What’s new in Dynamics 365 Business Central in the 2024 release wave 2
Microsoft’s 2024 Release Wave 2 for Dynamics 365 Business Central brings a range of updates and enhancements designed to improve usability, enhance integrations, and expand functionality. As part of Microsoft’s bi-annual release cadence, these updates aim to address user feedback while introducing innovative features that align with modern business needs.
This blog explores the key features and changes introduced in this latest release, offering insights into what they mean for businesses using Business Central.
Copilot and AI updates
The 2024 Release Wave 2 introduces several AI-powered features to Dynamics 365 Business Central, aimed at streamlining processes and enhancing productivity. These updates integrate Microsoft Dynamics 365’s Copilot technology across various workflows, enabling users to automate tasks, generate insights, and reduce repetitive work. Below is an overview of the most notable enhancements:
- Automate Power Automate flow creation: Use Copilot to build Power Automate flows with natural language input. This simplifies automation setup by providing real-time suggestions, refining flows conversationally, and enabling seamless integration with Business Central data.
- Enhanced bank reconciliation: AI-powered transaction matching and ledger account suggestions help bookkeepers reconcile accounts faster by minimizing unmatched transactions and providing context-aware recommendations.
- Product information management: Copilot accelerates the creation of product data by suggesting substitutions, dimensions, units of measure, and variants based on existing items, making it easier to manage product catalogs and prepare new products for sale.
- Sales order automation with AI agents: The new Sales Order Agent automates the sales order process from customer email requests to order confirmation. Using AI, it identifies customers, drafts quotes, verifies availability, and processes orders with minimal user intervention.
New subscription billing module in Dynamics 365 Business Central
The 2024 Release Wave 2 introduces a new subscription billing module in Dynamics 365 Business Central, catering to businesses adopting subscription-based models for goods and services. This update enables organizations to streamline their recurring billing processes, manage mixed contracts efficiently, and improve revenue and expense reporting accuracy. With tools for automation, customization, and reporting, businesses can save time and reduce manual efforts while adapting to modern revenue models.
The subscription billing module simplifies contract creation and management with standardized templates and automated processes. It also integrates deferral capabilities and supports revenue recognition, ensuring compliance and accurate financial reporting. These features help businesses efficiently manage portfolios of recurring contracts, such as IT support, hardware maintenance, or other service agreements.
Key capabilities include:
- Recurring billing contracts: Manage contracts for items and services billed on a recurring schedule.
- Billing schedules and parameters: Set flexible billing schedules that support usage-based or automated billing scenarios.
- Revenue and expense recognition: Automate accrual postings and assign revenue or expenses to appropriate periods in financial statements.
- Template-driven contract creation: Use predefined templates to standardize billing parameters and schedules.
- Dynamic pricing and contract updates: Update contract parameters and prices easily to reflect current or future changes.
- Integrated reporting tools: Access Power BI reports for insights into contracts, customer billing schedules, recognized revenue, future billing, and more.
This new module is included in the Business Central Essential license, making advanced subscription management capabilities accessible to businesses of all sizes.
Capture invoice and receipt data with Azure AI Document Intelligence
The 2024 release wave 2 of Dynamics 365 Business Central now includes an integrated OCR service powered by Azure AI Document Intelligence, revolutionizing how businesses process invoices and receipts. This feature automates data capture and extraction directly within the platform, significantly reducing manual entry and streamlining accounts payable workflows. Finance professionals can efficiently manage financial documents, freeing up time for more strategic tasks.
Key benefits of this feature include:
- Automated data extraction: Seamlessly capture and extract data from PDFs, images, and other document types using advanced OCR technology.
- Streamlined document capture: Process vendor invoices and receipts more efficiently within Business Central.
- Enhanced financial workflows: Automate routine tasks for bookkeepers and accountants, improving accuracy and reducing processing times.
- Integrated Azure AI capabilities: Leverage state-of-the-art AI-powered document intelligence for robust, reliable data capture.
- Optimized accounts payable: Simplify financial document management, allowing finance teams to focus on higher-value activities.
This enhancement demonstrates how AI-powered automation can improve productivity and accuracy across financial operations.
Auto-apply templates synchronizing data with Dataverse
The 2024 release wave 2 of Business Central enhances integration between Business Central, Dataverse, and Dynamics 365 apps by introducing auto-applied templates during data synchronization. These templates enrich synchronized data by applying pre-configured settings that align with specific business needs, such as account types, regions, or operational preferences. This automation eliminates the need for custom integration rules, reducing costs and accelerating the integration process.
For example, when account data from Dataverse syncs with the customer table in Business Central, templates can automatically assign configuration settings like posting groups based on specified criteria, such as the customer’s country. This ensures that domestic and foreign accounts are categorized correctly during synchronization, saving time and reducing errors. Businesses can set up and manage these templates on the Integration Table Mapping page, where they can define filters, prioritize rules, and establish templates for seamless application during data synchronization.
