If you like this week’s edition of SELECT * FROM South.Shore, we wrote a longer breakdown of this build on our Medium blog and recorded a short walkthrough for anyone who wants to see it live.
The current state - a tangled mess
If you’ve ever worked as an analyst or associate at an investment firm with a handful of portfolio companies, you already know how month end goes. Financials arrive in different formats, charts of accounts never quite line up, and what should be a straightforward board update turns into a week of copying, pasting, and reconciling. And that’s assuming everything goes according to plan! One late update or a small seemingly innocuous comment or request can knock the whole thing off course. What if there was a better way? Imagine one central dashboard with portfolio views that keep the familiar shape of a P&L, KPIs that stay tied to the actual source systems, and filters that allow the user to move quickly enough to be useful in a working meeting.
Screenshot from Apollo Financial Models
What we built
To make this concrete we mocked up a small SaaS portfolio with three fictitious companies and realistic financials: Fit-Gen Health, Pack-It, and Sky Screen Solutions. Each company’s financials were uploaded to Snowflake, cleaned with dbt to ensure consistent financial definitions, and are kept in sync on a schedule. On top of that layer, we designed a few views that we believe should feel very familiar to any users with a Finance background. You can step from rolled-up financials into a single company, follow variance from a summary tile down to the line that moved, then flip the lens from actuals to plan without losing the thread. When a partner asks why margin shifted, you can answer in the room. When someone wants to isolate the last three months across only two companies, the view responds without a re-cut. Most exciting - the visuals stay attached to the source, which means that as data continues to roll in from each company’s systems on a daily basis, the financials on the dashboard stay in tune without any additional manual work required.
A snapshot of our ShoreSide Capital Portfolio overview tab
Why it works for stakeholders
We have already called out the real time connection and streamlined updates, but it helps to see what that means in practice. If you have ever built a slide comparing multiple companies, you are familiar with the the standard 'comp' charts that line up revenue, margin, growth, and more. Now imagine cutting that same view by date or region in seconds to spot trends or value. Maybe Pack-It’s margin looks strong overall, but an acquirer cares specifically about Cleveland. You can narrow to that market, watch the comps update, and decide if there is something worth pursuing.
A preview of some comparisons you can configure across portfolio companies
Or even better yet, let's say you have a series of P&L outputs along with a DCF model that your board likes to review on a regular basis to track performance as well as opportunities for a carve out. The amazing thing about Omni is that with their spreadsheets feature, you can build excel-like outputs directly into your dashboard. That means a fully functional model which sits on top of and is directly connected to the backend. Want to filter for Cleveland? Want to consider a carve out of two specific companies from the portfolio? You can select those options and have it flow through the outputs immediately. No more rebuilding models, no more maintaining 75 different tabs for bespoke scenarios ... all of it lives in one place. And if you ever want to edit your assumptions, it's as simple as hopping into edit mode, altering your hardcodes, and pressing save.
A sample DCF we constructed to display how you can build models right into your BI tool
See it in action
If this resonates, our video walks through the full flow in a few minutes and the Medium post breaks down the details for anyone who wants to dig in. Both are straightforward and center on the work itself. In addition, if you’d like to book a live walkthrough with us and ask detailed questions in real time just shoot us a note!
Thanks for reading! Want more? Check out our blog and our YouTube channel for deeper dives and walkthroughs. We'll be back each week with more content - subscribe to stay in the loop.
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