EBITDA bridges partners trust
Budget-to-actual and year-over-year bridges decomposed into the drivers you define — volume, price, mix, cost inflation, one-offs, and add-backs — so the conversation starts with why, not whether the number is right.
Operating-partner performance management
Private equity KPI dashboard for operating partners, not fund reporting
A private equity KPI dashboard built for the people managing day-to-day portfolio company performance — EBITDA bridges, working capital trends, revenue growth decomposition, and value creation plan milestones on one governed Power BI model. Not the DPI and TVPI pack that goes to limited partners. Senior-led, US-based, typically delivered in 3–5 business days.
Representative dashboard — sample data
The operating layer
Managing the business, not reporting the fund
Operating partners and portfolio-company CFOs need a different dashboard than the one limited partners read. Fund-level reporting answers “what did the fund return?” — DPI, RVPI, TVPI, capital calls and distributions. The operating layer answers “why did EBITDA miss?” and “is the value creation plan on track?” — the levers the operating partner actually pulls between board meetings. Our private equity portfolio reporting page covers the fund-level pack; this page is for the people driving performance inside each company.
We build one governed Power BI model per portfolio — each company’s ledger and operating systems mapped to a common KPI layer — so the EBITDA bridge, the working capital trend, and the milestone tracker are simply current. No one assembles a slide deck to explain why two companies measure the same thing differently.
What we build for operating partners
- EBITDA bridges (budget to actual)
- Working capital trends
- Revenue growth decomposition
- Value creation plan milestones
- Margin and cost drivers
- Per-company and cross-portfolio views
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, there’s no project minimum, and your banked hours never expire.
What the dashboard covers
Operating metrics that drive value creation
The KPIs operating partners review weekly, surfaced from each company’s systems on one set of definitions.
Working capital under control
Days sales outstanding, days payable, and inventory days trended per company and benchmarked across the portfolio, so a working capital build that precedes a covenant conversation shows up as a trend, not a surprise.
Value creation plan tracking
Milestones from the 100-day plan through hold-period initiatives — pricing, cost reduction, new customer segment, platform integration — tracked against plan with the source data behind each status visible.
Revenue growth decomposition
Top-line growth broken into new logo, expansion, and price; organic versus acquired; recurring versus one-time — the decomposition operating partners need to assess quality of revenue, not just direction.
Margin and cost drivers
Gross margin by product, service line, or customer segment, with cost-of-goods and operating-expense trends isolated so margin erosion from one input or one customer concentration is visible before it hits the bottom line.
What KPIs belong in an operating-partner dashboard?
The right KPIs depend on the deal thesis, but the pattern is consistent across lower-middle-market and middle-market portfolios: a financial layer (EBITDA, working capital, cash), a growth layer (revenue decomposition, pipeline, customer metrics), and a plan layer (milestone progress, initiative ROI). The table below shows the categories operating partners typically request, with the questions each answers.
| KPI category | Measures | Question it answers |
|---|---|---|
| EBITDA & profitability | EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, margin, bridge from budget and prior year | Why did profitability miss, and which driver moved it? |
| Working capital | DSO, DPO, DIO, net working capital, cash conversion cycle | Is cash trapped in receivables or inventory, and is it getting worse? |
| Revenue growth | New logo, expansion, price uplift, churn, organic vs acquired, recurring vs one-time | Is growth organic and recurring, or dependent on acquisitions and one-time deals? |
| Value creation plan | Milestone status, initiative ROI, 100-day-plan progress, hold-period targets vs actual | Is the plan on track, and which initiatives are behind? |
| Margin & cost drivers | Gross margin by segment, COGS inflation, SG&A as % of revenue, headcount cost | Where is margin eroding, and is it controllable? |
| Customer & pipeline | Pipeline value, win rate, customer concentration, NRR, logo count | Is the forward-looking revenue base healthy and diversified? |
How Power BI connects to portfolio company systems
Each portfolio company keeps its own systems. Nothing is re-platformed. We connect Power BI to whatever each company runs — QuickBooks, NetSuite, Sage Intacct, Business Central for the ledger; Salesforce, HubSpot, or another CRM for pipeline; the ERP or operations platform behind the thesis-specific KPI — and map every source to one common KPI definition. Microsoft documents the available Power BI data source connectors (opens in new tab), and for anything not on that list, the on-premises data gateway or a scheduled extract does the job.
The connection method for each company is confirmed in the scope estimate before any hours are used. Scheduled refresh in the Power BI service keeps the dashboard current without anyone exporting a file. Row-level security scopes each user to their own company or role, so a portfolio-company CFO sees their own metrics while the operating partner sees the cross-portfolio view.
