Live Finance Dashboard for a Group of Companies
Industry: Professional Services Group · Location: Melbourne · Timeline: 6 weeks · Outcome: Month-end close cut from 10 days to 3.
The Problem
A group of four operating companies closed their books ten days after month-end. Each entity ran its own Xero file, and the group financial controller spent the first week of every month manually pulling reports, converting them into a master Excel workbook, and reconciling intercompany loans. The board received numbers that were already 15 days old by the time they saw them.
What We Did
We built a cloud data warehouse on AWS that pulls from all four Xero entities every hour, consolidates intercompany eliminations automatically, and feeds a live Power BI dashboard. The group financial controller now sees revenue, gross margin, and cash position across all four entities at any time. The board log in themselves instead of waiting for a PDF pack.
The Result
Month-end close dropped from ten days to three. The financial controller reclaimed about five working days a month. The board now asks "what does this look like today?" instead of "what did it look like last month?" — which changes the quality of decisions they make.
Consolidation challenges
The hardest part was not building the dashboard — it was cleaning the four Xero files so they lined up. Each entity had been set up independently over the years, with different chart-of-accounts mappings, inconsistent customer naming, and intercompany loans booked in ways that did not quite balance. We spent two weeks on data cleanup before the first dashboard went live.
Once the source data was clean, the pipeline itself was straightforward: Xero's API feeds a cloud data warehouse every hour, a scheduled job runs the intercompany eliminations, and Power BI reads the consolidated view. The group financial controller now logs in any time and sees the numbers, instead of waiting for a monthly PDF.
Closing your books later than you would like?
Book a call. We will show you how to consolidate multiple entities into one live dashboard.
Book a Free ConsultationFrequently Asked Questions
Can you consolidate multiple entities into one view?
Yes. A cloud data warehouse pulls from every entity every hour, applies intercompany eliminations automatically, and feeds a live Power BI dashboard. The group financial controller sees revenue, margin and cash across all entities at any time.
How much faster can month-end close get?
In this project, month-end close dropped from ten days to three, and the financial controller reclaimed about five working days a month. The board moved from monthly PDFs to live numbers.
Do we need clean data before we start?
No — cleaning the source data is part of the job. Once the data is clean, the pipeline itself is straightforward: hourly pulls, automated eliminations, and a consolidated view the whole board can trust.