Key features include:
- Rule-based template application: Automatically apply templates during synchronization based on defined filters.
- Multi-template configuration: Set up multiple templates for integration table mappings, each with specific filters and priorities.
- Improved data enrichment: Automatically enrich synchronized data with settings such as posting groups for domestic and foreign customers.
- Streamlined integration setup: Eliminate the need for custom coding, making integrations faster and more cost-effective.
- Enhanced visibility: View template configurations and filter details directly within the Table Config Templates page.
This feature accelerates data integration processes and ensures synchronized data is correctly configured and ready for use in both Business Central and Dataverse.
Enhanced Excel reporting for consolidation and Fixed Assets
The 2024 release wave 2 of Dynamics 365 Business Central introduces new Excel report layouts that empower businesses to gain deeper insights into consolidation and fixed asset management. These reports provide the underlying data they are based on, enabling users to reformat and customize the information to meet specific reporting needs, gain tailored insights, or troubleshoot effectively. By offering prebuilt layouts, businesses can save time while maintaining flexibility for their unique reporting requirements.
The newly added Excel report layouts include:
- Consolidated Trial Balance: A detailed view of consolidated financial data for multi-entity reporting.
- Fixed Asset Details: Comprehensive data on fixed asset records for analysis and audit.
- Fixed Asset Analysis: Key insights into the performance and utilization of fixed assets.
- Fixed Asset Projected Value: Projections of asset values over time for strategic planning.
These reports are accessible via the search function or the Accountant home page, streamlining access to vital data. By leveraging these layouts, users can create custom reports that cater to specific business needs, improving decision-making and operational efficiency.
Summarize records with Copilot
In the latest release, the D365 Copilot feature in Business Central enables users to generate concise, insightful summaries of any record, including data from custom tables. This capability simplifies complex information, saving time and enhancing productivity by presenting key insights in just a few sentences. With Copilot, users gain a clear understanding of their data, enabling quicker decision-making and streamlined workflows.
Key benefits of this feature include:
- Concise summaries: Quickly view brief textual overviews of records, highlighting critical data points and related fields.
- Interactive assistance: Engage with summaries to explore key fields, access related records, or receive next-step guidance from Copilot.
- Customizable insights: Developers can tailor summaries by adding extra context or information using AL code.
- Support for custom tables: Summarize data from standard and custom tables, ensuring flexibility and adaptability to unique business needs.
- Improved decision-making: Focus on relevant data without sifting through lengthy records, enabling more informed and timely decisions.
Enhancements to the user experience
The latest updates in Dynamics 365 Business Central introduce a range of user experience enhancements designed to streamline workflows, improve accessibility, and boost productivity. These improvements provide users with greater flexibility in navigating the interface, managing data, and customizing their work environment to fit their needs, regardless of role or device.
Key enhancements include:
- Access keys with key tips in more languages: Navigate and activate actions in the UI quickly using key tips, now available in multiple languages, including English, French, German, Spanish, and more. Key tips work seamlessly across action bars, navigation menus, and other UI elements.
- Drag and drop for file uploads: Easily attach multiple files to records by dragging them into the file upload dialog on pages like the Document Attachments List FactBox, Incoming Document Files FactBox, and Email Editor.
- Resize columns without personalization: Adjust column widths for optimal viewing on any device, even when UI personalization is disabled for a role. Changes are faster, more flexible, and persist in personalized views.
- Modern data search in lists: Switch between the legacy search method and a modern, full-text optimized search for faster, more relevant results. Users can narrow searches with quotes or enable modern search on supported lists for enhanced precision.
Other top features from the Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 release wave 2
For a full list of new features and updates, you can review the official Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2024 release wave 2 documents. In addition to the futures listed above, here are a few other updates worth noting:
- Enhanced integration with Dynamics 365 Field Service
- Improved Shopify and Business Central integration
- Optimized project management
- Updates for sustainability and compliance in Business Central
- Upgraded reporting and analytics
- Integration with IRS for 1099 Submissions
- Notifications for job queue processing issues
- Enhanced e-document management
Want to learn more?
The updates, new features, and enhancements highlighted above are just a few of the many improvements included in the 2024 release wave 2 of Dynamics 365 Business Central. These updates are designed to streamline processes, boost productivity, and enhance your user experience across a wide range of business functions.
Business Central users can begin taking advantage of these new features and capabilities right away. However, to ensure a seamless integration and maximize the value of these enhancements, businesses may choose to rely on a trusted Microsoft partner for assistance. The right partner who provides Dynamics 365 consulting services can guide you through the latest updates, helping you understand their full potential, implement them effectively, and tailor them to your unique business needs. By partnering with an expert, you can optimize your Business Central experience, ensuring that you continue to achieve operational excellence and business growth with the latest technology.