Dashboard layout: what goes where
A well-structured operating-partner dashboard typically has three or four pages, each answering a distinct question. The overview page carries the headline KPIs — EBITDA, revenue, working capital — with the bridge and trend. The drill-through pages go into the drivers behind each headline: revenue decomposition, margin by segment, working capital components. The plan page tracks value creation milestones against the 100-day and hold-period targets. A board reporting dashboard often borrows the same underlying model, filtered to the board’s view.
What does it cost, and how fast?
You buy prepaid Flex hours that never expire: Starter 20h at $125/hr ($2,500), Growth 40h at $115/hr ($4,600), or Power 80h at $100/hr ($8,000). A first KPI dashboard covering one or two portfolio companies typically starts inside one block, expanding company by company from banked hours, and each scoped task ships in 3–5 business days once approved.
Traditional BI consultancies quote operating dashboards as a multi-month engagement. Flex Support is the opposite: $100–125/hr, no minimums, hours that never expire, and a start this week — useful when a newly acquired company needs its dashboard before the first board meeting. See how prepaid Flex hours work.
Who is this for?
Operating partners and value-creation leads at lower-middle-market and middle-market funds, portfolio-company CFOs who report into the fund, and the deal team members who track plan progress between board meetings — typically across three to twenty portfolio companies. If you are a fractional CFO managing reporting across several unrelated clients, the model is the same but the engagement structure differs.
The underlying financial model — budget vs actual, cash, covenant tracking — is shared with our Power BI for finance page. Contact is form-only — tell us the portfolio size, the systems in play, and the KPIs that matter, and we’ll reply with a scope estimate within one business day.
Deliverables operating partners ask for
- EBITDA bridges per company
- Working capital trend dashboard
- Revenue growth decomposition
- Value creation plan milestone tracker
- Row-level security per company & role
3–5
business days, typical
Prepaid
hours, never expire
You
own everything
A first KPI dashboard usually starts inside one Flex block, and hours deduct only for work you approve. See Flex pricing →
How it works
From portfolio company systems to one governed dashboard
- 1
Send your request
Tell us the portfolio — how many companies, which accounting and operating systems, and which KPIs the plan requires. We reply with a scope and hours estimate, including the connection method per company, before any work begins.
- 2
We map & build
A senior US-based engineer maps each company’s ledger and operating systems to the common KPI layer, builds the EBITDA bridges, working capital trends, revenue decomposition, and plan tracker, and reconciles every number back to source — typically 3–5 business days per scoped task.
- 3
Publish & maintain
We publish to your tenant with row-level security per company and role, set scheduled refresh, and hand over models and documentation. You own everything; we keep it healthy from your banked hours.
Representative perspective
We used to spend the week before each board meeting assembling the EBITDA bridge and the working capital narrative by hand. Now the dashboard is current at close, and the conversation is about what to do, not whether the number is right.Operating partner, middle-market PE fund
Representative perspective
As a portfolio-company CFO, having the value creation milestones update automatically from our systems meant I stopped producing a second set of slides for the operating partner. The dashboard is the plan.CFO, PE-backed services company
Put portfolio company performance on one set of numbers
Tell us which KPIs matter, how many companies, and what systems they run. We’ll scope the task and tell you the hours before any work begins — drawn from prepaid Flex hours that never expire, with no project minimums and no obligation.
FAQ
Questions from operating partners and CFOs
Fund-level reporting covers DPI, RVPI, TVPI, capital calls and distributions — the numbers that go to limited partners. This page is about the operating layer underneath: EBITDA, working capital, revenue growth, and value creation plan milestones at the portfolio-company level. If you need the LP-facing pack, see our private equity portfolio reporting page instead.
Whatever each company runs — QuickBooks, NetSuite, Sage Intacct, Business Central for the ledger, plus the CRM, ERP, and operating systems behind each thesis metric. Nothing is re-platformed; we map each system to one common KPI layer so the dashboard is comparable across the portfolio.
Yes. Once the source systems feed the model on scheduled refresh, the milestone tracker — pricing initiative, cost reduction, new customer segment, platform integration — updates without anyone touching a spreadsheet. Operating partners review progress against plan rather than chasing status emails.
Row-level security controls access per company and role. A portfolio-company CFO sees their own operating metrics; the operating partner sees the cross-portfolio view; the deal team sees bridges and plan progress. One model, governed views.
Prepaid Flex hours that never expire — Starter 20h for $2,500, Growth 40h for $4,600, or Power 80h for $8,000. A first KPI dashboard covering one portfolio company typically fits inside one block, every task is quoted in hours before work begins, and there is a full refund if you are unhappy within the first four hours.
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.