Planir vs Power BI

A dashboard cannot hold a plan

Power BI reads your numbers. Planning means writing them, with who entered what, when, and against which version. That is not a feature Power BI is missing. It is a different job, and it is the one Planir does.

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At a glance
Planir vs Power BI
Planir
Power BI
Numbers written back and kept
Budget submission and approval
Trusted by CFOs and finance teams at multi-entity groups across APAC

The difference is direction

Power BI is a reporting layer. It takes data that already exists somewhere and presents it, extremely well. Planir is where the numbers are produced: budgets entered by the people who own them, eliminations and currency translation applied as rules, a period reviewed, approved and closed. One reads. The other reads and writes. Most of the confusion between them dissolves once that is the frame. A reporting layer can only ever be as good as what it is given, which is why a Power BI estate built on a consolidation assembled in spreadsheets inherits every weakness of that consolidation, however good the visuals are. The figures arrive already eliminated, already translated and already approved, or they arrive needing all three and no report can supply them. That is the layer Planir occupies, underneath the reporting rather than beside it.

Which means the question is not which tool is better. It is which job you are trying to do.

Numbers Finance can change, not just read

How Planir and Power BI compare across the areas Finance teams ask about most.

Comparison areaPlanirPower BI
A number typed in and keptWritten into a governed model, with the author, the time and the version recorded against it.Read-only in the report by design. Writing values back means embedding Power Apps or building a separate app to own.
Where the consolidation logic livesEliminations and currency translation are configured rules with an audit trail, owned by Finance.Upstream in SQL, Power Query or a dataflow, owned by whoever built it.
Budget submission, review and approvalSubmit, review, approve and lock, with each step recorded against a person and a time.A report has no concept of a submission. The workflow lives in whatever you add beside it.
Period lockingLock a period and inputs stop. Reopening it is an action with a name against it.Nothing to lock, because there are no inputs.
Changing a calculationFinance changes it on the model, in the same place the rest of the structure is configured.Means editing DAX in the semantic model, which in practice means the person who wrote it.
Multi-currency translation by account typeRates held per period and applied by account type as part of consolidation.A measure can convert at a rate you supply. Deciding which rate applies to which account is consolidation logic, not a visual.
Drill from a figure to the source transactionClick a number and drill through to the journal in the accounting system.Possible if somebody modelled it that way and loaded the detail. Not something you get by default.
Distribution to a wide audienceReports and packs go to the people who need them, including native Word and PowerPoint output.Genuinely excellent. Workspaces, apps, row-level security and subscriptions at real scale.
Visual exploration and ad-hoc slicingDimensional drill-down built around finance structures rather than free-form charting.Best in class, and the reason most finance teams already have it open.
Blending finance data with operational dataFocused on the finance model. Operational data comes in where it drives a plan.Its home ground. Sales, operations and finance together in one semantic model.

Comparison as at September 2026, based on publicly available Microsoft documentation. Microsoft, Power BI, Power Query, Power Apps, DAX, Microsoft Fabric and Excel are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Planir is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Microsoft. ITLink, which builds Planir, also delivers Power BI consulting. We build both, which is exactly why we can be straight about which one a given group needs.

Where Planir has the edge over Power BI

Three things a system of record does that a reporting layer does not, however much is built on top of it.

Budget Agent
First draft for review
Propose, review, approve
Draft the FY26 operating budget
Draft, awaiting review
Revenue24.8m
Direct costs11.2m
Operating expenses7.4m
EBITDA6.2m
01

Numbers arrive from people, not only from queries

A budget is drafted, reviewed and approved, and every figure carries who entered it, when, and against which version. A report can show you a number. It has nowhere to put one.

Scope
Choose the first workflow
Expand later
Consolidation Selected
Intercompany elimination
Multi-currency translation
Group reporting pack
Budgeting Later
Reporting Later
02

Eliminations and FX are rules, not upstream steps

Intercompany elimination and multi-currency translation are configured with an audit trail against them. In a Power BI estate they live in SQL, Power Query or a dataflow, and the explanation lives with whoever wrote it.

Administration
Managed by Finance
No Power User handoff
MappingsFinance
Business rulesFinance
PermissionsFinance
03

Finance changes it, not the model owner

Mappings, business rules and permissions are Finance's to set directly. Changing a measure in a semantic model means changing DAX, which in practice means booking time with the person who built it.

What a move actually involves

Practical rather than architectural. What a Power BI shop does differently on day one.

01

Your Power BI reports keep working

Nothing is switched off and no report is rebuilt. Your semantic model, your measures and your workspaces carry on answering the questions they already answer.

02

There is no model to migrate

Planir reads from your accounting systems directly rather than from your Power BI model, so getting started is a connection rather than a port.

