This Fall, Microsoft announced their latest wave 2 release for Dynamics 365 Business Central. There are a bunch of exciting features that help improve performance by streamlining users day-to-day tasks and saving them time.
Now that our team has had some time to jump in and play around with these handy new features, we wanted to share the top four updates we believe are having the biggest impact on our customers.
1) Save time and reduce data entry errors with default line options in Sales and Purchase documents
In the past, Business Central was set up so that the default line on Purchase and Sales documents were automatically listed as an “item”. Of course, some organizations only use Business Central to book financial transactions making a default line that’s listed as a physical good irrelevant. This added a tedious customization for users that wanted to input “G.L account” or another line item.
With this latest release, Microsoft now enables users to select a default line type from a variety of choices. This is especially helpful for service-based companies. With this new functionality, users can expect to:
- Save time entering data
- Reduce data entry errors
- Make training and onboarding easier for new users
The feature is set up on the “Purchases and Payables Setup” page and the “Sales and Receivables Setup” page:
When you go to create a document such as an invoice the line type will be automatically set as your default line type.
2) Make data entry for large journals easier with the “edit in Excel” feature
“Edit in Excel” is a popular Business Central feature that’s been around for some time, allowing users to quickly enter data in the system and bulk edit. Until now, this was only available for a limited number of journals, but with this new update, users can use this feature to make edits to recurring general journals as well as intercompany general journals.
This new feature saves users time by letting them:
- Enter data with the “edit in Excel” tool, making it easier to enter and modify large journal entries.
- Open the Excel file and refresh the data without having to enter Business Central to view or edit a journal entry.
“Edit in Excel” from the recurring journal:
The Excel file output:
From here, you can refresh the Excel table or publish changes using the data connector that integrates with Business Central.
3) Gain more control over data entry for address information and reduce errors
This small but mighty feature provides users with a flexible way to update address information for customers and vendors with a quality control setting that ensures the address format matches the formatting on the Country/Region page. If the Country/Region is changed on a record then all other address fields are cleared.
The benefits of this new feature include:
- More accurate data entry for addresses
- Address accuracy based on the customer or vendors country
- Easy data entry for users as they don’t have to clear fields manually
- Address fields on a vendor:
When the user goes to change the Country code to US:
4) Gain more control over exchange rate adjustments for specific customers, vendors, or bank accounts
The process of adjusting exchange rates typically takes place every month-end and can sometimes cause FX rate errors that need to be updated and readjusted. Previously, exchange rate adjustments had to be done for every record with limited options available. This new feature enables users to adjust exchange rates for specific customers, vendors, or bank accounts.
With this feature, users can:
- Send month-end invoices to customers that they might have missed billing in a foreign currency. For example, users can run an FX adjust exchange rate job and invoice a specific customer. This would update that customer’s invoices exchange rate but no one else’s.
- Filter categories for vendors, customers, and bank accounts to run FX adjustments; this includes posting groups, ranges of customers or vendors, and more.
These are just a few highlights from Microsoft’s Business Central wave 2 release, but there is a heap of exciting new features to check out. You can read more about the full release here.
It’s critical to work with a dedicated support partner when implementing Microsoft’s bi-annual software updates. With an experienced partner, testing can be resolved with no disruption to your business’s day-to-day work in order to ensure any issues are resolved before deployment. If your business is looking for a Microsoft partner to help with software updates, get in touch today to find out how our team can support your organization.
