How to Prepare Your Data for Power BI (Small Business Edition)

Data Strategy

Most small businesses want dashboards, but the truth is that accurate reporting depends on data preparation. Here’s a simple, plain-language guide to cleaning, structuring, and organizing your data before you build anything in Power BI.

1. Establish Your Source of Truth

• Choose one location where the final and accurate data lives.
• This prevents version confusion and inconsistent reporting.
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2. Standardize Your Columns

Use consistent:

• Column names
• Date formats
• Category values
• Data types

Power BI loves consistency. It makes modeling and automation much smoother.
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3. Clean Up Hidden Errors

Look for:

• Merged cells
• Blank rows
• Typo variations of the same value
• Duplicate entries

These small spreadsheet issues become major reporting problems later.
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4. Create Lookup Tables

Great for:

• Departments
• Product types
• Project categories
• Service tiers

Lookup tables reduce errors and enable easy filtering and slicing.
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5. Document Your Data

Create a simple data dictionary with:

• Column names
• Definitions
• Valid values
• Ownership
• Refresh schedule

This makes your entire reporting system maintainable.
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6. Plan for Refreshes

Decide:

• How often you want Power BI to refresh.
• Whether data entry is manual or automated.
• If SharePoint, OneDrive, or Dataverse should be used.

Good refresh planning = fewer surprises.

Want Clean, Ready-to-Use Data?

Articello Strategies specializes in helping small businesses transform messy spreadsheets into clean, structured data ready for Power BI.

• Book a Data Audit Call
• Let Us Clean Your Data and Build Your First Dashboard