Your Derry firm's Power BI chart adds pounds and euro into one number, and the board is deciding on it
Custom BI dashboards for a Derry firm cost $25k to $80k over 6 to 16 weeks. You go beyond Tableau, Power BI or Looker as drag-and-drop tools when your data spans GBP and EUR and the dashboards need to be currency-honest, splitting and converting at the right rate rather than mashing two currencies into one misleading number the board then acts on.
Tableau, Power BI and Looker will happily total a column of money for you. The trouble in Derry is that the column is half sterling and half euro, and unless someone has carefully modelled the conversion, the headline revenue number is meaningless: it either adds pounds and euro as if they were the same, or converts at a single rate that hides how each currency actually performed.
The danger is that these dashboards look authoritative. A board sees a clean revenue trend and makes decisions on it, not realising the trend is partly currency movement rather than sales performance. For North West firms whose business is genuinely split across the border, BI that isn't currency-honest doesn't just fail to help, it actively misleads the people steering the company.
Why the usual tools struggle in Derry
- Headline revenue numbers that add sterling and euro into one figure that means nothing
- Trends that move with the exchange rate, so the board reads currency drift as sales performance
- Each data source (CRM (Customer Relationship Management), accounting, POS (Point of Sale)) reporting currency differently, so nothing reconciles
- Self-built Power BI dashboards that look authoritative but quietly mislead on cross-border numbers
What a custom business intelligence dashboards build changes
Custom BI is built currency-honest from the data model up: it keeps GBP and EUR distinct, converts at defensible rates when you need a combined view, and separates real sales performance from currency movement. For a North West firm split across the border, that means the board sees numbers it can actually steer by, with the cross-border reality made clear rather than averaged away. It pulls from your CRM, ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), accounting and POS into one honest picture.
- Your revenue and data genuinely span GBP and EUR and current dashboards mash them together
- The board is making decisions on numbers that move with the exchange rate
- Your sources report currency inconsistently and nothing reconciles cleanly
- You need defensible cross-border segment views your drag-and-drop tool can't produce
- Your business is single-currency and Power BI or Looker handles it cleanly
- Your data is clean and business users want self-serve exploration
- You need dashboards live this week and your numbers aren't currency-distorted
- You lack the data maturity to support a custom BI build right now
- Currency-honest dashboards that keep GBP and EUR distinct and convert only with defensible rates
- Sales performance separated from currency movement so trends mean what they appear to mean
- One reconciled picture from CRM, ERP, accounting and POS that all report currency consistently
- Cross-border segment views so you can see how the UK and ROI sides each perform
- A trustworthy single source for board decisions instead of a self-built dashboard that misleads
- Good BI lives or dies on data quality; if your underlying data is messy, that work comes first and adds cost
- You give up some of the self-serve, drag-and-drop exploration business users like in Power BI
- Dashboards need maintenance as your sources and questions change, which is ongoing work
- For a single-currency business with clean data, Power BI or Looker off the shelf may be plenty
The features that matter for Derry
What we build under business intelligence dashboards in Derry
Digital Heroes builds the full business intelligence dashboards stack for Derry teams. Typical engagements cover embedded analytics, business intelligence dashboards, BI development, data visualization, Tableau alternative and Power BI.
Business Intelligence Dashboards pricing in Derry: the real numbers
| Project scope | Typical cost | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Currency-honest dashboard set on existing data | $25k to $40k | 6 to 8 weeks |
| Full BI with modelled pipelines and segmentation | $50k to $80k | 10 to 16 weeks |
| Data-model and pipeline fix before dashboarding | $15k to $28k | 4 to 6 weeks |
From kickoff to launch: the schedule
Exactly what you get
You get dashboards the board can actually trust. GBP and EUR stay distinct, conversion only happens at defensible rates, and sales performance is separated from currency movement so a trend means what it looks like it means. You see the UK and ROI sides of the business side by side, drilling from headline numbers to the cross-border detail. It pulls from your CRM, ERP, accounting software and POS into one reconciled picture instead of several that disagree.
How to choose a developer in Derry
Ask how they'd build a revenue dashboard when half the revenue is in euro and half in sterling, and listen for whether they talk about the data model, not just the charts. A developer who understands cross-border BI will insist on currency-honesty before aesthetics. Ask for a dashboard they've built where mixing currencies or messy sources was the real challenge, and how they made the numbers defensible.
- !They total mixed-currency money without a model. Ask how GBP and EUR stay distinct
- !They can't separate sales from currency movement. Ask how a trend reflects performance, not FX
- !No plan to reconcile sources. Ask how CRM, accounting and POS report currency consistently
- !They skip data quality. Ask what they do when the underlying data is messy
- !Pretty charts, no rigour. Ask how the dashboard avoids misleading the board on cross-border numbers
Most Derry teams pricing business intelligence dashboards end up comparing notes on helpdesk & ticketing, erp, custom software too; the systems share one data spine.
Rohan advises mid-market and enterprise teams on ERP, CRM and custom software, and has led delivery on dozens of business-software builds.
Writes for Digital Heroes, shipping business software for 2,000+ brands across 55+ countries since 2017.
Frequently asked questions
Why can't we just build this in Power BI ourselves?
You can build charts, but Power BI will happily add sterling and euro into one meaningless total unless someone models the currencies carefully. For a Derry firm split across the border, a self-built dashboard often looks authoritative while quietly misleading the board on cross-border numbers.
What does currency-honest BI actually mean?
It means GBP and EUR are kept distinct in the data model, combined only with defensible conversion when you need a single view, and sales performance is separated from currency movement. So a revenue trend reflects how the business actually performed, not how the exchange rate drifted.
What does a custom BI build cost?
A currency-honest dashboard set on existing data runs $25k to $40k over 6 to 8 weeks. A full BI build with modelled pipelines and cross-border segmentation runs $50k to $80k over 10 to 16 weeks. A data-model and pipeline fix before dashboarding is $15k to $28k.
What if our data is messy?
Then that's the first job. Good BI depends on clean, consistent data, especially around currency. A competent developer will fix the data model and pipelines so your CRM, accounting and POS report currency the same way before building dashboards on top, which adds cost but makes the result trustworthy.