Dynamics 365 Business Central
Dynamics 365 Business Central (D365 BC) is a robust business management application designed to streamline and automates various business processes, including finance, supply chain, manufacturing, shipping, projects, and services. The application’s functionality continues to be enhanced by Microsoft’s ongoing investment evidenced by frequent updates (two major and multiple minor releases every year) keeping it “Evergreen”.
D365 BC 2025 Release Wave 2 revolutionizes ERP operations by deeply integrating AI-backed Copilot capabilities and enhancing financial management, reporting and sustainability. This document presents our personal view of the high-level inclusion list of the features to help the readers appreciate the gamut of this update.
Finance
Supply Chain
Manufacturing
Shipping
Projects
Services
This document presents our personal view of the high-level inclusion list of the features to help the readers appreciate the gamut of this update.
COPILOT
D365 BC features AI agents to automate and orchestrate business processes, requiring minimal user intervention. The first out-of-the-box agent, the Sales Order Agent, streamlines sales order processing from customer emails. It handles everything from receiving requests and identifying customers to drafting quotes, checking availability, and converting approved quotes into sales orders, all while adhering to predefined permissions and a simple configuration. The benefit of it is that users do not need to jump between the screens to check Requirements emails (demand) on one hand and Availability of the Inventory in the Locations (supply) on the other hand. It also allows to detect new emails related to the same topic and adjust already drafted Quotes based on dynamic of requests. But this feature would be less used for bulk-handling if Sales Documents are coming via Integration (Field Service or eCommerce or E-Documents).
The Sales Order Agent has been significantly enhanced to efficiently process high volumes of sales inquiries. It now handles attachments (PDFs, images, while previously it was analysing email body message only) to extract quote information, accurately identifies and applies multiple ship-to addresses, and provides capable-to-promise responses for item availability. Additionally, the agent can automatically process emails from trusted customers and seamlessly resume tasks with user input, streamlining data entry and reducing manual intervention.
The Copilot and agents task pane provides visibility into each agent’s tasks, allowing you to guide their actions. If an agent encounters an issue, you can provide additional instructions in the designated field to unblock it and ensure it completes its task as desired.
Copilot in D365 BC offers a production-ready preview feature to estimate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Users can input descriptions and parameters in the Sustainability Journal, and Copilot will suggest emissions and adjust factors for future use, streamlining sustainability reporting. This feature helps users gain insights into their environmental impact.
Copilot preview feature has been significantly enhanced, resulting in better understanding of complex multi-sentence prompts, and offering faster performance with increased reliability.
Building on the “autofill with Copilot” feature, this version offers improved reliability for field suggestions, and enhanced results powered by Bing search capabilities, all designed to better meet diverse business needs.
The Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for D365 BC enables seamless AI integration by exposing ERP data via a standardized API. This allows intelligent agents, including those from Azure OpenAI and Copilot Studio, to automate tasks, streamline workflows, and facilitate conversational interaction with D365 BC entities, ultimately boosting efficiency and decision-making. It simplifies agent development and minimizes ongoing maintenance efforts.
Introducing the ability for developers to create agents, assign permissions and create agent tasks within D365 BC to automate manual processes. This feature will be available on the Agents (preview) page. Whilst, Microsoft is addressing this functionality to be used by the developers, we think the system accountants referred to as citizen developers with the advanced knowledge of the table structure will be able to create these agents. For broader understanding of Agents, please also have a look at our article re. Payables Agents:
Copilot’s Analysis Assist feature lets you identify trends and anomalies, even including fields from related tables, to gain quick insights for optimizing operations like supply chain management. For example, Users can conduct analysis on late deliveries by Region by Shipping Agent using a simple query such as “Analyse recent Sales Orders for late deliveries and include Shipping Agents and Customer Regions”. This is massive improvement, as before it was just applying direct filters to flat table, and how it is a proper analogy of complex Query.
Copilot in D365 BC now offers enhanced record summaries, providing quick insights into customer details, orders, and other records. This AI-powered feature delivers faster, more comprehensive summaries, including recent modifications and agent activity, boosting productivity and streamlining data understanding.
FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT
D365 BC now automates fixed asset management by automatically creating multiple fixed asset cards when posting a purchase invoice. This feature reduces manual effort, increases accuracy, and improves efficiency for bulk purchases, ensuring each asset is recorded and tracked without individual manual pre-creation of the Fixed Asset Cards (placeholders).
The new Audit Trail report in Business Central improves compliance by providing a comprehensive, transparent record of all transactions. By detailing information from G/L Register and G/L Entry tables, it ensures accurate recording and easy traceability, benefiting both auditors and internal teams.
The new Accounts Payable Role Center centralizes all related tasks and documents, simplifying workflows for accounts payable. By consolidating purchase documents, inbound e-documents (e-invoices and PDFs), and payment processes into one interface, it reduces administrative time, minimizes errors, and boosts productivity for the single legal entity.
