Finance data: building a Chief Financial Officer cockpit, not just another dashboard

Key Takeaways

Finance dashboards rarely fail because of visuals; they fail when the expected decisions have not been clarified upfront.
The right starting point is not the tool, but the decision chain: which questions should the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), executive committee and finance teams answer faster?
Our approach combines finance expertise, data architecture and change management to avoid attractive reporting that nobody actually uses.

Decision Intelligence: A Management Imperative for Chief Financial Officers

Finance Departments do not lack data. More often, they lack a mechanism that turns data into fast, traceable and shared decisions. Between enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, consolidation tools, Excel files and local reports, CFOs may end up with a lot of information and very little executive readability.

Moving from static reporting to finance decision intelligence is therefore as much a governance topic as a technical one: who looks at what, when, using which definition, and to decide what?

Field Observation

In our engagements, finance teams still spend 60 to 70% of their time collecting, reconciling and formatting data, at the expense of analysis and recommendation. The challenge is not to produce more figures, but to produce the right insights at the right time.

Our Method: Decisions Before Screens

Altesia designs decision intelligence systems adapted to each group's needs and technology ecosystem. Two complementary modalities, depending on data maturity, information technology (IT) constraints and the level of operational urgency:

Approach	Description	Preferred Use Case
Finance accelerators	Data models, steering views and reusable components ready to adapt	Groups that want to accelerate without starting from a blank page
*Power BI / custom business intelligence* dashboards**	Business design, modelling and industrialisation within the client ecosystem	Groups with an existing architecture and specific business needs

Finance Accelerators to Move Faster

When the need is clear but the group does not want to start from scratch, we use finance accelerators: data models, steering views, key performance indicator (KPI) repositories and dashboard components designed for Group Finance Departments.

Key Features

Real-time dashboards: instant visualization of consolidated KPIs, with automatic refresh
Multi-level drill-down: intuitive navigation from group to region, entity, account
Smart alerts: proactive notification of significant variances and anomalies
Integrated IFRS compliance: indicators aligned with regulatory requirements
Export and sharing: easy dissemination to executive committee, regions, auditors

Key Advantage

The value is not in the number of charts. It is in the ability to quickly answer the real questions of Group CFOs: "Where are we in the close?", "What are the intercompany gaps?", "What is the working capital trend?", "Which variances require arbitration now?"

Custom Power BI Dashboards

For groups already equipped with the Microsoft ecosystem (Azure, Teams, SharePoint), we develop custom Power BI dashboards that integrate natively into the existing environment.

When to Choose Power BI?

Microsoft ecosystem integration: native connection with Azure, Dynamics, SharePoint
Specific business needs: sector KPIs, proprietary indicators, complex calculation logic
Sharing via Teams / SharePoint: broad dissemination within the organization
Existing information technology governance: compliance with Microsoft security standards

Our Added Value

Altesia doesn't just "do Power BI." We bring finance business expertise that ensures dashboards address real management challenges:

Indicator design with end users (CFOs, controllers, consolidators)
Data modeling adapted to accounting and consolidation specificities
Team training and best practice documentation
Change management support to ensure adoption

Project Examples

Some concrete illustrations of our decision intelligence engagements:

Group Management Cockpit

Context: Multi-site industrial group, 40 consolidated entities, monthly consolidation at D+8.

Solution: Finance cockpit deployment with:

Real-time consolidated view of financial KPIs (Revenue, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), Working Capital, Cash)
Close progress tracking by entity
Alerts on significant budget/actual variances

Result: 40% reduction in reporting production time, improved quality of executive committee discussions.

Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) / Internal Control Dashboard (Power BI)

Context: Listed group, SOX requirements, manual tracking of controls in Excel.

Solution: Power BI dashboard integrated with SharePoint with:

Real-time tracking of key control execution
Visualization of exceptions and their resolution
Automated reporting for the Audit Committee

Result: 100% traceability of controls, 50% reduction in audit preparation time.

Real-Time Intercompany Tracking

Context: Group undergoing external growth, multiplication of interco flows, recurring discrepancies.

Solution: Intercompany module with:

Automated matching of interco transactions
Discrepancy dashboard by entity pair
Resolution workflow with audit trail

Result: 75% reduction in interco discrepancies, elimination of manual corrections at close.

Our End-to-End Support

Whatever solution the group selects, Altesia covers the full project lifecycle:

Project Phases

Diagnostic: needs mapping, current state analysis, key indicator definition
Design: dashboard mockups, data modeling, user validation
Development: view construction, source connection, functional testing
Deployment: production launch, team training, documentation
Support: evolutionary maintenance, new indicator additions, ongoing support

Conclusion

Decision intelligence is not a visualisation topic: it is a steering topic. A strong finance cockpit helps the CFO isolate weak signals, challenge variances, accelerate arbitration and secure financial communication.

The question is therefore not "which dashboard do we want?", but: which decisions do we want to make faster, with more confidence?

How Altesia Can Support You

A decision diagnostic: expected decisions, users, indicators, sources and data pain points
A CFO prototype on a targeted scope to validate value before industrialisation
A controlled go-live: definition governance, documentation, adoption and security

Our role is to bridge finance, data and decision-making: business-oriented enough to understand the numbers, technical enough to industrialise them.