AFAS SB Power BI dashboard

Yes, through a custom connection in the SB App Center. This lets you read data from SB via the AFAS REST API. You choose a connector bundle, which determines what data you can read, and an authorisation method: a token, which AFAS calls the simplest option, or OAuth, which is harder to set up but more secure to use.

The data goes into a database or directly into Power BI. To see how we build a dashboard around a decision, read about Power BI dashboards.

That depends on the bundle. Financial dashboarding reads accounting entities, the financial period table, general ledger accounts, financial years, general ledger balances by period and the profit and loss statement for the current financial year. Relationship management reads organisations, individuals and contacts. Other bundles are designed for writing data, such as journal entries or sales invoices.

Choose the bundle carefully: AFAS says you cannot change it afterwards. If you need a different bundle, you must add a new connection.

AFAS Profit has BI models and an OData connector, with ready-made Power BI templates. AFAS describes these for Profit. The new AFAS SB uses its own REST API and connector bundles, so for a small business dashboard on SB, you build the data-loading step yourself. Note that AFAS Profit Small Business is the older package and is not the same as SB.

If you use Profit for payroll and HR, read about the AFAS Payroll Power BI dashboard.

In Power BI, the accounting entity becomes a dimension, so you can view figures for each company or in aggregate. If the entities use different charts of accounts, you map them to a single structure. The reference chart of accounts (RGS) helps with this: in the RGS mapping table, SB places balances alongside the corresponding RGS categories.

For accountants, SB has the Admin Center. A custom connection you add there is available across all accounting entities for all clients. If you have many clients using other packages, see our pages on Twinfield and Exact Online.

Because the Financial dashboarding bundle reads balances by period for the current financial year. If you want to compare this year with last year or see a trend over several years, you need to store the balances in a database yourself. Each refresh then retrieves only the current financial year and adds it to the historical data.

This also reduces the data-loading workload: you do not have to retrieve everything from SB each time.

As often as you schedule it, up to the limit Power BI allows. On shared capacity with a Pro licence, that is eight scheduled refreshes per day; on Premium or Fabric capacity, up to 48. Schedule the step that reads from SB just before the refresh.

If the database is in the cloud, such as Azure SQL, you do not need an on-premises gateway, provided Power BI can reach the source directly.

Start with authorisation for the connection. AFAS says OAuth is more secure to use than a token. If you choose a token, store it in a vault such as Azure Key Vault, not in a Power BI file.

In Power BI itself, you manage access through workspaces and an app, and use row-level security (RLS) if a branch manager should only see their own accounting entity.

For how we set up Power BI as a whole, see Power BI consultant.

When you have one accounting entity and the SB home page answers your questions. For annual accounts, SB has annual reporting with an annual review. In that case, Power BI mainly adds management work.

If your question is about management information more generally, such as margins, cash flow and budgets, read about the financial dashboard or see how we build business intelligence. If a lighter solution is a better fit, we will say so.