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Practical notes on data, spreadsheets, and business systems.

124 practical guides on spreadsheets, dashboards, SQL, finance, marketing, web, and operations. Search by topic, tool, or question.

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Featured guidePower BI/Data Visualization

Power BI vs Looker Studio for small businesses

A practical comparison of Power BI and Looker Studio for small businesses, covering data sources, modelling, governance, cost, and skills.

Inside this guide

Start with the reporting job
Where Looker Studio fits

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Reading time

5 min read

Apr 21, 2026

What you’ll learn

Choose the tool after defining the audience, questions, sources, refresh needs, and ownership.
Looker Studio is quick for web and Google-based reporting; Power BI is stronger for governed semantic models.
Compare total cost, including licences, build time, maintenance, and training.

Reporting·4 min read

Five reports every small business should review monthly

A practical monthly reporting pack for small businesses: cash flow, sales and margin, receivables, pipeline, and costs.

What you’ll learn

A monthly pack should answer five questions: cash, sales quality, collections, pipeline, and cost control.

What you’ll learn

A monthly pack should answer five questions: cash, sales quality, collections, pipeline, and cost control.
Fewer, consistent reports are more useful than a large pack nobody reads.

Nov 17, 2020

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Data·3 min read

How to clean messy business data before building a report

A practical data-cleaning process for small businesses: source mapping, definitions, duplicates, reconciliation, and documentation.

What you’ll learn

Clean one important source before connecting everything.

Sep 9, 2021

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Data·3 min read

A data quality checklist before starting a BI project

The checks that prevent a dashboard from failing after launch: ownership, definitions, completeness, duplicates, and reconciliation.

Oct 20, 2026

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Data·4 min read

When to move from spreadsheets to a database

The signals that a spreadsheet has become a database, and the simplest path to a more reliable system.

Sep 28, 2026

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Power BI/Data Modeling·5 min read

Power BI star schema: a practical data model checklist

A practical checklist for designing a Power BI star schema: grain, keys, dimensions, date tables, relationships, and validation.

Sep 13, 2026

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SEO·4 min read

How to structure a service page for search and conversion

A practical service-page structure: one intent, a clear outcome, honest proof, deliverables, process, objections, internal links, and a measurable CTA.

Aug 19, 2026

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