Realization by service line
Tax, audit, bookkeeping and advisory tracked separately, so a write-down habit in one line is not hidden by a strong year in another.
Power BI for CPA and accounting practices
Power BI Consultant for Accounting Firms
Your practice management system records every hour, engagement and invoice, yet the partner pack is still assembled in spreadsheets. As a Power BI consultant for accounting firms, we turn that data into dashboards built around how a CPA practice actually earns: recurring engagements by service line — tax, audit, bookkeeping and advisory — many on fixed fees, all shaped by filing deadlines. One written fixed fee, typical delivery in 2–4 weeks, 30 days of hypercare included.
One fixed price, approved before work begins · 30 days of hypercare included
Sample Power BI dashboard. Illustrative data, not a client’s numbers
One price, agreed before any work starts
You get a written proposal with one fixed price, clear deliverables and a timeline, and you approve it before anything starts. If the scope changes, the price changes in writing first, and every engagement includes 30 days of hypercare after handover.
What the dashboards show
Six things a managing partner should see without opening a spreadsheet
Each one is a report page on a single governed data model — scoped in writing before anything is built.
Effective rate on fixed fees
The fee for a fixed-price return or monthly package divided by the hours it really took, so you can see which packages are priced right and which are quietly losing money.
WIP, AR and lockup
Unbilled time and open invoices by age, client and engagement partner, rolled up into lockup days so cash conversations start from one agreed number.
Billable hours against target
Each person’s chargeable time against the firm’s own target, by month, so a heavy April and a quiet August are read in context rather than as a single annual average.
Deadline pipeline and capacity
Returns and engagements by status and due date, set against the hours your team has left before each deadline, so extension decisions are made early rather than in the last week.
Client advisory dashboards
Optional client-facing reporting built from each client’s own ledger, shared securely, so monthly advisory meetings start from a live dashboard instead of a PDF.
How it works
Three steps from timesheet exports to a live practice dashboard
- 1
Agree the definitions before the visuals
A free consultation covers your practice management, time and billing systems, how service lines and engagements are coded, which work is fixed-fee, and how the firm defines standard rates and realization. We reply with a written scope, one fixed fee and a delivery date.
- 2
Build the model and reconcile it to your books
We connect the sources, build the data model and the measures, then reconcile dashboard totals to your existing billing and accounting reports for a closed month before anybody relies on the numbers.
- 3
Roll out by role, then hand it over
Security roles are applied so each partner and manager sees the right slice, refresh is scheduled, the people who own the reports are trained, and we stay on for 30 days of included hypercare.
What should an accounting firm Power BI dashboard measure?
It should measure how recorded time and agreed fees turn into collected cash: realization by service line, the age of unbilled WIP and open receivables, billable hours against each person’s target, and engagement profitability. Each figure is calculated from the time entries, invoices and payments your practice management system already holds.
Most practice management tools ship with standard reports, and most firms still export several of them into a spreadsheet each month to build the partner pack. A Power BI model replaces that assembly with one set of definitions, calculated the same way every time. The table below is the vocabulary we scope against; your build takes the rows your partners actually ask about.
| Metric | How it is calculated | The question it answers |
|---|---|---|
| Realization | Amount billed or collected ÷ standard value of time recorded, by service line | Which kinds of work are written down, and at which stage? |
| Billable hours | Chargeable hours recorded ÷ the firm’s target for the person and period | Who has capacity before the next deadline, and who is already stretched? |
| WIP aging | Unbilled time and expenses grouped by days since the work was recorded | Which engagements have work sitting unbilled long enough to put collection at risk? |
| Engagement margin | Fees collected minus staff cost of the hours spent, with overhead allocated the way your firm chooses | Which clients, packages and service lines earn a margin, and which only keep people busy? |
| Effective rate | Fixed or subscription fee earned ÷ hours actually recorded against the engagement | Are our fixed-fee packages priced for the work they really take? |
| AR aging | Open invoice balances grouped into 0–30, 31–60, 61–90 and 90-plus days | Which clients need a collections conversation before their next engagement starts? |
| Lockup | Days of WIP plus days of receivables outstanding | How long does the firm wait, end to end, between doing the work and being paid? |
| Deadline pipeline | Open returns and engagements by status and due date, against remaining staff hours | Will this deadline be met, and which extensions should be filed now? |
We price your practice reporting once we understand it: one written number, approved before work starts.
Get my fixed price →Every measure depends on a definition the firm has to own. Is standard value the staff rate card or the rate agreed with the client? Does a monthly bookkeeping subscription earn its fee evenly across the year, or when the work is done? Is review time charged to the engagement or to overhead? We write the answers into the scope so the dashboard matches how your partners already talk about the business.
Why is accounting-firm reporting different from law-firm reporting?