REPORTING AND DATA ANALYSIS
The enhanced Financial Reporting feature in D365 BC significantly benefits both report viewers and authors. Viewers gain efficiency with automated email delivery and the ability to run reports across all dimension values. Authors enjoy streamlined creation through auto-filled fields, Excel editing, dynamic column headings, and multi-currency support, all reducing manual effort and improving financial team productivity.
Businesses can now gain deeper insights into purchasing with the updated Power BI Purchasing app. It offers enhanced reporting and analytics, including new KPIs, location-based map visuals, and purchasing forecasts, all powered by a refactored, open-source-ready semantic model.
Enhanced sales reporting and analytics in D365 BC now enable businesses to track new Power BI KPIs and scenarios, including project and general ledger data, and sales forecasts. Customizable Excel layouts further empower tailored analysis.
For Australian businesses with over AUD 100 million annual turnover, Business Central’s new payment times reporting (PTR) feature automates compliance with regulations requiring reports on small business supplier payment practices. It organizes vendors by size or payment, or payment terms, calculates key payment metrics, and generates reports on average payment periods and late payment proportions into ranges of time.
SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
To support complex industrial structures, Business Central now enhances outsourcing capabilities, allowing businesses to leverage external vendors for significant production tasks. New features include robust logistic flows for subcontractor transfers, flexible pricing, improved finished goods receipts with tracking, and overall enhanced usability and transparency in outsourced production processes.
The new Quality Management extension for Business Central ensures compliance and product reliability by integrating quality checks into goods receipt and production. It allows defining comprehensive quality check scopes and parameters for various processes (purchase, production, assembly, manual/scheduled checks), including external analysis settings and quarantine procedures. The extension also provides robust reporting and analysis tools like Quality Certificates and a Quality Status Overview to ensure consistent product quality.
SHOPIFY
To enhance traceability and reporting for Shopify POS sales, D365 BC now allows importing staff member information from Shopify to salesperson codes on sales documents. By configuring “Shopify Staff Mapping” on the Shopify Shop Card, you can link Shopify staff IDs to D365 BC salespersons, automatically populating the Salesperson Code field on imported sales orders.
Boost international sales by syncing Shopify market catalogues with Business Central, ensuring familiar pricing and currency for global customers. Simply use “Get Catalogs” on the Shopify Market Catalogs page to quickly set up price calculation and updates.
The Shopify connector now allows exporting D365 BC customers as B2B company locations to Shopify, enhancing customer information management. New “Customer No.” and “Bill-to Customer No.” fields on the Shopify Company Location page automatically map sell-to and bill-to customers from imported Shopify B2B orders, providing greater flexibility.
E-DOCUMENTS
A new “E-Documents Admin” permission set in D365 BC enhances security and efficiency for e-document management. It ensures only authorized administrators can create and modify E-Documents Services and configurations, preventing unauthorized changes and reducing security risks.
New e-document types for shipments and transfer shipments are now available in D365 BC, simplifying compliance with country-specific regulatory requirements. Businesses can map these as outbound documents from sales or transfer orders, ensuring accurate and efficient handling of shipping documentation.
In the 1st Wave update of 2025, Microsoft has acknowledged Continia as a service provider for e-documents similar to Avalara (US taxation) and Pagero.
The new Clearance model for e-invoices in D365 BC automates pre-approval of invoices by tax authorities or certified third parties before customer sharing. This ensures regulatory compliance, reduces penalties, streamlines invoicing, improves accuracy, and enhances transaction traceability by automating validation and approval processes.
SUSTAINABILITY ACCOUNTING
Enhancements to sustainability module with the introduction of
Use an updated Sustainability Manager Role Center
Enable taxonomy elements for ESRS and other standards
Start value chain in purchase process for Scope 3 in sustainability
Use sustainability Scope 3 value chain for assembly and transfers
Provide carbon equivalent data for sales based on Scope 3 automation
Track item charges across value chain automation in Scope 3
Use ESG reporting integrated with Business Central
Track energy consumption in Sustainability by adhering to the CSRD, ESG Standards
Report on social and governance information for employees
Use Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CABM), Extended Producer Responsibility calculations
Track emissions of Items of concern by using the Item of Concern field on the Sustainability FastTab of the Item Card page.
Use an approval workflow for both standard and recurring sustainability journals.
TECHNICAL AND GOVERNANCE
Publishers extending Copilot in D365 BC can leverage Microsoft-managed Azure OpenAI resources by default, simplifying AI integration and reducing operational overhead for customers. This approach offers benefits like improved reliability, enhanced security, and streamlined billing. While using Business Central’s AI resources is recommended, partners and customers can opt to use their own Azure OpenAI subscriptions for specific needs, though this shifts responsibility for deployment, maintenance, and billing to them.
Two new events will be added for the customisations of Copilot in D365 BC which will enhance the user experience when having custom built Copilot solutions.
- Extending the Copilot autofill with customised autofill that will assist and suggest more suitable field values to the users, which will save time and reduce data entry errors due to a customised autofill presentation with Copilot.
- Extending the Copilot summaries with customised summaries and provide a more tailored experience to help users get faster insights and understanding of the data summarised with Copilot.