In this blog post, we will explore how to create professional-looking invoices using Power BI Paginated Reports. We’ll start with an overview of Paginated Reports, then dive into creating a custom invoice design, and finally discuss how to publish and share these invoices.
- Preparing Data for Invoices
To create an invoice, we first need to prepare the underlying data. This includes data about customers, products, and transactions. You can import data from various sources, such as Excel files, SQL databases, or other data sources supported by Power BI. Once you have imported the data, you can create relationships and perform data cleaning and transformations as necessary.
- Designing the Invoice Layout in Report Builder
To start designing the invoice, open the Report Builder tool and create a new Paginated Report. The Report Builder interface consists of a design surface, a report data pane, and a properties pane. Begin by organizing your report data in the report data pane.
- 2.1. Add a Header
To create a header for your invoice, click on the ‘Insert’ tab, and select ‘Header’ from the dropdown menu. In the header, you can include elements such as your company logo, address, and contact information. To add an image, use the ‘Image’ tool from the ‘Insert’ tab and position it in the header.
- 2.2. Add a Title
Add a text box from the ‘Insert’ tab to include the invoice title (e.g., ‘Invoice’). Customize the text’s font, size, and alignment as needed.
- 2.3. Customer Information
Add a table or a series of text boxes to display the customer’s name, address, contact information, and invoice number. You can use expressions to bind the text boxes to the appropriate data fields in your dataset.
- 2.4. Invoice Line Items
Insert a table from the ‘Insert’ tab to display the invoice line items. Bind the table to your invoice data source and configure the columns to display the product name, quantity, unit price, and line item total. Apply formatting and styling to match the overall design of the invoice.
- 2.5. Summary and Footer
Add a summary section to display the subtotal, taxes, and total amount due. You can use expressions to calculate these values based on the line items in the invoice. Finally, add a footer to include any additional information, such as payment terms or a thank you message.
- Publishing and Sharing Invoices
Once you’ve finished designing the invoice, save the report and publish it to Power BI Report Server or Power BI Premium. To generate individual invoices for your customers, create a parameterized report, allowing you to filter the data for a specific customer or invoice number. Share the published invoices with your customers by providing them with a link or exporting the invoices as PDFs, Word documents, or Excel files.
Conclusion
Power BI Paginated Reports offer a flexible and powerful solution for creating professional-looking invoices. By leveraging the Report Builder tool, users can create custom invoice designs that meet their specific
This blogpost was created with help from ChatGPT Pro.
Christopher Finlan 