Power BI implementation: how long it takes and what your company needs to provide

The most common question before we start: how long will it take, and how much of our people’s time will it use up? The answer depends on which route you take.

Ready-built package: a few days

If you use Rivilė or Finvalda, the reports are already built. The work consists of connecting your data and adapting the reports to your structure.

What we need from you: read access to the database, a decision on licences and one person who can answer questions about how your accounting is set up. In practice, that amounts to a few hours of your employee’s time across the whole implementation.

Bespoke project: weeks

When data comes from several systems or you need specific metrics, the project runs in stages:

1. Understanding your needs. What decisions you want to make and which figures you are missing to make them. This stage is often the most important, as it determines whether the reports will actually be used.

2. Reviewing data sources. We assess where the data sits and what state it is in. This is often where it emerges that some of the data needs tidying up at source.

3. Data architecture and ETL. We collect, clean and combine the data into a single, coherent model.

4. Report development. We build the reports around the agreed metrics.

5. Deployment and training. Automatic refresh, access permissions and training for your team.

The timeline depends on the number of sources and the state of the data, ranging from a couple of weeks to several months for larger projects.

What most often causes delays

In our experience, the longest part is not the development but the state of the data at source. If products are entered inconsistently, departments are labelled in different ways and some transactions are recorded “free-form”, the reports will show exactly that, just more attractively.

The second common cause is undefined metrics. When a company has not agreed what exactly counts as a “sale” or how margin is calculated, the report has to be reworked.

That is why a worthwhile investment, even before the project starts, is to agree on a few key definitions.

What we need from your company throughout the process

• one contact person who understands your accounting and operations;
• a decision on access to the data;
• a few hours for reviews and feedback.

No technical knowledge is required; that is our part of the job.

What the first week looks like with a ready-built package

To make it more concrete, here is a typical sequence when Rivilė or Finvalda is used:

• Day 1. Read access to the database is granted. We review how the data is organised and flag areas that would later distort the reports.
• Days 2–3. The reports are adapted to your departments, product groups and metric definitions.
• Day 4. Automatic refresh and access permissions are set up, determining who sees which data.
• Day 5. A review together with you: we walk through the reports, explain each metric and adjust anything that does not match the way you work.

In practice, only a few hours are needed from your side, mostly on the first and last days.

When the real benefits appear after implementation

The reports work from day one, but the benefits arrive in two stages.

The first is immediate: manual report preparation disappears and you gain a single source of figures that nobody argues over any more.

The second comes after two to three months, once enough data has built up for comparisons. Only then do trends become visible: that one cost line is growing, that one department’s margin is consistently lower, that certain customers are quietly cutting back their purchases.

So judging the solution after the first month is premature. A realistic picture emerges after a quarter.

Three things that speed up implementation

In our experience, the difference between “a few days” and “a few weeks” usually comes down to the company’s side:

• A single decision-maker. When four people sign off the reports at different times, the review cycle drags on longer than the work itself.
• Definitions agreed in advance. What counts as a sale, how margin is calculated, and whether returns reduce turnover.
• A realistic first phase. Five reports you will genuinely use can be launched quickly. Thirty cannot.

Where to start

If you want quick results, start with a ready-built package: Rivilė, Finvalda or R-Keeper for restaurants. Bespoke solutions and consultancy are described on our Power BI implementation page.