10 Steps to Master Power Query for FP&A professionals

Power Query is a powerful data transformation and manipulation tool that is part of Microsoft Excel and Power BI.

It enables FP&A (Financial Planning and Analysis) professionals to gather, clean, and transform data from various sources for analysis and reporting purposes.

The 10 steps to master Power Query in our industry are:

Understanding Power Query Basics:

Power Query is available in both Excel and Power BI. In Excel, it’s called “Get & Transform,” while in Power BI, it’s called “Power Query Editor.” The functionality is largely the same.

Power Query allows you to connect to various data sources such as databases, Excel files, text files, web pages, and more.
It provides a graphical interface to perform data transformations and manipulations, without writing complex formulas or VBA macros.

Importing Data:

Start by launching Power Query Editor. In Excel, go to the Data tab and click on “Get Data” or “From Table/Range.” In Power BI, click on “Edit Queries” or “Transform Data.”

Select the desired data source, such as a file or database, and establish a connection.