Reporting for Diamant with Power BI
Diamant contains a wealth of information from financial accounting, cost accounting, planning, open items, and fixed assets. For cross-functional management reporting, this data must be consolidated by business function and defined consistently.
To this end, we develop a Power BI solution tailored to your Diamant environment, including current Diamant/4 environments. This enables management, controlling, and finance teams to track developments from the big picture down to individual journal entries.
Financial Accounting · Cost Accounting · Planning
Terms · Relationships · Key Metrics
Overview · Drill-down · Individual Entry
Your data is already available. What matters is how you use it.
Diamant already provides a structured view of key areas of accounting. Additional value is created when this information is consolidated into a common reporting framework, compared over longer periods of time, and made available in a way that is tailored to each user’s role.
Analyze journal entries, accounts, and documents, as well as income statement and balance sheet structures, together.
Track cost centers, cost elements, business segments, and internal allocations.
Compare budgeted figures with actual figures, prior-year figures, and expected trends.
Provide visibility into due dates, payment behavior, DSO, DPO, and the use of cash discounts.
Consider investments, depreciation, and asset classes in relation to one another.
Provide information tailored to the client, department, and area of responsibility.
Common Challenges in Reporting with Diamant
Diamant offers a wide range of reporting options. Challenges often arise when financial accounting, cost accounting, and planning need to be considered together, or when information needs to be regularly prepared for different recipients.
Recurring exports and manually maintained files create additional work.
General ledger, cost accounting, and planning are often considered separately.
Differing definitions make it difficult to arrive at a shared and reliable perspective.
Accounts, cost centers, and business segments must be harmonized across the board.
From the result to the individual entry
A management report should not end with a summarized financial metric. In an interactive income statement, users can navigate from the report line item through general ledger account groups and general ledger accounts down to the individual journal entry.
Planned, actual, and prior-year figures are all based on the same technical definitions. This not only makes variances visible but also allows their causes to be traced.
Click on the report to enlarge it.
Compare the budget, actual, and prior year figures on a reconciled basis.
Navigate step by step from the report item to the posting.
Tailor the level of detail and access permissions to the user's responsibilities and user group.
Analyze Diamond Data Flexibly with Power BI
The information that can be included depends on the Diamond modules used, the specific configuration, and the available data sources.
The following examples illustrate typical subject areas. They can be introduced individually and later gradually integrated with one another.
Financial Accounting
Analyze journal entries, account balances, source documents, income statements, and balance sheets across various time periods and clients. Possible analyses include profit and loss trends, account balances, year-over-year comparisons, and drill-downs to the individual journal entry level.
Cost Accounting and Business Segments
Analyze cost centers, cost elements, business units, and internal allocations together. Direct costs, transfers, and allocations can be viewed separately or in a coordinated, comprehensive overview.
Business Plan and Budget
Link the business plan, budget, or financial plan with actual figures, prior-year data, and projections. Variances can be explained by division, facility, cost center, or general ledger account.
Outstanding Items and Liquidity
View receivables and payables by due date, customer, supplier, or client. DSO, DPO, payment behavior, and cash discount utilization provide additional transparency.
Fixed Assets and Investments
Analyze acquisitions, book values, depreciation, asset groups, and investments over time, and link them to budget figures or organizational units.
More than just a single report
Reliable reporting does not come from charts alone. If Diamant data needs to be linked to budget figures, Excel files, or information from other systems, a data warehouse can serve as the common foundation. There, data is consolidated in a structured manner, and key metrics and business relationships are defined in a consistent way.
Link financial data with budget figures, Excel files, and information from other operational applications.
Consolidate data centrally, track it over time, and consistently map business relationships and key metrics.
Provide interactive reports for various tasks and areas of responsibility.
Microsoft Fabric is not a prerequisite. Depending on your existing IT environment, the data warehouse can be built on Microsoft SQL Server or Microsoft Fabric. Fabric is particularly well-suited when multiple data sources, reports, or cloud scenarios need to be supported together.
