Many organizations using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central often overlook or underutilize its reporting options. Recently, reporting and analytics have become crucial elements in organizational decision-making and strategy development. However, numerous organizations are unaware of the reporting options available in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. We have thoroughly examined various reporting options in different scenarios and organizations. With the knowledge we have acquired over time, our goal in this article is to provide a clear understanding of reporting and analytics in Business Central in an era where data-driven insights are essential for organizational growth.
Why Reporting is important in Business Central
Reporting in Business Central is vital because it helps enhance operations in different ways:
Performance Monitoring: Reporting helps track key performance indicators (KPIs) helps assess business health and identifies areas for improvement.
Decision Making: Reports provide data-driven insights that inform strategic and operational decisions.
Collaboration: Sharing reports facilitates effective communication and collaboration within the organization.
The Reporting Landscape in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
Business Central offers various reporting options to cater to different reporting needs within the system. Here is a breakdown:
- Standard Built-In Reports: These reports come in ready-to-use out of the box and cover a wide range of business needs including financial, sales, inventory, and operational reports.
- Account Schedules: These are used for creating financial reports and performing financial analysis. You can use dimensions in account schedules to analyze your data across multiple dimensions, giving you a deeper understanding of your financials.
- Excel Report Templates: How these work is that you can export data to Excel for advanced analysis and reporting in this option. This way, you can leverage Excel’s powerful data manipulation and visualization capabilities.
- RDL Reports: (Report Definition Language) are report layouts based on XML and are designed using tools like Microsoft SQL Server Report Builder or Microsoft Visual Studio with the RDLC Report Designer extension.
- Analysis Reports– You can customize analysis reports based on records of your posted transactions, for example, sales, purchases, transfers, and inventory adjustments.
- Power BI Integration: This is embedding interactive dashboards and reports directly within Business Central, providing real-time insights. Power BI integration also provides advanced visualization, drill-down capabilities, and integration with other data sources.
Configuring and Designing Reports in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
With the different reporting options available above, you can configure and design reports in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central in several ways. These ways involve several ways and tools.
Here is an overview of the process:
Here is an overview of the process:
- Using Built-In-Reports
Business Central comes with a set of built-in reports which cover common business reporting needs such as financial statements, sales reports, and inventory analysis. These reports can be accessed and run directly from the system.
- Customizing Reports
Customization of reports in Business Central can be done using different tools: Some of these tools include:
Report Layout Selection: You choose between different layouts for your reports, including RDLC and Word layouts. This allows you to select the most appropriate format for your needs.
Word Report Layouts: It’s the use of Microsoft Word to design and modify report layouts. This is particularly useful for creating visually appealing documents like invoices and orders. You can map data fields to content controls in Word using the XML Mapping Pane.
RDLC Reports: For more complex reporting needs, you can use RDLC (Report Definition Language Client-side) reports. These are designed using tools like Microsoft SQL Server Report Builder or Visual Studio.
- Creating new Reports
Built-in reports are often limited in various ways. This results in most users in Business Central creating new reports. There are different ways you can create reports in Business Central. Some of those ways include:
Report Designer: Report designer is used in Business Central to create new reports, It involves defining datasets, designing the layout and setting up report properties.
Power BI Integration: Leverage Power BI to create advanced analytics and interactive dashboards. Business Central integrates seamlessly with Power BI, allowing you to pull data from Business Central and visualize it in Power BI.
Advanced Reporting and Analytics in Business Central
In our many years of experience working with Business Central, we realize that an ERP’s primary function is enforcing business controls, integrating data from multiple sources, and ensuring collaboration. However, Business Central has limitations in terms of reporting.
For advanced reporting, there are multiple ways and tools available to achieve this
- Power BI Integration: Power BI is a business analytics tool that allows you to visualize data, share insights and make data-driven decisions. With Power BI integration, you can create interactive reports and dashboards that provide real-time insights into your business operations.
- Jet Reports: Jet Reports is a reporting and business intelligence tool that integrates with Excel allowing users to create, modify, and manage financial and business reports directly within Excel by pulling data from Business Central.
- Jet Analytics: Jet Analytics is a data preparation, automation, and modeling solution that seamlessly integrates with Business Central to accelerate modern data warehouse delivery.
