Microsoft Dynamics 365 | 2023 Release Wave 1 Reporting & Control in Business Central (Demo)

Microsoft Dynamics 365 | 2023 Release Wave 1 Reporting & Control in Business Central

I want to show you five new reporting and control enhancements in the Business Central 2023 Release wave one. We’ll look at how preview posting has been expanded within Business Central, the building now to review GLaccounts and transactions, and also how to set up default dimensions on locations.

There’s a nice new feature you’re going to really like it’s called analyze it’s available in list pages and we’ll take a look at that there’s also statistical accounts that we can use in business Central to keep track of non-financial data and also use that and account schedules the ability to preview posting information before you actually execute. The post is very nice and business Central it allows you to see what’s going to happen and the accounts in the dimensions in the dollars before you post a transaction. This function is now expanded to include these journals and transaction types. So, let’s take a look at it.

Preview Posting

Here’s the item journal and before wave one I could edit it and work with it as a normal Journal, but I could not see the posting before I actually posted it but now all I need to do is can go up here preview posting and I get that information I get the GL entries also the item Ledger and the value entries. It allows me to check what’s going to happen when I post these transactions. This is a powerful function in business Central and you’re going to want to make use of this new functionality the next thing I want to do is show you the ability to control the review of posted transactions in business Central this is beyond the approval process this is after the transaction has been posted it allows you to specify certain accounts that need review and there’s a couple ways to do this so this is my chart of accounts and I have these accounts for review that I set up we can take a look at those accounts and the way that they’re marked for review is the review policy here.

I’ve got some options none which is the default and then allow review and then allow review with match balances I use the allow review here and I’ve got these three accounts that I want to review at the end of the month before I issue financial statements to make sure that they’re correct and it allows me to review and mark the post transactions so if I select an account here and go to related and review the entries I can see I’ve got these two entries. The second entry has already been reviewed and it’s marked as such if I want to review the first one all I need to do is Select it and then set selected as reviewed, it marks the check box here. I’ve got the ability to unselect it if I want to this allows me to check the Integrity of the data before I publish the financial statements. Here’s another approach I thought might be used is something I would use as a controller.

Review G/L Accounts & Transactions

I’ve got my general ledger entries. Let’s take a look at those. I set up a filter for transactions to review and this is looking at the accounts that I’ve marked for review and shows me them here. These are the ones that are not yet reviewed so I can select the transaction here and go to review entries I’ll see all the entries in that account and I can mark them as reviewed it shows the user that reviewed it and the time they reviewed it so this is perfect this is a strong tool to review your GL accounts and transactions to make sure you’ve got solid Data before you publish your financial statements.

Default Dimensions on Locations

Next let’s take a look at the locations and how you can set up a default dimension on the location. We’ll do that here. This is one of the locations I use in my demo system and I can set up default Dimensions right here. I’ll click on that I’ve set up a dimension for the business group to always be home. So this is Handy. If I want to track Dimensions by location I can use the default here I can always override that in specific transactions this will strengthen the control of your transaction posting and Reporting within Business Central.

Analyze Data on List Pages

This next feature I want to show you is very powerful it allows you reporting options on list Pages a list page is something like the vendors here this is a list page it just shows a list of vendors and what I can do is I’ve got this new opt-in here of analyze let’s open that up.

When I turn that on it changes the look of the screen slightly but it adds the ability to have separate tabs that show different information so I’ve got my vendor list here this is the default tab that comes up I can change it if I want to I can change the name I can add additional tabs but let’s look at the tabs I’ve got the ability for each tab to have the columns I want to include in that tab. So if I don’t want some of these columns I can just take them off I don’t really need the contact search name means nothing to me right so I’ve got this I can change the columns and I can also group them so if I want to group by the location I can just drag this down here and now I’ve got it grouped by location I can open those up I’ve got the vendors here. I can drill down on this and see the transactions. Let’s rename this to location there we go and then I want to add a new tab and I get the whole list back again so I can change this too so I want to change the search name I don’t need that and we’ll take the contact out again. Let’s look at the analysis filter so I got the ability to filter on values in this screen here and what I want to do is just look at vendors to whom I owe more than 500 dollars, so I’ve got these operators down here and say greater than 500 dollars it changes the vendors that I’m now looking at I’ve got the ability here to drill down as well look at the transactions so this is useful just for navigating and focusing my attention on what’s Happening. So I filter my vendors by the amount that I owe them but I can also use pivot mode here I’ll turn this on and I’ve got the ability to also set up columns so in this case maybe I’ll take the location down here now I’ve got two columns across the top that my vendors are associated with I can see that here if I want to get rid of some additional data I can just take it off here and save it. I want to rename this and now I have two analysis tabs this is handy because I can go back to this anytime I want to and get the same report. So I would turn analyze off I get the regular list page when I turn analyze back on. I get my tab that I already added I can change these I can add different ones I can delete them and I get the same information this is a handy way to look at your data in Business Central and get further insights into it.

Statistical Accounts

The next thing I want to show you is statistical accounts. This allows you to post and track non-financial information in business Central. Let’s take a look at the statistical accounts I’ve set up one here for square footage it’s the pretty common one to create a transaction you open up the statistical account Journal you enter your information and then you register it.

So I’ve entered some before and this is the balance this is the balance I have in the statistical account for square footage for this particular year one of the ways I can use this is in financial reports set this one up here for rent to show it real easily what I’m doing here is I’m pulling in this GL account rent. I’ve got the total here and then I’ve got square footage coming in from the non-financial statistical count then I’m doing a simple formula down here to have the rent expense per square foot you can see that here I’ve got it broken out by location and these are the dimensions I have in my general ledger setup we can look at the row definition very simple again I’ve got the posting account the statistical account and the simple formula and that’s it let’s go back and look at the column definition simple column definition I’m pulling information by dimension displaying it on the screen it says new functionality that I think you’re going to enjoy in business Central it’s available in the 2023 release wave one.