Introduction
Managing cost and financial data in construction often means pulling figures from multiple sources, manually compiling spreadsheets, and spending hours reconciling numbers before a report is ready. By the time the data is ready, it is already out of date.
By connecting Dashpivot to Power BI via Flowsite, your project costing forms automatically flow into a live Power BI dashboard — giving project managers and finance teams real-time visibility over project distance, service costs, material costs, and Preliminaries & Generals (P&G) costs, without any manual exports.
The dashboard is built around KPIs that allow stakeholders to check overall project status at a glance, including planned vs. actual values, variance in value and percentage, and key project dates and durations. Filters let you drill down to a specific project or category, or select multiple at once, so the charts update to show exactly what you need.
Prerequisites
Before getting started, make sure you have:
An active Dashpivot account with the relevant cost tracking forms already set up
A Flowsite account connected to your Dashpivot workspace
Power BI Desktop or access to Power BI Service
The Cost and Financial Report template added to your Dashpivot account (see Getting started below)
Key features
Project status overview — View overall project completion percentage and key KPIs (such as rate per meter) alongside planned and actual start and end dates, project duration in calendar days and workdays, and duration variance
Four-part cost dashboard — Track project distance, service cost, material cost, and P&G cost each with actual vs. planned values, variance in value, variance in percentage, and a bar chart comparison
Planned vs. actual tracking — Side-by-side comparison of budgeted and actual spend with a zoom slider for close variance analysis
Custom filters — Filter by project or cost category, select multiple at once using Ctrl+click (or Cmd+click on Mac), and clear selections with a single click
Variance detection — Quickly spot cost overruns and discrepancies as they happen
Customisable layout — KPIs, charts, headers, and filters can be adjusted to match the reporting requirements of each project or user
How it works
Flowsite acts as the connector between Dashpivot and Power BI. When a form is submitted or updated in Dashpivot, Flowsite syncs that data to your Power BI dataset on a scheduled basis. Power BI then refreshes the dashboard to reflect the latest figures. The typical refresh frequency depends on your Flowsite plan and Power BI configuration — check your Flowsite settings to confirm how often your data syncs.
Best practices
Keep cost data consistent at the source — any errors in Dashpivot forms will carry through to Power BI. Correct data at the form level for accurate reporting.
Use cost codes and activity categories consistently across your Dashpivot templates so filters and breakdowns in Power BI work as expected.
If you need to include sensitive financial data that cannot be captured in Dashpivot forms (such as budget figures or overhead rates), use a manual entry Excel file alongside your Power BI file.
When customising the template, you can safely rename fields and adjust layouts. Avoid changing the field IDs or column names that Flowsite uses to map data to Power BI, as this will break the connection.
Getting started
You can access a Free Cost and Financial Report Template from Dashpivot's Template Library. Go to Templates > Add Template > Choose from Free Public Template Library.
Search for Cost and Financial Report and add this to your account to get started. Remember, you can change the template name, contents and settings once added to your account.