Explore key updates in the 2024 release wave 1 of Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations applications, comprised of Finance and Supply Chain Management, are powerful cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Microsoft recently announced the 2024 release wave 1 plans for these two powerful systems. In this post, we will highlight key updates and enhancements that users can expect to be released from April 2024 to September 2024 for the following applications:
Dynamics 365 Finance
Streamlining planning process
Planning lies at the heart of effective financial management, driving informed decision-making and strategic execution. Recognizing the need for speed and flexibility in financial planning, the 2024 release wave 1 of Dynamics 365 Finance introduces a suite of planning capabilities designed to streamline workflows, enhance collaboration, and accelerate time-to-insight.
Key improvements in planning capabilities:
- Quickstart templates: Accelerate the planning process with out-of-the-box templates that provide instant visibility into an organization’s profit and loss. By leveraging chart of accounts data and properties of posted data, users can swiftly configure trial experiences with their own data, reducing setup time.
- Driver-based planning logic: Enhance flexibility and accuracy in budget modeling with the ability to create drivers and formulas directly within the application.
- Streamlined security setup: Increases administrative efficiency with the capability to mass-assign security permissions. Visual overviews of cube and dimension access, along with mass-assignment capabilities, simplify security management and ensure data integrity across planning activities.
- Restricted values for dimension inputs: Improve data consistency and governance in budgeting by creating restricted values lists for dimensions. By limiting users to predefined dimension values, organizations can prevent ad-hoc entries and ensure accuracy in the planning process, enhancing overall data quality and reliability.
- Embedded data flows: Seamlessly integrate data flows into the planning application, reducing complexity and enhancing usability. By unifying setup and data integration experiences within a single platform, users can streamline planning processes and minimize the number of steps required to access and leverage critical data.
- Editable dimension values grid: Enhance flexibility in dimension management with editable grids directly within the planning application. Users can update or add dimension values without launching external tools, facilitating scenario modeling and empowering users to adapt planning strategies with ease.
- Dimension and cube creation Copilot: Reduce the time and complexity of planning implementations by utilizing a guided setup experience, which suggests configurations based on existing Excel planning spreadsheets.
Optimize bank account management
Bank accounts are crucial elements in D365 Finance and proper management of these accounts – including their openings, modifications, closures, signature management, and routine audits—is vital for maintaining financial integrity and operational efficiency. The 2024 release wave 1 of Dynamics 365 Finance introduces an enhanced feature set aimed at sophisticated bank account lifecycle management. These enhancements provide comprehensive tools for managing the lifecycle of legal entity bank accounts within the platform.
Additional legal entity bank account lifecycle management capabilities include:
- Approval workflow for bank account activation, modification, and deactivation
- Configurable protected fields to determine whether bank account modification needs approval
- Approver can review proposed changes on bank account
- Bank account change history for auditing purpose
- Additional signer master data on bank account
Streamlined customer and vendor balance netting
Netting is a significant process that optimizes the exchange of money between an organization and its customer/vendor, thereby helping the company consolidate its balances and mitigate unnecessary payments or receipts. Additionally, it allows the organization to save on transaction fees. Customer and vendor balance netting is a unique process where the balances for a vendor and customer are settled against each other, especially when the vendor and customer are the same party. Currently, processing netting in Dynamics 365 Finance calls for cash clerks to manually calculate the correct netting amount, create dummy payment journals, and settle open invoices with these journals.
However, in the latest release, Dynamics 365 Finance now offers an upgraded feature that provides standard netting capabilities. The new functionality automates the netting process by calculating the netting amount based on the selected customer and vendor invoices, posting the netting journal, and settling the netting journal with the selected invoices.
Key features include:
- Netting agreement: Allows users to specify the customer-vendor pair for netting, including parameters like effective date range and netting sequence, to automate netting and minimize compliance risks.
- Netting overview: Enables users to query all available customer invoices and vendor invoices for netting.
- Manual netting: Users can manually select customer invoices and vendor invoices for netting, with the system automatically posting a netting journal to settle the invoices.
- Automatic netting: Allows users to automate the netting process through periodic tasks and process automation.
- Netting history: An accessible page for querying all netting history.
- Netting details: A page displaying the relationships between customer invoices and vendor invoices for netting.
- Netting advice: A report generation feature that displays the netting relation details between customer invoices and vendor invoices.
Introducing petty cash management
The 2024 release wave 1 of Dynamics 365 Finance introduces a new feature aimed at offering a standard petty cash management solution that assists in the prevention of fraud and fund misuse, maintenance of precise records, and establishment of accountability towards stakeholders. Petty cash serves as an easy and flexible method for businesses to manage minor expenses and reimbursements. However, its proper management and monitoring are a necessity to avoid any misuse. This feature implements a standard petty cash management procedure within Dynamics 365 Finance that assures compliance with relevant legal and regulatory requirements, thereby preventing potential fraud and safeguarding funds.
