Top Feature Updates In Dynamics 365 Business Central Wave 2 Updates (2024)
Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 Business Central Wave 2 Updates (2024) bring exciting changes to this popular business management solution. These updates introduce new features and improvements that aim to boost productivity, streamline operations, and enhance user experience for businesses of all sizes. From AI-powered tools to improved governance controls, the latest release offers a comprehensive set of enhancements.
This article will explore the top feature updates inside Dynamics 365 Business Central Wave 2 (2024). We’ll look at key application enhancements, Copilot and AI innovations, governance and administration updates, and new reporting and compliance features. By understanding these changes, you’ll be better equipped to take advantage of the best bits of this update and see how it can affect your business operations.
Key Application Enhancements
The Dynamics 365 Business Central Wave 2 Updates (2024) bring significant improvements to key application areas, enhancing functionality and streamlining processes for businesses.
Subscription billing and revenue recognition
One of the standout features in this update is the new subscription billing and revenue recognition module. This enhancement is particularly beneficial for businesses that rely on subscription-based models. The module supports various subscription scenarios, offering streamlined processes for managing recurring billing of items and services.
With this new functionality, companies can create mixed subscription contracts, simplifying the process of combining the sale of services and items. Contract creation is made easier through templates that standardise parameters and schedules for recurring billing. This feature allows businesses to manage current pricing and plan for future price updates effectively.
The module also includes flexible billing schedules and standard reports, many of which are available as Power BI reports. This gives businesses better insights into their subscription-based revenue streams.
On the accounting side, the update automates the posting of accruals to balance sheet accounts. Revenue and expenses are assigned to the correct periods in the income statement, ensuring accurate financial reporting.
Integration with Field Service
Another significant enhancement is the integration with Dynamics 365 Field Service. This feature is designed to help businesses that provide on-site services to their customers, making it easier to manage operations and improve service delivery.
The integration allows businesses to connect their field service activities directly with their financial and operational data in Business Central. This means companies can easily track service requests, manage work orders, and schedule technicians all in one place, streamlining processes and ensuring that teams have all the information they need to provide excellent service.
The integration also improves communication between office staff and field technicians, keeping everyone on the same page and reducing confusion. Businesses can monitor performance metrics in real-time, allowing for better decision-making based on up-to-date data.
Shopify integration improvements
The Dynamics 365 Business Central Wave 2 Updates (2024) also include enhancements to the Shopify integration. These improvements are particularly useful for businesses that sell products on Shopify, making inventory management easier and more efficient.
One of the key enhancements is the ability to quickly create different variants of a product—such as size, colour, or style—directly within Business Central. Instead of managing each variant separately, businesses can handle them all in one place. This feature helps ensure that inventory is organised and accurate, making it simpler to track stock levels and fulfil customer orders.
By syncing product variants between Business Central and Shopify, businesses can save time and reduce the chances of mistakes, leading to a better experience for both their team and their customers. This update will make it easier for businesses to manage their online stores and keep everything running smoothly.
Copilot and AI Innovations
The Dynamics 365 Business Central Wave 2 Updates (2024) bring exciting AI-powered features that aim to boost productivity and streamline operations. These innovations, powered by Copilot, Microsoft’s AI assistant, offer new ways to handle tasks more efficiently.
Creating sales lines with Copilot
One of the standout features in this update is the ability to create sales lines easily using Copilot. This new tool is designed to make the sales process smoother and more efficient. Instead of manually entering each item and its details, users can simply describe what they need, and Copilot will suggest the right products and automatically fill in the necessary information.
This feature offers two distinct skills to help users find data about individual products or entire documents. The ‘Find products’ skill allows users to search for items based on vague, incomplete, or even inaccurate descriptions. Copilot extracts the requested products and quantities, identifies the main search terms and attributes, and performs an advanced search through multiple related tables.
The ‘Find documents by reference’ skill enables users to search various sales documents, including orders, invoices, quotes, and more. Copilot searches fields such as Document No., External Document No., and Sell-to Customer No., making it easier to locate specific records.
Bank reconciliation assistance
Another significant enhancement is the bank reconciliation assistance feature. This AI-powered tool helps users reconcile bank accounts more efficiently. It offers two distinct tasks through Copilot: improved matching of transactions with ledger entries and suggestions for posting unmatched transactions to G/L accounts.
Copilot uses AI technology to inspect unmatched transactions and identify more matches based on dates, amounts, and descriptions. For example, if a customer paid multiple invoices in one lump sum that you have registered as individually paid invoices, Copilot can reconcile the single bank statement line with the multiple bank ledger entries.
For transactions that can’t be matched to any ledger entries, Copilot compares the transaction description with G/L account names and suggests the most likely G/L account to post to. This feature can significantly reduce the time spent on manual reconciliation tasks.
Product information creation
The Wave 2 Updates also introduce a feature to create product information faster with Copilot. This enhancement streamlines the process of managing product data, making it easier to maintain accurate and comprehensive product details.
Copilot assists users in quickly generating and organising product information, ensuring consistency across the platform. This feature is particularly useful for businesses that need to manage large product catalogues or frequently update product information.
By simplifying these processes, the Dynamics 365 Business Central Wave 2 Updates (2024) offer significant improvements in efficiency and accuracy. These AI-powered innovations have the potential to transform how businesses handle sales, financial reconciliation, and product management tasks.
Governance and Administration Updates
The Dynamics 365 Business Central Wave 2 Updates (2024) bring significant improvements to governance and administration, offering more control and flexibility to businesses. These updates aim to streamline operations and enhance security measures.
