How to Remove Decimals in Power BI

Nothing clutters up a crisp Power BI report like unnecessary decimal places. Seeing "57.00 users" or "$1,234.00 profit" can make your dashboards look messy and distract from the main message. Fortunately, getting rid of those extra decimal points is a straightforward fix. This tutorial will walk you through a few different ways to remove decimals in Power BI, from quick visual tweaks to more permanent data transformations, so you can choose the best method for your specific situation.

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Reasons to Remove Decimals in Power BI

While decimals are critical for financial accuracy or scientific data, they're often just noise in business reporting. Here’s why you'll want to clean them up:

• Improved Readability: Whole numbers are easier for the brain to process at a glance. Your stakeholders can instantly understand "150 sales" much faster than "150.00 sales."
• Cleaner Visuals: Removing decimals declutters your charts, cards, and tables. This gives your dashboard a more professional and polished look, and it frees up valuable space to avoid crowded visuals.
• Appropriate Precision: Displaying decimals for metrics that can only be whole numbers, like web sessions or units sold, doesn't make logical sense. Stripping the decimals aligns the data display with its real-world context.

Method 1: The Quickest Fix (Using the Formatting Pane)

If you just need to remove decimals in a single visual, such as a card or a value in a table, the Formatting Pane is your best friend. This method is fast, easy, and doesn't change the underlying data column - it only affects how the number is displayed in that specific visual.

Follow these steps:

1. Select a visual: Click on the visual in your report canvas that you want to format. This could be a Card, Table, Matrix, Gauge, or any visual that displays numerical values.
2. Open the Format Pane: With the visual selected, look for the "Format your visual" icon (it looks like a paintbrush) in the Visualizations pane on the right side of the screen.
3. Find the value to format:
4. Set Decimal Places to Zero: You’ll see an option called "Value decimal places." By default, it might be set to "Auto." Simply type 0 into this box and press Enter.

Instantly, the numbers in your selected visual will update to show as whole numbers. Remember, this change is local to this one visual. If you use the same data field in another visual, you'll need to repeat the process.

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Method 2: The Most Consistent Approach (Using Column Tools)

When you want a field to always appear as a whole number everywhere in your report, the best method is to format it at the data model level. Using the column tools ensures consistency, so you don't have to re-format the same field in every new visual you create.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Go to the Data or Model view: On the left-hand navigation bar, click on either the "Data view" (spreadsheet icon) or the "Model view" (diagram icon).
2. Select the Column: Find and click on the column you want to format in the Data pane on the right-hand side.
3. Use the Column Tools Ribbon: Once you select the column, a "Column tools" contextual ribbon will appear at the top of the Power BI window.
4. Change the Format: In the "Formatting" section of the ribbon, you have two options:

Once you’ve made this change, any visual in your report that uses this column will now display it as a whole number by default. This is the preferred method for maintaining consistency across a large report.

Method 3: Advanced Control (Using DAX Functions)

Sometimes you need more granular control, especially when working with DAX measures. For instance, you might want to perform a calculation that results in a decimal, but then display the final output as a whole number. There are several DAX functions perfect for this job.

You can use these functions when creating a new measure or a calculated column.

Using the ROUND() Function

The ROUND() function rounds a number to the specified number of digits. To remove decimals, you simply specify 0 digits.

• Syntax: ROUND(<,number>, <,num_digits>)
• Example: Let's say you have a measure for Average Sales. To ensure the final output is a whole number, you can wrap it in a ROUND function.

Average Sales (Whole Number) = ROUND(AVERAGE(Sales[SaleAmount]), 0)

This formula first calculates the average sale amount, and then rounds the result to the nearest whole number (e.g., 25.75 becomes 26, while 25.45 becomes 25).

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Using the INT() and TRUNC() Functions

If you don’t want to round, but simply want to cut off the decimals (a process called truncation), you can use INT() or TRUNC().

• INT(): This function rounds a number down to the nearest integer. It effectively just removes the decimal portion.

User Count = INT(SUM(Website[Users]))

(e.g., 14.99 becomes 14)

• TRUNC(): This function is similar to INT() and also truncates the decimals.

Revenue without Cents = TRUNC(SUM(Sales[Revenue]))

(e.g., 14.99 also becomes 14)

The key difference is how they handle negative numbers, but for most positive-number business metrics, they will produce the same result of simply chopping off the decimal values.

Using the FORMAT() Function

The FORMAT() function is incredibly versatile for controlling the appearance of numbers. It converts your number into a text string in the format you specify.

• Syntax: FORMAT(<,value>, <,format_string>)
• Example: To display a sum of sales as a whole number with a thousand separator, you could use this measure:

Total Sales Formatted = FORMAT(SUM(Sales[SalesAmount]), "#,##0")

Heads Up: A crucial point about FORMAT() is that its output is text, not a number. This means you can't perform further mathematical calculations on it (like summing it up). Only use FORMAT() for the final presentation of a value, typically in a table, matrix, or card.

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Method 4: The Most Permanent Fix (Using Power Query)

So far, all the methods have been applied within the Power BI report itself. But the best place to handle data type issues is often at the source, inside the Power Query Editor. If a column should never have decimal places, changing its data type during the data import process is the most efficient and robust solution.

Here’s how to change the data type permanently in Power Query:

1. Open the Power Query Editor: From the Power BI Desktop main window, click the "Transform data" button on the "Home" ribbon.
2. Select a Column: In the Power Query Editor, find and click on the header of the column you want to change.
3. Change the Data Type: You can do this in two ways:
4. Apply the Change: Power Query will ask if you want to replace the current data type conversion step or add a new one. In most cases, you’ll choose "Replace current."
5. Close & Apply: Click the “Close & Apply” button in the top-left corner to load your transformed data into the Power BI model.

This method modifies the data as it's being loaded. From this point on, Power BI will treat that column as a whole number in your entire report, making it the cleanest way to enforce data types across your entire model.

Which Method Should You Choose? A Quick Guide

With several options available, here is a simple guide to help you decide:

• For a one-off change in a single chart: Use the Formatting Pane. It's fast and isolated.
• For enforcing consistency across your entire report: Use the Column Tools in the Data view.
• When calculating a measure with a whole number outcome: Use DAX functions like ROUND(), INT(), or TRUNC().
• For formatting values where no more math is needed (like big totals in cards): Use the DAX FORMAT() function for maximum control over appearance.
• When the data column should always be a whole number for all analyses: Use Power Query to change the data type at the source. This is a best-practice for data modeling.

Final Thoughts

Removing decimals is a small but powerful way to improve the clarity and professionalism of your Power BI reports. By choosing the right method - whether a quick format change, a consistent column setting, a DAX formula, or a Power Query transformation - you can ensure your visuals are clean, easy to read, and perfectly tailored to your audience's needs.

Building effective reports often involves endless tweaking in tools like Power BI. This is where we focused on a different approach. With Graphed, you can skip the manual formatting steps and just describe what you want in plain English. Instead of finding the right settings menu, you can simply ask, "show me my revenue by product as a bar chart with whole numbers," and the report is instantly created for you, saving you valuable time in setup and formatting.