Salford firms run on performance figures. A legal practice at Salford Quays tracks matters, fee earner utilisation and unbilled time; a professional services team near MediaCityUK tracks projects and recovery rates. The data is there, but it's spread across practice management, finance and spreadsheets.
In short, a Power BI consultant builds one trusted data model over those systems and designs a small number of dashboards that answer the questions your partners and managers actually ask.
What should a Power BI dashboard actually show?
Fewer things than most people expect. The best dashboards answer a small number of questions well, such as whether you're on target and where the exceptions are. Everything else belongs in a drill-down, not on the front page. We design reports around the question they exist to answer, working with the people who'll use them, so the result fits on one page and gets opened every week.
Why does the data model matter so much?
Because almost every slow or contradictory report traces back to the data model. A clean star schema, with measures defined once, makes reports fast and consistent, and it makes the next person's job easier. A rushed model does the opposite, and the cost shows up months later as figures that don't agree with the ledger.
What do we build for Salford firms?
Performance reporting
Dashboards that bring matter progress, response times and outcomes into one place, drawing on the systems you already use. If those systems don't yet share data, our system integration work in Salford can join them up first.
Finance and management reporting
Reports that tie back to your accounts, so leadership sees the same numbers as finance. The model supports row-level security, so people only see what they should.
Rescuing existing Power BI work
If you already have reports that are slow or ignored, we audit them and produce a prioritised plan. Sometimes that means focused repairs and sometimes a planned rebuild, and we'll tell you honestly what's worth keeping.
How does a Power BI engagement work?
1. Discovery
A fixed-price discovery, usually a week, working with the people who need the reports.
2. Specification and fixed price
A written specification covering the model, reports, refresh and security, with a fixed price to build.
3. Build in two-week iterations
Working dashboards in your tenant from the second sprint, so you can react to real reports on real data.
4. Hand-over and training
We deploy through separate test and live environments, then train your team so they can extend what we've built.
How do you keep our data secure?
All data stays inside UK or EU Microsoft regions, and we work to UK GDPR. Mutual NDAs are standard, and we use named accounts with the minimum access required. For firms handling client-confidential information, row-level security means each team only sees the matters and figures relevant to them.
Talk to us about your reporting
If your reporting is a monthly scramble, or your existing Power BI work has lost people's trust, send a short note through the contact form. We'll reply within one working day with an honest first reaction and a sensible next step. You can also read about our wider Power BI consultancy, see how we help teams in Bolton and Manchester, or read how to build Power BI dashboards people actually use.
Whether you're at Salford Quays or out in Eccles, the first step is a conversation about which decisions you want your data to support.