Both bill for professional time, but an accounting firm’s work is organized by recurring engagement and service line rather than by matter, it is often priced as a fixed or subscription fee, and the year is shaped by filing deadlines. So capacity, effective rate and deadline pipeline matter as much as realization.
A law firm’s reporting centres on the matter, on client trust money that must never count as revenue, and on origination credit for partner compensation; that is what our Power BI consultant for law firms engagement is built around. A CPA practice asks different questions. The same client may hold a tax engagement, a monthly bookkeeping package and an advisory retainer at once, each with its own fee arrangement and team. Hours are concentrated around filing seasons, so an annual utilization figure hides the weeks that decide whether deadlines are met. And because so much work is fixed-fee, the most useful number is often not realization against standard but the effective rate a package actually earned. The model is designed around the engagement and service line from the start, rather than adapted from a matter-based design.
How does Power BI get data out of practice management and accounting software?
Power BI reads practice data through the vendor’s API where one is offered, through scheduled report exports where it is not, or through the on-premises data gateway for desktop or server-installed practice software. Which route applies depends on your vendor and subscription, so we confirm it before quoting a fixed fee.
Firms run a wide range of tools — CCH Axcess, Thomson Reuters Practice CS, Karbon, Canopy and TaxDome among them — and what each one exposes can differ between plans. Where an API is available we pull clients, engagements, time entries, invoices and payments on a schedule. Where it is not, a fixed-layout export saved to a SharePoint or OneDrive folder is a perfectly respectable source. If that folder sits inside a client file structure that needs organising, permissions and retention too, our SharePoint consultant for accounting firms engagement sets that up. Software installed on a server in your office is usually reached through Microsoft’s on-premises data gateway (opens in new tab), which lets the Power BI service refresh from data that never leaves your network. Whatever the route, the sources land in one model with fact tables for time, billing and payments around shared client, engagement, service line, staff and date dimensions. If you need data moved between systems rather than just reported on, that is the work of our Power BI integration services.
Can a CPA firm deliver Power BI dashboards to its clients?
Yes. Firms that offer client advisory services can deliver monthly reporting through Power BI: one model per client or a shared model filtered by client, published from your tenant, with each client signed in as a guest who sees only its own figures. We scope the firm’s internal dashboards and client-facing ones separately.
Client-facing reporting reads each client’s own ledger — QuickBooks Online, Xero or a similar package — through whatever API, connector or export that product offers, and presents cash position, margin trends and budget-versus-actual in a consistent layout across your client base. Sharing runs through Microsoft Entra B2B, which Microsoft documents in its guide to distributing Power BI content to external guest users (opens in new tab). Two details decide the design. First, each guest viewer needs a Power BI Pro or Premium Per User licence, or the workspace needs suitable capacity, and that cost belongs in the advisory fee you charge; our Power BI licensing guide for small businesses sets out the options. Second, row-level security has to be tested against each guest’s real sign-in, because guest identities can appear differently in Power BI than in your directory. If your firm also performs attest work, check client-facing dashboard services against your independence obligations before the scope is signed.
Planning to offer dashboards as part of client advisory work? We scope the internal and client-facing builds side by side.
Talk through client advisory reporting →What does an accounting firm Power BI engagement cover?
Most engagements take one of three shapes: a practice performance dashboard, a profitability and capacity build, or a client advisory reporting build. Every fee is fixed and written into the scope after a free consultation, because an honest number depends on your sources, the number of service lines and the state of your time coding.
| Engagement | What is built | Typical timeline | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Practice performance dashboard | One practice management source, realization by service line, WIP and AR aging, lockup, billable hours against target, scheduled refresh and a documented data model | About 2 weeks | Fixed fee — scoped after your free consultation |
| Profitability and capacity build | The above plus staff cost rates, engagement margin, effective rate on fixed-fee packages, deadline pipeline and row-level security by partner and manager | 2–3 weeks | Fixed fee — scoped after your free consultation |
| Client advisory reporting | A repeatable client dashboard on client ledger data, guest access, per-client security tested from real sign-ins, and a runbook for onboarding each new client | 3–4 weeks | Fixed fee — scoped after your free consultation |
All three include 30 days of hypercare after go-live, and the model, reports, refresh schedule and documentation are built in your own tenant. What moves a dashboard fee up or down in general is broken down on our Power BI dashboard cost page.
Which accounting firms is this a good fit for?
It fits small and mid-sized US accounting and CPA firms that already run a practice management or time and billing system and still build partner reports by hand. It is a poor fit for firms that have not agreed how time is coded to service lines, because a dashboard cannot settle a definition the partners have not.
The trigger is usually a busy season that ran closer to the deadline than anyone liked, a move to fixed-fee packages without a way to check whether they pay, a new partner who wants the numbers on screen rather than in a binder, or a plan to sell advisory dashboards to clients. Firms outside accounting, or those wanting the general version of this service, should start with our Power BI consulting services for small businesses. Microsoft Made Easy is a Lightray Solutions brand; the work is done by senior US-based Microsoft engineers, and we serve firms in every US state remotely from our Orange County, CA base.