Flexible environment update management
One of the standout features in this update is the more flexible environment update management. Microsoft has increased the update period from 60 days to 5 months, giving businesses more time to prepare for and implement updates. This change addresses feedback from customers who found the previous 60-day window insufficient.
Starting from 1 October 2024, when version 25 ships, environments updating to this version will have until 1 March to do so. After this date, a grace period begins, during which updates will run weekly. From 1 April, any environments that haven’t updated due to incompatibilities in installed extensions will be force-updated, with those extensions being uninstalled as part of the process.
For minor updates, Microsoft has introduced a new environment-level setting that allows businesses to opt out of automatic scheduling. This means you can choose whether you want updates to be scheduled automatically or not. If you opt out, minor updates will be available but not automatically scheduled, giving you more control over when to implement them.
Per-tenant extension administration
Another significant enhancement is the ability to manage per-tenant extensions (PTEs) from the Business Central admin centre and its API. This feature, set to be generally available in December 2024, allows administrators to handle PTEs across different environments and tenants without having to access the client of each environment separately.
This unified approach to managing both PTEs and AppSource apps streamlines the process of deploying and maintaining extensions. It saves time and effort for administrators, making it easier to keep Business Central environments up-to-date and running smoothly.
Enhanced security with IPv6 support
Starting with the 2024 wave 2 release, Business Central now supports IPv6 addresses. This update has a significant impact on security and scalability. As the number of internet-connected devices continues to grow and IPv4 addresses become scarce, the adoption of IPv6 ensures uninterrupted service and improved security for Business Central environments.
The transition to IPv6 not only guarantees seamless connectivity but also enhances data security through IPv6’s built-in security protocols. This update prepares Business Central environments for the future, aligning with the global move towards widespread IPv6 adoption.
These governance and administration updates in the Dynamics 365 Business Central Wave 2 Updates (2024) offer businesses more control, flexibility, and security in managing their environments. By providing tools for flexible update management, streamlined extension administration, and enhanced security measures, Microsoft continues to improve the Business Central experience for administrators and users alike.
Reporting and Compliance Features
The Dynamics 365 Business Central Wave 2 Updates (2024) bring significant improvements to reporting and compliance features, helping businesses stay on top of regulatory requirements and sustainability goals.
E-document integration with Power Automate
One of the standout features in this update is the integration of e-documents with Power Automate. This enhancement recognises that e-documents have become the standard for modern businesses, and there’s a need for flexible and compliant ways to share them.
With this new functionality, you can use APIs for Power Automate to share e-documents with other applications. This means people can access these documents in their preferred tools, making the process more streamlined and user-friendly.
The integration allows you to use Power Automate with the E-Documents app in Business Central. This connexion lets you integrate the app with Power Platform tools and other systems. As a result, you can use Power Automate to send electronic documents as BLOB files to different communication channels used by people in your business.
This feature has the potential to significantly improve efficiency in document sharing and management, aligning with the broader goals of the Dynamics 365 Business Central Wave 2 Updates (2024).
Multiple VAT number support
Another key enhancement is the support for multiple VAT numbers. This feature is particularly useful for businesses with warehouses in multiple EU countries, each requiring a different VAT number.
Previously, Business Central only allowed one VAT registration number on the Customer Card. The new update resolves this limitation by introducing an ‘Alternative VAT Registration’ action on the Customer Card page.
With this feature, you can add the VAT Number, VAT Business Posting Group, and General Business Posting Group for a customer if the address has a different Country/Region Code. When you create a new alternative address for your customer with a different Country/Region Code, Business Central checks if a different VAT
Number already exists and notifies you to create a new one if it doesn’t.
This enhancement makes it easier to manage sales to customers with multiple locations across different EU countries. When you select an Alternate Ship-to Address, Business Central automatically shows the appropriate VAT number and gives you the option to use different posting groups.
Sustainability tracking and reporting
The Wave 2 Updates also introduce new capabilities for sustainability tracking and reporting. This feature allows businesses to monitor and manage their environmental impact by tracking greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions quickly and accurately.
Business Central now enables comprehensive tracking and reporting of GHG emissions across three scopes, ensuring that organisations meet Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) requirements and accurately assess their environmental impact. This is achieved through two main tools: Sustainability Journals and The Chart of Sustainability Accounts.
Sustainability Journals provide a straightforward way to capture and analyse environmental data, either through manual input or built-in formulas. These journals are designed to meet the stringent reporting requirements of the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), ensuring ESG compliance aligns with global standards.
The Chart of Sustainability Accounts helps categorise and organise emissions data, including metrics for energy consumption and waste generation. This structured approach ensures all necessary data is accounted for and easily accessible for reporting and analysis.
These new sustainability features in the Dynamics 365 Business Central Wave 2 Updates (2024) offer numerous benefits, including improved compliance with environmental regulations, increased accuracy in emissions data, and enhanced efficiency in the reporting process.
Conclusion
The Dynamics 365 Business Central Wave 2 Updates (2024) bring a host of new features and improvements that have a significant impact on how businesses operate. From AI-powered tools to enhanced governance controls, these updates offer businesses the chance to boost their productivity and streamline their operations. The new subscription billing module, improved Shopify integration, and AI-assisted bank reconciliation are just a few examples of how this update is changing the game for businesses of all sizes.
To wrap up, these updates show Microsoft’s commitment to making Business Central more user-friendly and efficient. The enhanced reporting features and support for sustainability tracking also highlight how the platform is evolving to meet the changing needs of businesses. As companies start to use these new features, they’re likely to see improvements in their day-to-day operations and overall business performance. It’s clear that the Wave 2 Updates are set to make a big splash in the world of business management solutions.