The following functions will be available in this feature:
- Cash payment limitation control
- Cash posting validation
- Cash transaction status and special approval workflow
- Cash-related inquiries, reports, and periodic tasks
- Foreign exchange revaluation for cash account
Other top features from the Dynamics 365 Finance 2024 release wave 1
For a full list of new features and updates, you can review the official Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance 2024 release wave 1 documents. In addition to the features listed above, here are a few other noteworthy updates:
Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management
Intelligent demand forecasting
Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management integrates intelligent forecasting to enhance the accuracy and effectiveness of demand plans. Embracing this advanced demand-planning solution equipped with superior forecasting algorithms and models will result in marked improvements in revenue, optimized inventory levels, and reduced operational expenses by minimizing urgent and unplanned supply chain activities.
Advanced forecasting features include:
- No-code demand modeling: Offers a no-code solution that empowers demand planners, including those without a data science background, to perform what-if scenarios and analyze, optimize, and compare outcomes swiftly.
- Dynamic aggregation and disaggregation: Enables instant transition from high-level corporate or product-group forecasts to the granular impact on regional and SKU levels, facilitating pinpoint adjustments as needed.
- AI-driven forecast accuracy: Utilizes automatic AI parameter tuning and incorporates external signals such as promotions or stockouts, thereby refining forecast precision.
- What-if analysis for disruption preparedness: Provides interactive and rapid what-if scenario analysis with version history tracking. This is essential for evaluating forecast changes and refining decision-making based on past insights.
- Collaboration-enhanced planning cycle: Leverages Microsoft Teams for in-context communication and in-product commenting, along with restorable forecast versions, which consolidate collaborative efforts throughout the planning cycle.
- Seamless planning and execution integration: Enhances agility with native integration into Supply Chain Management. Customizable worksheets and exception-based planning support proactive supply chain management.
Approve purchase orders and requisitions from mobile device
Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management enriches its supply chain operations seamlessly by integrating a mobile approval workflow purposed to streamline approvals for purchase requisitions and orders. This enhancement not only reinforces alignment with business practices and budgetary frameworks but also optimizes the purchasing process by reducing delays.
Capabilities include:
- Overview of Approval Tasks: The mobile app provides users with an overview of their assigned approval tasks and due dates, enabling them to prioritize and manage approvals on the go.
- Detailed Approval Requests: Users can access detailed information for each purchase requisition and purchase order directly from the mobile app, eliminating the need to switch contexts. This allows users to gain a comprehensive understanding of the approval request before making a decision.
- Flexible Approval Options: Upon reviewing the request, users can choose from various approval options configured for the workflow, including approve, reject, request change, or delegate to another user. This flexibility ensures that users can efficiently manage approvals according to business requirements and compliance standards.
Streamlining inspection and processing of returned items
The 2024 release wave 1 of Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management introduces capabilities that give businesses more control and flexibility over the customer return process. Warehouse operators now have the option to inspect returned goods before deciding on a disposition code, a change that promotes efficiency and enhances review management within the return procedure.
Enhanced features for processing returns include:
- Delayed disposition code selection: Warehouse operators no longer need to select disposition codes immediately upon receiving returned items. Instead, they can postpone this decision until after inspecting the items, enabling more informed and accurate disposition selections.
- Return item receiving via mobile app: Warehouse workers can generate return orders using the ‘Return item receiving’ menu on the Warehouse Management mobile app. The app supports both blind receiving and return details receiving processes.
- Improved return label procedure: The process for working with return labels has been improved, allowing return labels to be printed during the manual packing process. Additionally, a new batch job has been introduced to clean up return data, return-label information, and expiration dates after the return validity period has passed, ensuring data cleanliness and system optimization.
By providing warehouse operators with greater control and flexibility over the return process, Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management enhances productivity and user experience while improving accuracy in return management.
Ensure compliance with export control restrictions
In the realm of global commerce, adherence to export control regulations is paramount. Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management introduces advanced export control functionality, empowering businesses to manage, track, and enforce compliance with export control restrictions seamlessly. Leveraging this feature, companies can define intricate compliance rules using formulas akin to those in Microsoft Excel, ensuring meticulous adherence to both external regulations and internal policies throughout the sales and fulfillment process.
This comprehensive solution integrates with Microsoft Dataverse, enabling businesses to manage export control policies effectively within their Supply Chain Management instance. With real-time enforcement of export-control policies, companies can navigate international trade regulations with confidence, mitigating compliance risks while upholding regulatory standards. Moreover, the system’s interoperability with other platforms via Dataverse connectors and compatibility with Microsoft Power Platform empowers export control administrators to address complex compliance scenarios efficiently, ensuring robust compliance measures in the face of evolving regulatory landscapes.
Other top features from the Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management 2024 release wave 1
For a full list of new features and updates, you can review the official Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management 2024 release wave 1 documents. In addition to the features listed above, here are a few other noteworthy updates:
Want to learn more?
The new features and updates listed above are only a few of the many enhancements included in the Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations 2024 release wave 1. For all enhancements included in this wave, you can review Microsoft’s documentation for new and planned features for Dynamics 365 Finance and Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management.
Users can start exploring these new features and capabilities. Additionally, many Dynamics 365 users rely on a Microsoft partner for assistance reviewing the most impactful updates. The right Dynamics 365 partner helps users identify the features most beneficial to their organization and provides training for users to maintain peak performance.
