Almost every Bolton SME we meet has the same Power BI story. Someone in finance built a few reports last year, they were impressive at first, then more sources got bolted on, the refreshes started failing, the numbers stopped matching the ones in Sage, and gradually everyone went back to running the business out of spreadsheets. The problem isn't Power BI — it's that the data model was never properly designed, and a tool that punishes shortcuts was used in a hurry.
We're a Bolton-based Power BI consultancy that does it the other way round. Discovery first, then a clean star-schema data model, then DAX measures written once and reused across every report, then dashboards designed for the people actually making decisions — not for whoever built them. Same tool. Completely different outcome.
Power BI services we offer
Data modelling and semantic layers
Almost every Power BI performance and accuracy problem traces back to the data model. We design proper star schemas with conformed dimensions, sensible granularity, and clearly defined measures, so your reports are fast, consistent and easy for the next person to extend. We build the model in Power BI itself, in Azure Analysis Services, or as a Microsoft Fabric semantic model — whichever fits your scale.
DAX measures and Power Query optimisation
DAX is the difference between a Power BI estate that's a joy to work with and one that quietly grinds to a halt. We write measures that are correct, fast, consistent across reports, and readable by the next developer. Where existing measures are slow or wrong, we refactor them — often turning multi-minute renders into sub-second ones without changing what the business sees.
Dashboards and reports for real decisions
We design reports around the question they're meant to answer, not around what looks impressive in a screenshot. Leadership dashboards that fit on one page, operations reports that surface exceptions instead of dumping data, finance reports that tie back to the ledger to the penny. Designed in collaboration with the people who'll actually use them.
Refresh pipelines, gateways and security
We set up reliable refresh from on-premise databases via the Power BI gateway, from cloud sources direct, and from awkward sources via custom connectors or staged data warehouses. Row-level security is configured properly so people only see the data they should — important when finance and operations are looking at the same report.
Rescuing existing Power BI estates
A lot of our work is fixing what's already there. We audit your existing workspaces, identify the broken bits — duplicated measures, models nobody understands, reports that quietly contradict each other — and produce a prioritised plan to get the estate back to a state your business actually trusts. Sometimes that's a few weeks of focused work; sometimes it's a planned rebuild on top of the data sources you already have. Either way, we'll tell you honestly what's worth keeping.
How a Power BI engagement works
We always start with a fixed-price discovery — usually one week. We sit with the people who actually need the reports (finance, ops, sales, leadership), find out what decisions they're trying to make, and map the data sources that can answer those questions. The output is a written specification: the data model, the measures, the reports, the refresh strategy, the security model, and a fixed price to build it.
Build typically runs in two-week iterations, with working dashboards in your tenant from the second sprint onwards. You see real reports against real data early, comment on them in plain English, and steer the priorities as the picture sharpens. We deploy through proper environments — dev, test, production — so nobody is editing reports the CFO is reading.
Why a local Bolton Power BI consultant?
Power BI projects are won and lost in workshops with finance, operations and leadership. Being able to come on-site for a half-day across Bolton, Bury, Wigan, Salford or Manchester is what turns a generic dashboard into one your team actually trusts. We do that as standard, alongside on-site Power BI training so your internal users can extend the model themselves once we hand over.
Everything stays inside UK or EU Microsoft regions. We work to UK GDPR, sign mutual NDAs as standard, and use named Microsoft Entra accounts with the minimum access required.
Talk to a Bolton Power BI consultant
If your business is still being run from spreadsheets, or your existing Power BI estate has lost the room's trust, send a short note through the contact form. We'll come back within one working day with an honest first reaction and a sensible next step — usually a short discovery rather than a big-bang rebuild.