You've already decided to make the jump to Power BI, but the question that comes right after often goes unanswered: which dashboard do I start with? With enough data to build almost anything, it's easy to get stuck trying to build the perfect report from day one. Here are the three we recommend as a starting point for most SMEs using Business Central, and why in that order.

1. Sales: what's selling, to whom, and at what margin

This is almost always the first one, because it's where the benefit shows up soonest. A basic sales dashboard should answer, at a glance:

  • This month's sales versus the same month last year.
  • The customers buying the most, and the ones who've cut back — this last one is almost never spotted in time without a dashboard, because nobody manually checks whether a regular customer has been gradually buying less.
  • Margin by product or product family, not just amount invoiced: selling a lot of something with a thin margin can dress up a month that actually didn't go well.

2. Cash flow: what you're going to collect and what you're going to pay

The second most common one, because it solves a very specific anxiety: knowing whether you'll have liquidity in the coming weeks without having to ask accounts. A good cash-flow dashboard shows:

  • Outstanding invoices, with ageing — to spot late payments before they become a serious problem.
  • Outstanding payments to suppliers, by due date.
  • A simple 30-60-90 day balance projection, combining the above.

3. Stock: what you have, what moves, and what's sitting still

The third one is usually the one that saves the most money in the medium term, even though it comes after the other two. It answers questions that almost never get looked at regularly in a spreadsheet:

  • Which items haven't moved in months (tied-up capital nobody's keeping an eye on).
  • Which references turn over so fast they're at risk of running out of stock.
  • Total inventory valuation, to cross-reference against the cash-flow dashboard if you need financing for it.

Why this order and not another

It's not a fixed rule, but it follows a logic: sales is where value is felt first (everyone wants to see how the business is doing), cash flow solves the most frequent worry in an SME, and stock, while it adds a lot, usually needs a slightly more developed data model to correctly combine movements, valuation and turnover.

If your business has a different pressing need — controlling production or after-sales service, say — the order can change. What matters is starting with the area where you currently lose the most time gathering data by hand, not the one that seems most «typical».

Frequently asked questions

Can I build all three at once from the start?

Technically you can, but we don't recommend it as a first project, and it's one of the more common mistakes we see companies make when they get excited about Power BI early on. Starting with just one area lets you validate the underlying data model on a manageable scope, fix inconsistencies as they surface — the same customer registered under two slightly different names, duplicate records, fields that were filled in inconsistently over the years — and let your team actually get comfortable with the tool before you scale to more areas at once. Trying to build sales, cash flow and stock simultaneously usually means all three take longer and none of them gets the attention it needs to be genuinely reliable from day one.

What if my priority isn't any of these three?

Perfect, then start with yours instead, without hesitation. Sales, cash flow and stock are simply the three we see most often because they match what most SMEs using Business Central lose the most time on, not a mandatory sequence you have to follow regardless of your own situation. If what's actually costing you time and visibility today is production control, after-sales service or something else entirely specific to your business, that's where the first dashboard should go, following exactly the same logic explained above: start where the pain is, not where it's supposedly «typical» to start.

Do I need to have all my data clean before starting?

No, and this is actually the opposite of how it works in practice. Waiting to have perfectly clean data before starting a Power BI project is one of the most common ways companies delay a dashboard for months without ever actually getting one built. Building the first dashboard is precisely the process that tends to surface the data inconsistencies you didn't know you had — duplicate customers, inconsistent date formats, products coded differently across systems — and that's exactly the right moment to fix them, one by one, as they show up and block a specific visual, rather than trying to audit and clean everything upfront before you've even seen what the data actually needs.

In summary

Sales, cash flow and stock are the three dashboards most SMEs using Business Central start with, in that order, because each solves a very specific, keenly felt need. There's no need to cover everything from day one: starting narrow is what keeps the project moving fast with visible results soon.

If you'd like help deciding which one to start with, check out our Power BI for Business Central service or tell us what information you're missing today and we'll help you prioritise.