When financial insight arrives too late, so do your strategic decisions
You’re about to make a call that could shape your next quarter, maybe even your year.
Whether you’re a construction firm deciding whether to take on a bigger project, or a professional services firm thinking about hiring another senior consultant, you need to know the numbers stack up.
The trouble is that most decisions are made using data that’s already out of date.
Revenue looks good. The bank balance seems healthy. But you know things have already moved.
Projects overrun. Costs creep up. That big invoice still hasn’t been paid.
So you trust your instinct and make the call anyway.
Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it doesn’t. And by the time you find out, it’s too late to course correct.
That’s not poor management. It’s the reality of running a business with reporting that lags weeks behind what’s actually happening.
At Avant Advisory, we help business owners change that.
By building real-time financial reporting systems that turn guesswork into clarity, you can make faster, smarter decisions with confidence.
Why business owners need live data
Most management teams make decisions based on incomplete or stale information. You might know your total revenue, but do you know:
- Which clients are profitable?
- Which projects are running over budget?
- Where your cash will be in three months?
Without real-time data, problems compound before you spot them. A project runs 20% over budget before anyone notices. Cash tightens unexpectedly because reports are six weeks behind. You lose the chance to act before it’s too late.
Real-time reporting brings those issues into view early enough to fix them.
What difference does real-time financial reporting make?
Traditional reporting tells you what happened last month.
Real-time reporting shows you what’s happening right now.
- You can see today’s cash flow, not wait for month-end.
- You can track project costs as they build, not once invoices arrive.
- You can spot margin drift as it happens, not six weeks later.
The difference is timing.
Outdated numbers lead to guesswork. Current numbers lead to confident decisions.
When you have that clarity, the next question is what your reporting should tell you. That’s where the right setup makes all the difference.
What effective reporting should tell you
Effective reporting answers the questions that drive your decisions:
- Which clients make us money? Which ones drain resources?
- Are we on track to hit our targets this quarter?
- Can we afford to hire right now?
- Which projects are profitable, and which are bleeding margin?
- Where is our cash going?
Standard reports show you totals and categories. Real-time dashboards show the story behind them: profitability by client, costs by project, margin trends across teams or locations.
The data already exists. It just needs to be visible.
When those answers still aren’t clear, it’s a sign there are gaps in your current setup.
How to find the gaps in your current reporting
Before you can fix reporting, you need to know where the gaps are and what’s missing.
Ask yourself:
- What do we check before approving spend or hiring?
- What would we like to know before taking on a new project?
- Where does our data currently live: accounting software, project management tools, or spreadsheets?
Every spreadsheet in your business represents a workaround. Someone needed insight that wasn’t available elsewhere. Those workarounds are a roadmap to the gaps.
A proper audit maps how decisions are made against where data sits. It shows where information exists but isn’t visible, where manual processes slow you down, and where reports arrive too late to be useful.
How do you design a reporting solution that works?
Once you understand the gaps, you can design reporting that fills them.
This isn’t about picking a template and hoping it fits. Every business operates differently.
- A construction firm needs to track costs by project and see which jobs are profitable.
- A professional services firm needs billable hours, recovery rates, and client profitability.
- A property business needs consolidated reporting across multiple entities.
Good design starts with the questions you need answered. Then it works backwards to structure your data properly.
That means:
- Configuring your chart of accounts so costs can be tracked meaningfully
- Setting up categories that match how your business works.
- Ensuring data flows seamlessly from operational systems into reporting without manual intervention.
If you have ten Excel spreadsheets doing different calculations, a proper solution works out how to automate those calculations and bring them into one place.
The design phase produces a blueprint.
- Here’s what your reporting will show.
- Here’s how the data will flow.
- Here’s what gets automated and what stays manual.
- Here’s where the gaps in your current system get filled.
The technology behind real-time insight
This is where Power BI comes in.
Power BI connects your systems and turns data into clear, visual dashboards so you see charts and trends that update automatically.
No waiting for manual reports. No digging through spreadsheets. Just live data when you need it.
It connects to your accounting software, project tools, and spreadsheets, consolidating everything into one view.
You can track cash flow, monitor project costs, and compare performance across clients, teams, or sites.
But the key bit is that Power BI is only as good as the design behind it.
We build bespoke Power BI solutions around your business model, ensuring every number answers a meaningful question, not just a pretty graph.
Implementation and support
Building real-time reporting isn’t just about technology. It’s about getting the setup right, connecting systems, configuring calculations, and training your team so they can use dashboards confidently.
Most businesses could technically do parts of this themselves, but it’s time-consuming and easy to get wrong. Our team has built dozens of these systems before, and has extensive Power BI knowledge, so we know how to deliver fast, reliable results and avoid hidden pitfalls.
Once live, your dashboards update automatically.
You’ll use them regularly, checking cash flow before approving spend, reviewing project costs before client meetings, and tracking profitability before planning next quarter.
Real-time data transforms tax planning too
Tax planning only works when you know your numbers early enough to act.
Waiting until year-end limits your options.
With real-time data, you can see profits mid-year, model scenarios, and plan pension contributions, capital expenditure, or dividends while there’s still time.
Tax planning shifts from reactive to proactive. From “what happened” to “what can we do now.”
You can read more about our Tax Wise service where we go into more detail about strategic tax planning with real-time information.
Is this only for large businesses?
Real-time reporting works at any scale, but the complexity varies.
Micro businesses might start with customised reports in their accounting software. Bigger or more complex businesses benefit from full Power BI implementation.
The deciding factor isn’t size. What matters is whether you’re making decisions without the information you need. If you’re constantly wondering about your numbers, or if decisions feel like guesswork, real-time reporting will help.
Where do I start?
Start by identifying what you don’t know.
- What would help you make faster, better decisions?
- Where do you currently rely on instinct or incomplete information?
Those gaps are where real-time reporting adds value, not by creating new data but by making the right data visible and actionable.
If you’re ready to move from guesswork to visibility, Avant Advisory can help.
We design and implement bespoke real-time reporting systems powered by Power BI, giving you control, clarity, and confidence in every decision.
To find out what real-time visibility could mean for your business, get in touch, and we’ll walk you through the next step.