Power BI Consulting for Salt Lake City Companies Reporting to a Board or Investors
Growth companies along the Wasatch Front tend to hit the same wall: the board deck takes a week to assemble, and two people get different revenue numbers from the same systems. That is a data-model problem, and it is fixable.
Lightray's Power BI consulting in Salt Lake City, UT builds the reporting a growing company owes its board and investors: recurring revenue, retention, gross margin, customer acquisition cost and cash runway, each defined once and calculated from your billing, CRM and accounting systems. The board pack stops being a week of spreadsheet work and becomes a report that refreshes itself.
Board week can be fixed without anyone flying in. Edward Pinela, MBA, scopes and builds the model himself after a free 30-minute strategy call, working remotely from Lightray's business address in Fullerton, California; there is no Utah office. The build then runs on Power BI Flex Support in prepaid 20-hour blocks from $2,500, at $100 to $125 an hour, or on a fixed quote. If you don't like working with us within the first 4 hours, you get your money back.
“Great firm, they understood our company needs really quickly… their approach was very hands on…”
— Jean-Michel C., Google review
Why do Salt Lake City growth companies outgrow spreadsheet board packs?
Because they sell nationally from day one and add systems fast. Salt Lake City International Airport reports 28,158,007 passengers in 2025 and more than 330 daily departures to 100 nonstop destinations, which is part of why software firms, e-commerce brands and manufacturers here run national sales teams early. EDCUtah's featured projects include Quad MX Solutions in Salt Lake City (100 jobs) and Karman Space and Defense in West Valley City (500 jobs).
Each new region, product line or funding round adds a system or a spreadsheet. By the Series A or the first bank covenant, revenue lives in billing, pipeline in the CRM and costs in accounting, and nobody has joined them the same way twice.
What belongs in a board-ready Power BI model?
A small set of metrics, each defined in writing and calculated in one place. For a subscription business that usually means annual recurring revenue (ARR, the yearly value of active subscriptions), net revenue retention, gross margin and CAC payback. For a product company it is bookings, gross margin by channel and inventory turns. The table maps each company type to its core board metrics.
Every metric gets a definition stored beside its DAX measure, and the model shows how it reconciles to the general ledger for each closed month. When a director asks why ARR differs from recognized revenue, the answer is on a page, not in someone's memory.
- Revenue bridge: new, expansion, contraction and churn by month
- Cohort retention by signup quarter or first-order month
- Unit economics: CAC, payback and lifetime gross margin
- Cash, burn and runway tied to the ledger
| Company type | Source systems | Core board metrics |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription software | Billing platform, CRM, accounting | ARR, net revenue retention, CAC payback, burn |
| E-commerce or direct-to-consumer brand | Store platform, ad accounts, 3PL, accounting | Contribution margin by channel, repeat rate, inventory weeks |
| Manufacturer or space and defense supplier | ERP, CRM, accounting | Bookings, backlog, gross margin by program, cash conversion |
| Multi-location services company | Scheduling or POS, payroll, accounting | Revenue per location, labor percentage, same-store growth |
| Lender-financed company | Accounting, borrowing-base data | Covenant ratios and borrowing base by month |
How do investors and directors get access without seeing everything?
Through a Power BI app with its own audience. Microsoft explains how apps package reports for distribution to defined groups; directors see the board pages, managers see operating pages, and row-level security can restrict a regional leader to their own territory. Guests from outside your company need licenses too, which we plan up front.
Some boards prefer a PDF. Paginated reports or a scheduled export produce a fixed-format pack from the same model, so the numbers in the PDF and the live report always match.
How much should a Utah company budget for this?
Flex Support hours are $100 to $125, sold in 20-, 40- or 80-hour prepaid blocks that do not expire; the 20-hour block is $2,500. A board metrics model from clean billing and accounting data often fits within 40 hours. More complex revenue rules, such as usage pricing or multi-entity consolidation, are quoted at a fixed price after the call.
Licenses are paid to Microsoft. Microsoft lists Power BI Pro and Premium Per User prices at $14 and $24 per user per month respectively, billed annually. A leadership team of six plus five directors on Pro would cost about $154 a month.
Which other Mountain West pages help a company reporting to investors?
Yes, all remotely. See Power BI consulting in Denver and Las Vegas, or read about Microsoft Fabric implementation if your data has outgrown a single Power BI model. The Power BI consulting services page has the whole offer, and the Power BI consulting directory lists every city served.
Your finance lead works with Edward directly, and the board metrics are built on 20+ years of data and web work and 200+ delivered projects, by a firm with a 4.9 Google rating.
Further reading: Microsoft Learn — Power BI apps.
One revenue number everyone agrees on
Book a free 30-minute call with Edward Pinela, MBA. You get an honest read on what to fix first — and if we are not the right fit, you will hear that on the call.
Frequently asked questions
Can a remote consultant work with our Wasatch Front finance team?
No. Lightray has no Utah office or staff; the business address is in Fullerton, California. Work happens over video and screen share in Mountain time business hours, and the model is built inside your Microsoft tenant.
We already have a finance team. What do you add?
The data model. Finance defines the metrics; we turn those definitions into tested DAX measures that pull directly from source systems and reconcile to the ledger. Your team then spends board week reviewing numbers instead of assembling them.
How long does a first board model take?
Three to five weeks for one billing system, one CRM and accounting, including reconciliation against two or three closed months. Usage-based pricing or several entities add time, and the fixed quote states it.
What if the first revenue measures don't convince our finance lead?
Then stop: you get your money back under the Power BI guarantee if you don't like working with us within the first 4 hours. Those hours normally go on the data review and the first ARR and revenue measures reconciled to the ledger, which is the part a director would question first.
You Won’t Get Handed Off to Junior Staff.
At most consulting firms, the senior person who sold you shows up for the kickoff — then you get handed to a team of juniors learning on your dime. That’s not how we work.
When you hire Lightray Solutions, you work directly with Edward Pinela, MBA — a principal consultant with 20+ years of experience across Power BI, web development, SEO, and CRM systems. Edward architects every engagement personally, stays involved through delivery, and answers his own phone.
Read Edward’s Full Bio“Mid-market companies deserve senior-level expertise without paying enterprise-agency prices. That’s the gap Lightray fills.”
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