Dashboard development for a dashboard your team actually opens

And if it turns out that a well set up Excel file will do the job, we tell you that too. Because that saves you money, and it saves us building a dashboard that nobody opens six months from now.

What do you get from our dashboard development?

You get a working dashboard with five to eight KPIs, connected to the systems where your numbers are created, with a fixed definition for each number. It also comes with a data model you can extend later, a test against your accounts and clear agreements on maintenance. No loose charts, but a screen you can make decisions from.

In practice a project delivers this:

• A KPI overview on paper: for each number the source, the definition, the target and the owner.
• Integrations with your sources, such as Exact Online, AFAS (two widely used Dutch accounting and ERP packages), HubSpot, Pipedrive or your planning tool, via a connector or API.
• A data model that counts numbers from different systems in the same way.
• The dashboard itself, in Power BI or as part of your own portal or software.
• A test report in which we put the results next to your accounts for a closed month.
• Maintenance, so it keeps working when a system gets an update.

Which numbers suit your business, and why we are so strict about the number of them, you can read in KPI dashboard.

Who is custom dashboard development for?

Custom dashboard development suits companies with numbers in three or more systems. Often a board or management team steers on them every week, and someone now spends hours on reporting. Think of an SME with ten to 150 employees. If you have one source and a small team, Excel is often enough.

Typical situations in which a dashboard helps:

• The controller spends two hours every Monday morning on exports from accounting and the CRM.
• Sales and finance quote a different revenue figure in the same meeting.
• There is already a Power BI report, but nobody knows how it works since the person who built it left.
• You want customers or dealers to see their own numbers, in your own portal.

At a financial organisation we saw the opposite situation. There were plenty of dashboards, but every application had its own login and the people who had to make decisions could not get to them. We brought the dashboards and data sources together in one platform, with access through the Microsoft accounts staff already had.

When is Excel enough?

To be fair, not every company needs a dashboard. Excel is enough if your numbers come from one system, if two or three people read them and if a weekly or monthly update will do. With a fixed export or a simple integration that works fine. In that case dashboard development makes little sense, and we will say so.

How does dashboard development work at Your Tech Club?

Our dashboard development runs in six steps: gathering the questions, connecting the sources, building a data model, creating the design, testing with real numbers and arranging maintenance. The first two steps take the most time. After all, a dashboard with wrong numbers is worse than no dashboard.

1. Gathering questions. In one or two sessions with the board and the people who report now. Which decisions do you make, and which number do you need for them? The result is a KPI list with definitions.
2. Connecting sources. We connect accounting, CRM, planning or your online shop. Where a standard connector works, we use it; otherwise we build an integration through the API.
3. Data model. We make sure "revenue" means the same everywhere, that customers in your CRM and your accounts are linked and that the model can grow later.
4. Design. One question per screen, the key number top left and a comparison with a target or the previous period for each number.
5. Testing with real numbers. We put the dashboard next to a closed month in your accounts. If something does not add up, we find out why before the board sees it.
6. Maintenance. We agree who owns the content, who watches the integrations and what happens when a system changes.

Do you work with Exact Online or AFAS? Then see the Exact Online Power BI integration or connecting AFAS to Power BI.

Power BI dashboard or custom: what suits you?

Power BI dashboard development is the logical choice if you work in Microsoft 365 and use the dashboard internally. You choose custom software when customers, dealers or people outside your organisation need to see the dashboard, or when it belongs inside your own software or portal. The data model and integrations are the same work in both cases.

Power BI is strong at calculating, filtering and clicking through. Moreover, your team can add reports later on. Do watch the licences, though. According to Microsoft Learn, you cannot share anything with a free licence (accessed October 2026). So anyone viewing a shared report needs a Pro or Premium Per User licence. The exception: the report sits in Fabric capacity from F64 or in Premium. Refreshing has limits too: on shared capacity a model can refresh automatically eight times a day, on Premium or Fabric 48 times.

Custom software fits better when the dashboard is part of something bigger. For example a customer portal in which customers see their own orders and invoices, or custom software that your team already works in. Then you pay no licence per viewer, but you do pay for more build work up front.

What I would not do: have a custom dashboard built to save on Power BI licences when only your management team of eight looks at it. Earning that back takes a long time. More on that trade-off in Power BI integration.

Can you also have a marketing dashboard built?

Yes. A marketing dashboard works the same way, only the sources differ: Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn, Analytics and your CRM. The main difference is that we link marketing numbers to what they deliver, so to leads, quotes and revenue in your CRM. Clicks and reach on their own say too little.

Would you also like someone to explain every week what changed? Then an AI employee can summarise the numbers and flag notable drops. See marketing reporting automation. For finance, sales and HR, the AI employee for management reporting does the same.

What does dashboard development cost?

The cost of dashboard development sits mainly in the integrations and the data model, less in the screen itself. How many sources you connect, how clean the data is and how many numbers are defined differently decides the size. On top of that come licences if you choose Power BI, and monthly maintenance.

The biggest cost items:

• Number of sources. Every extra integration is work, especially without a standard connector. What an integration costs, you can read under system integration costs.
• Quality of your data. We first fix duplicate customers, missing project codes or manual corrections.
• Number of dashboards and users. One dashboard for the management team is different from six departmental dashboards with access rights per team.
• Maintenance. Integrations break when a system changes. A fixed agreement stops you from only noticing in the board meeting.

What the build costs depends on the number of sources, the figures and who needs access. Set that against what manual reporting costs you now. At two hours a week and 46 working weeks, that is already 92 hours a year. Work it out for your own team with the manual work calculator.

Why choose Your Tech Club for dashboard development?

Because we first find out which decision you want to make with the dashboard, and only then build. Integrations, the hardest step, are our trade: we can connect any system, from Exact Online and AFAS to HubSpot and Power BI. And Kiwa has certified us for ISO 27001 and ISO 9001. That covers how we work, and it matters when your financial numbers pass through an integration. What that looked like at a larger organisation, you can see in an integrated data platform that brought separate dashboards and data sources together.

You also talk to the people who build it, not to an account manager. In the first call you speak to Joey van Vliet or me. Not sure yet whether a dashboard is the best step, or do you see more manual work you want to tackle? Then start with the AI Opportunity Audit: in five working days you know where AI and automation save time, and where they do not.