Here's How Your Diamond Report Is Created
We start with a clearly defined research question and use it to develop a robust reporting framework that can be expanded later.
Understanding the Initial Situation
Identify existing reports, manual reconciliations, and information needs.
Check Diamond Data
Classify modules, clients, data quality, and supplementary sources.
Develop a Data Model
Integrate general ledger, cost accounting, planning, and dimensions from a technical perspective.
Implementing Power BI
Develop reports in collaboration with users and validate them through the posting process.
Make it a part of your daily routine
Coordinate updates, roles, deployment, and further phases of expansion.
Experience with Diamond Data and Reporting
A compelling Power BI report doesn't start with colors and charts. It starts with an understanding of the underlying financial and cost information.
data4success combines accounting, management accounting, and technical data modeling. We develop transparent models and, depending on the existing architecture, use either Microsoft SQL Server or Microsoft Fabric.
Centrally defined relationships and calculations instead of separate Excel formulas.
Check key figures, from cost centers and general ledger accounts down to the underlying journal entries.
Effectively supplement existing reports and expand the reporting framework to meet specific requirements.
Frequently Asked Questions About Reporting with Diamant and Power BI
Answers to frequently asked questions about the joint analysis of financial accounting, cost accounting, planning, and other Diamant areas.
How can Diamond data be analyzed using Power BI?
The required Diamond data is provided in a structured format, modeled according to business requirements, and then analyzed in Power BI. The appropriate technical integration depends on the version, infrastructure, and the required data sets.
Is Power BI reporting possible with Diamant/4 and older versions of Diamant?
Yes, in principle, data from both Diamant/4 and older versions of Diamant can be analyzed using Power BI. We will review the technical requirements and tailor the data provision and the Power BI solution to the existing Diamant environment.
Can financial accounting and cost accounting be analyzed together?
Yes. General ledger, cost accounting, and other Diamant modules can be integrated into a single data model. This makes it possible to trace results from a report line item, general ledger account, and cost center all the way back to the underlying journal entry.
Can multiple Diamond clients be merged?
Yes, provided the necessary data is available. Accounts, cost centers, business segments, and other classifications are harmonized in such a way that cross-client analyses remain transparent.
Can the business plan and budget be compared with actual figures?
Yes. Planned, budgeted, or fiscal figures can be linked to actual figures, prior-year figures, and projections. Variances can then be analyzed by division, facility, cost center, or general ledger account.
Can reclassifications and allocations be displayed separately?
Yes. If the necessary information is available in the database, direct costs, transfers, and allocations can be viewed separately or together.
Is it possible to drill down to the individual entry?
Yes. Reports can be structured so that users can navigate from a summarized income statement or balance sheet item through account groups and general ledger accounts all the way down to individual journal entries.
Is Microsoft Fabric absolutely necessary?
No. Depending on the specific situation, the solution can be based on Microsoft SQL Server and a local Power BI deployment. Fabric is a possible next step if you need to support multiple sources, reports, or cloud scenarios.
Do existing diamond reports need to be replaced?
No. Existing reports can serve as a technical starting point. Power BI supplements them where cross-functional analyses, standardized metrics, or interactive detailed evaluations are needed.
Is this reporting system suitable for municipal utilities and local government-owned enterprises?
Yes. Among other things, the business plan, divisional and cost center analyses, capital expenditures, open items, and transparent reporting for management, controlling, and governing bodies are particularly relevant.
Getting Started: Income Statement Starter Package for Diamant
With the P&L Starter Package, you’ll receive a Power BI report based on your Diamant general ledger data. This provides you with a concrete starting point for analyzing your results and lays the foundation for further analyses.
Additional reports and analysis areas can then be added step by step.
Income Statement Starter Package
plus licensing fees
Income Statement Report based on general ledger data from Diamant.
Cost Center Analysis
+ 2,500 EUR
Analyze the general ledger and cost and performance accounting together.
License fees for Power BI and Zebra BI are not included.
What information is already included in your diamond data?
Together, we will examine which analyses can be performed in the short term and how this can lead to the creation of a long-term, usable database for reporting and controlling.