- Account Schedules: It’s a powerful tool for creating user-defined financial reports. Account schedules allow you to analyze financial data from your chart of accounts, compare general ledger entries with budget entries, and present this information in various layouts.
Role Based Reporting
Role-based reporting in Business Central is designed to provide users with specific data and insights they need based on their roles within their organization. Each user has a role center which is a personalized dashboard that provides quick access to relevant reports and data.
Understanding Role Centers
In Business Central, role centers are customized home pages that provide users with quick access to the tools and information they need to perform their jobs. Role Centers are designed to be role-specific, meaning they are tailored to the needs of different types of users.
Creating Role-Specific Reports
Role-specific reports are designed to provide the information that users in specific roles need to perform their jobs effectively. Business Central allows you to create role-specific reports by defining the data sources, layout, and formatting based on the requirements of different roles.
Managing User Permissions for Reports
User permissions are an essential aspect of managing reports in Business Central. By setting up user permissions, you can control who has access to specific reports, ensuring that sensitive information is only accessible to authorized users.
Report Automation in Business Central
Report automation in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central leverages tools like Power Automate to streamline and automate the generation and distribution of reports.
Some key aspects of Power Automate include:
Power Automate Integration: Business Central integrates with Power Automate, a no-code/low-code solution that allows users to create automated workflows. The workflows in turn trigger report generation based on specific events like the creation, modification, or deletion of records.
Automated Flows: You can set up automated flows that run on a schedule or are triggered by specific events. For example, you can automate the generation of monthly financial reports, which can then be automatically sent to stakeholders.
Instant Flows: Users can manually trigger instant flows from within Business Central. This allows for on-demand report generation and distribution, providing flexibility for ad-hoc reporting needs.
Approval Workflows: Automated approval workflows can be set up to ensure that reports are reviewed and approved before being distributed. This adds an extra layer of control and accuracy to the reporting process.
Customizable Reports: Users can customize the criteria and format of automated reports to meet specific business needs. This ensures that the reports generated are relevant and useful for decision-making.
Challenges and Solutions in Business Central Reporting
1. Limited Pre-defined Report Formats
Challenge: The pre-defined report formats in Business Central may not meet all business needs, making it difficult to customize reports to specific standards or preferences.
Solution: Utilize tools like Jet Reports or Power BI to create custom reports. These tools offer greater flexibility and can be tailored to meet specific reporting requirements. Additionally, learning how to use the built-in report designer can help in creating more customized reports.
2. Data Accuracy
Challenge: Ensuring data accuracy can be difficult, especially when dealing with large volumes of data or integrating data from multiple sources.
Solution: Implement data validation rules and regular audits to ensure data integrity. Automated data integration tools can also help maintain accuracy by reducing manual data entry errors.
3. Consolidated Reporting Across Multiple Companies
Challenge: Generating consolidated reports for multiple companies within Business Central can be complex and time-consuming.
Solution: Use consolidation features within Business Central to combine financial data from multiple companies. Additionally, third-party tools like Jet Reports can simplify the process of creating consolidated financial statements.
4. Technical Expertise Required
Challenge: Creating and customizing reports often requires a high level of technical expertise, which can be a barrier for some users.
Solution: Invest in training for key users to build their reporting skills. Leveraging user-friendly reporting tools like Jet Reports or Power BI can also reduce the need for deep technical knowledge.
5. Performance Issues
Challenge: Large or complex reports can sometimes lead to performance issues, slowing down the system.
Solution: Optimize report queries and use data warehousing solutions to handle large datasets more efficiently. Regularly reviewing and optimizing the database can also help improve performance.
6. Integration with Other Systems
Challenge: Integrating Business Central with other systems for reporting purposes can be challenging.
Solution: Integrating Jet Analytics because Jet Analytics reports across multiple data sources, providing a comprehensive view of your business data.
Conclusion
Business Central offers various reporting tools and options—from built-in reports and Power BI integration to advanced solutions like Jet Reports and Jet Analytics. However, leveraging these tools effectively requires an understanding of their capabilities and how they can be tailored to meet specific business needs.
That’s where we come in as Premier Analytics, we have over 15+ years of experience and a deep knowledge of reporting and analytics in ERPs. We guide you from start to finish on how to handle your reporting needs and raw data into actionable insights based on your organization’s needs.