03

Start with one workflow

Consolidation or budgeting first, whichever is costing you most, then expand. It is not a platform programme with a go-live at the end of it.

What Finance teams have achieved

The consolidation feature alone justified the decision to go with Planir
Belle LeongGroup Financial ControllerLBD EngineeringPlanir for Construction →
We gained greater confidence in our financial data and a more consistent reporting process across the group.
Isabel YongGroup Finance ManagerGlobal REIT GroupPlanir for Real Estate →
We significantly reduced manual reconciliations, improved forecast accuracy and made planning more efficient across Finance.
Chandra MenonFinance DirectorGlobal Electronics and Manufacturing GroupPlanir for Manufacturing →

Read further

The pages either side of this argument.

Comparison

Planir vs Excel

The other half of the question. Excel is an interface Planir supports, and the problem is the spreadsheet being the system of record.

Read Planir vs Excel
Use case

Multi-entity consolidation

Eliminations and currency translation as configured rules with an audit trail, instead of transformation steps upstream of a report.

See consolidation
Use case

Budgeting and planning

Where write-back earns its place. A budget round collected from the people who own the numbers, held in a governed model.

See budgeting and planning
The add-in

Excel, Word and PowerPoint

Native tables and charts in your board pack, refreshed in place, reading from the same model.

See the add-ins

Planir vs Power BI FAQs

Can we keep Power BI and use Planir?
Yes, and ITLink builds Power BI estates as well, so this is not a question we have any reason to dodge. Power BI stays the right place to distribute a view widely and to explore data visually, and nothing here argues for switching that off. What moves into Planir is the finance model: where budgets are entered, where eliminations and currency translation are applied, where a period is reviewed, approved and closed. Your semantic model, your measures and your workspaces carry on answering the questions they already answer, because Planir does not touch them. And if what you actually need is a better Power BI estate rather than a planning platform, we will tell you that, which is the practical advantage of a firm that builds both rather than only one. Most groups end up running the two side by side, and that is the intended arrangement rather than a compromise.
Why can we not just budget in Power BI?
Because a report reads. Budgeting means a number arriving from a person, being kept, and carrying who entered it, when, and against which version, then being reviewed, approved and locked. Power BI is read-only in the report by design, so getting values back in means embedding Power Apps or building an application beside it, which is another system for somebody to own, secure and maintain. Even with that in place you still need the part underneath: an input area per contributor, permissions over who may change a calculation, a period that can be closed, and a version history you can compare rather than a file you can restore. That is a system of record rather than a reporting layer, and it is a different job rather than a missing feature. Teams that try it anyway usually end up maintaining a small application nobody owns, which is the cost that gets discovered late.
What happens to the DAX we have already written?
It keeps working. Planir does not touch your semantic model, your measures or your reports, so the DAX that answers reporting questions goes on answering them and nothing has to be ported. What Planir takes over is the work DAX was never meant to do, which is holding inputs and applying consolidation rules with an audit trail. Where a measure currently reconstructs an elimination or converts at a rate passed in as a parameter, that logic can move into configured rules Finance owns, and the measure simplifies to reading a figure that is already correct. Nothing forces that migration on day one. The reports keep running against the model they run against now, and the inputs move first. That order matters: it means the change is additive, and there is no window where Finance has lost one system and not yet trusts the other.
Where do eliminations and currency translation happen today in a Power BI shop?
Upstream, almost always. In SQL, in Power Query, or in a dataflow built by whoever set the model up. That arrangement works until somebody outside that person asks why an elimination changed between two periods, or the group structure moves and the transformation has to be reopened. The logic is real and correct, it simply lives somewhere Finance cannot inspect or change, and the explanation lives with one individual rather than with the numbers. In Planir those are configured rules with an audit trail against them, applied the same way every period, with the right rate applied by account type. The difference is not capability, it is who can answer the question when it is asked. That is usually the point at which a group starts looking, because an auditor or a board member has asked and the answer took a week to assemble.
Does Planir replace our data warehouse?
No. Planir holds the finance model rather than your raw data estate, so if you have a warehouse it stays where it is doing what it does. The question Planir answers is where the governed group figures are produced and controlled, not where every row of source data is stored. In practice Planir reads from the accounting systems directly, which means getting started is a connection rather than a migration, and it does not wait on warehouse work to be scheduled. Groups that already have a warehouse tend to keep using it for the operational and commercial reporting it was built for, and let Planir own the consolidation, the budget round and the close. The warehouse keeps its job, Finance gets a system of record, and neither has to pretend to be the other.

Bring a report you already trust

Bring a Power BI report and your entity list, and leave with the governed group figures behind it.

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