Business intelligence

What it means

Business intelligence is the set of tools and practices that turn operational data into something you can decide on. Data is collected from the books, CRM, the warehouse and the webshop, unified, and shown in views that a non-accountant can read.

It differs from ordinary reporting in that it does not answer one question from a fixed template but lets you keep asking: why did margin fall, in which country, on which product, and since when.

BI mostly looks back and at the present: what happened, where and why. Forecasting the future from data is a separate discipline, and although artificial intelligence tools have brought it within reach of smaller firms, without a reliable history they have nothing to work from. Good BI is therefore a precondition for forecasting, not a substitute for it.

How it works in practice

A small company does not need a data warehouse. Well-designed sub-accounts in the books plus a monthly dashboard over an export, showing five to seven KPIs, is enough.

BI only earns its place once the input data is reliable. A misposted document does not improve inside a handsome chart - it just makes a bad decision easier to sell.

When BI is connected to the books we prepare an account mapping: which synthetic and sub-accounts make up revenue, which overheads, and which stay out of the reports. When the chart of accounts changes or a new cost centre appears, the mapping has to be updated, or the reports quietly stop agreeing with the books and nobody notices at once.

What to watch out for

BI projects usually fail for a non-technical reason. Three conflicting versions of revenue appear - from the webshop, from CRM and from the books - because nobody defined what exactly is counted and as of which date. The metric definition comes before the tool.

The second mistake is forgetting about access. A report with margins by customer or payroll by department is easily shared by link and, over time, seen by people who should not see it. A BI tool needs the same rules as the accounting system: who sees which data, and for payroll the protection of personal data under GDPR.