Manual work cost check
What repetitive manual work costs you today
Put a number on the hours your team spends doing by hand what a report, an app or a flow could do: re-keying data, chasing approvals by email, rebuilding the same spreadsheet every week.
The math is simple: hours each person spends per week × number of people × 52 weeks gives the hours a year. Multiply by your loaded hourly cost for the dollars a year.
Salary plus benefits and overhead, divided by hours worked. Use your own figure.
Your estimate
Enter your three numbers to see the hours and cost a year.
One fixed price, approved before work begins · 30 days of hypercare included
Your numbers, your estimate. It is not a quote and not a savings promise; your fixed price comes in a written proposal after the free consultation.
Fair and square
Our promises, in plain English
One fixed price, approved before work begins
Every project gets a written proposal with one fixed price for a defined scope, and you approve it before any work starts. No hourly meter and no retainer. If the scope changes, the price changes in writing first.
You own everything, in your tenant
Reports, apps, flows, sites and documentation are built in your Microsoft tenant, under your accounts. There is no proprietary layer and no ongoing license owed to us, so nothing breaks if you never hire us again.
30 days of hypercare, included
For 30 days after handover we fix defects in what we delivered, answer your team’s questions and make small adjustments that keep it working as scoped, at no extra cost.
The engineer who scopes it builds it
A senior, US-based engineer works with you from the first call to the handover. There is no junior bench and no offshore handoff.
Straight answers. The free consultation ends with either a fixed-fee proposal or an honest recommendation that we are not the right fit.
Talk to an engineer, not a sales rep. Microsoft Made Easy is a Lightray Solutions brand, founded by Edward Pinela and headquartered in Orange County, California. Senior engineers across the Microsoft stack deliver fixed-fee projects for companies in every US state, remotely. About us
FAQ
Questions firms ask before scoping
Usually, though rarely through a ready-made connector. Most accounting practice management and workflow tools offer an API, a scheduled report export or a database Power BI can read. We confirm what your vendor and subscription tier actually expose during the free consultation, because access options differ between products and plans.
By comparing the fee earned on the engagement with the standard value of the time recorded against it. A result above standard means the fixed fee left room to spare; below it means the work took longer than the price assumed. The dashboard shows this by service line, client and engagement partner.
Yes, as a separate, scoped piece of work. Client advisory dashboards can be shared with each client as a guest user in your tenant, with row-level security so every client sees only its own books. Viewers need appropriate Power BI licences or capacity, which we confirm in writing before quoting.
No. Power BI is read-only reporting on top of the systems you already run; nothing in it records time, prepares returns, issues invoices or posts to the general ledger. Your practice management, tax and accounting software stay the systems of record, and the dashboard reads from them on a schedule.
It can, if it starts early enough. Most engagements are delivered in two to four weeks, depending on how many sources are involved and how consistently time is coded to clients and service lines. The fee is fixed in a written scope after a free consultation, and 30 days of hypercare after go-live is included.
Your firm does. The semantic model, the reports, the refresh schedule and the documentation are built in your own Microsoft 365 tenant and Power BI workspace, under your licences, so nothing depends on us to keep running. You get a handover walkthrough, written documentation and 30 days of hypercare.
Talk through your practice reporting with a senior engineer
Tell us which systems you run and what the partner pack takes to build today. A free consultation comes first, a written fixed-fee proposal follows, and nothing starts until you approve it.
One fixed price, approved before work begins · 30 days of hypercare included
Tell us what you’re trying to fix — a report, an approval process, an intranet, a Copilot rollout. We scope it as a fixed-fee project, you approve, and a senior engineer delivers in 2–4 weeks.
- Fixed-fee scope agreed before any work starts
- Senior, US-based Microsoft engineers — no handoffs
- Typical 2–4 week delivery
- 30 days of post-delivery hypercare included
Related services
What firms usually scope alongside this
Power BI for Law Firms
The matter-based version of this service: matter profitability, realization, WIP and AR on legal practice management data.
Power BI Consulting for Small Business
The general fixed-fee Power BI service for firms that want reporting without an industry-specific model.
Power BI Integration Services
Connecting practice management, billing and ledger systems into one reliable model with scheduled refresh.
Further reading
Guides for the decisions behind this build
Hand-written guides from our article library.
Choosing a Power BI consultant
The questions to ask before you hire anyone to build reporting on your firm’s data.
Outgrown Excel reports?
The signs that a spreadsheet partner pack has reached its limit, and what to do next.
How fixed fee works
Free consultation, written scope, one price, 2–4 week delivery, 30 days of hypercare.