Every financial manager has faced the same frustration: data that exists but can’t be trusted, compared, or acted on. This session tackles that problem head-on. Attendees will build a working Power BI financial intelligence dashboard from scratch - connecting real transaction actuals to approved spend plans across organizational units and fiscal periods. Using a four-table star schema: Finance Transactions, Spend Plans, a Date dimension, and an Organization dimension. Participants will learn how to model government financial data the right way. We’ll walk through defining table relationships, writing DAX measures for variance analysis, and layering in slicers for department, cost center, fiscal year, and quarter so decision-makers can drill into exactly what they need. The finished report surfaces KPI cards for Actuals, Budget, Variance $, and Variance % alongside a department-level bar chart and a matrix that breaks down performance by org unit and fiscal month. These are exactly the views that budget officers and senior leaders ask for every cycle. No prior Power BI experience required. Whether you manage a single cost center or oversee an entire organization’s budget, you’ll leave this session with a reusable data model, practical DAX patterns, and a dashboard template ready to adapt to your mission -- delivered in the 60 minutes flat. Learning Objectives (25-word limit): 1. Participants will be able to construct a star schema data model in Power BI connecting financial transaction actuals and approved spend plans to Date and Org dimension tables. 2. Participants will be able to write core DAX measures, including Total Actuals, Total Budget, Variance $, and Variance %, to quantify and visualize the gap between planned and actual spending. 3. Participants will be able to design an interactive Power BI report with slicers, a variance matrix, and actuals-vs-budget visuals that enable leadership to monitor financial performance by department and fiscal period.