what counts as revenue or an active customer early keeps the build moving.
Yes. You own the report, the semantic model, and the documentation outright, published into your own Power BI workspace. There is no licence to us, no hosting lock-in, and your team is free to extend the work or hand it to another consultant later.
Where to go next
If one of these examples is close, the next step is custom dashboard development. If the reports already exist but nobody trusts them, start with a Power BI health check or our report redesign service instead. Where the numbers come from an accounting system, the QuickBooks and Xero dashboard pages show how those connections work, and teams still living in spreadsheets should read migration to Power BI. To see the timeline behind a build, see how long a Power BI dashboard takes. Every task is scoped before work begins from your prepaid block of senior-led hours — no project minimums, no change-order surprises, and hours are deducted only for work you approve.
Book a free demo
Get senior Power BI help, on demand
Tell us the task. We scope it, you approve, and a senior consultant delivers — typically in 3–5 business days. Prepaid hours that never expire.
- Prepaid hours from $100/hour — and they never expire
- Senior-led delivery — 20+ years on the Microsoft platform
- Typical 3–5 business day turnaround
- Full refund if you’re unhappy in your first 4 hours
The fastest way to reach us is the form — tell us the task and we'll reply within one business day.