Earlier this month (July 2022) Microsoft released their plans for updates to all Dynamics 365 applications, including Business Central, coming from October 2022 as part of the 2022 release wave 2 update. Many of these features will be available for public preview in September with general availability in October (although Microsoft do make it very clear that delivery timelines may change and some projected functionality may not be released). This blog explores the new or updated features that will most affect the user experience of Business Central.

We will be holding a webinar in October highlighting the features we think will be the most useful. Please also note as from October 2022 Microsoft re-setting the wave open period (for testing) to 30 days.

Application enhancements

The Business Central 2022 release wave 2 updates will deliver enhancements in some of the most requested areas for improvement. Microsoft is investing in better reporting and several improvements to the finance and supply chain areas.

  • Better bank reconciliation for cheques – With this improvement, Business Central will be able to match cheques from the bank based on information from the cheque ledger. This will give a much higher degree of match confidence than only using information from the bank ledger.
  • Extended text functionality for VAT clauses – With this enhancement, an extended text feature will be implemented on VAT clauses. This means that if a country requires longer text, the customer can enter the text as extended text. Users will also be able to see the text printed in sales and purchase reports.
  • Financial reporting replaces account schedules – In the 2022 release wave 2 update, account schedules will be renamed Financial Reporting. Microsoft is also separating the definition of a financial report from that of the definition of rows and columns. This makes it clearer that a financial report is a combination of row and column definitions, plus additional parameters.
  • New VAT Date field on documents and entries – Users will be able to report VAT statements and returns based on the new VAT Date instead of the Posting Date to meet requirements by certain countries.
  • Reverse payment reconciliation journal entries – If you use the Payment Reconciliation Journal page to register and apply customer payments, this improvement will be able to set up the journal to use a specific number series. This way, it might be easier to identify any entries that were posted through the journal.
  • Use multiple remit-to addresses for vendors – With this release, vendors can have multiple remit-to addresses for payments. For example, a vendor might supply an item from a subsidiary company, but wants to receive payment at their headquarters. Being able to set multiple mailing addresses for each vendor in Business Central will make it easy to choose the correct location to send payments to on an invoice-by-invoice basis.

Improved integration with Microsoft Power Platform

In the 2022 release wave 2, Microsoft is continuing to improve the way that Business Central integrates with the Power Platform: Power BI, Power Automate, Power Apps, Logic Apps, Power Virtual Agents and Dataverse.

  • Personalise and design the Automate action group in the web client – Following this update, users will have the ability to move, promote or hide actions added in the new Automate action group in the action bar. This customisation can be enacted for a single user or a user group, or a global customisation can be designed for the whole company.
  • Power Apps and Power Automate support for document attachments – In this update, Microsoft is adding in a new connector that allows for easy access to document attachments (such as an original order request linked as a pdf to a sales order), related record media (for example images linked to items) and other data linked to business records. This connector introduces the ability to add in Power Automate flows or Power Apps to support additional scenarios where rich external data is entered into Business Central.
  • Rely on personalisation to show or hide Power BI parts on lists – In the past, users controlled where the Power BI part was shown on lists was controlled by a combination of the Show/Hide Power BI Reports action on the page and personalisation of the page’s FactBox. With this release, the Show/Hide Power BI Reports action is removed and visibility relies on personalisation.

Improved productivity with Microsoft 365

In Business Central 2022 release Wave 2, Microsoft empowers businesses to work smarter with collaborative experiences, tools, and insights within the flow of work.

Improved user experiences

With this update, Microsoft is making improvements across the portfolio of clients for desktop and mobile devices.

  • Legacy list views are hidden –Starting with 2023 release wave 2, legacy views (list views that were created by developers in previous versions of Business Central) will no longer be supported and won’t be displayed on list pages. As from the 2022 release wave 2, users can experience this change by enabling the Legacy list views are hidden functionality in the Feature Management page in Business Central.
  • Switch companies across environments – Some Business Central users need to view, edit, and compare data across companies. The 2022 release wave 2 update will make it easier to get an overview of the companies and environments a user has access to, and to rapidly switch contexts.

Greater reporting capabilities

With this update, Microsoft is continuing the improvement work they introduced in the previous release wave for Excel layouts.

  • Use new Excel report datasets – With the 2022 release wave 2 update, Microsoft are introducing new Excel report datasets into Business Central. These first datasets dedicated for Excel reporting will be based on General ledger data (including budgets and global dimensions) and customer and vendor ledger entries.
  • Run, send reports from the request page – From the request page, a user can run a report and send it directly to the report inbox. This allows the user to keep working and then pick up the report from the report inbox later when it has finished.
  • Choose the report layout on request page – Users can choose which report layout to use on the request page. This will make it easier to use different report layouts for different purposes, especially for Excel layouts.

In this blog we have concentrated on those updates that will directly improve the user experience of Business Central. In addition, there are improvements to onboarding, governance and administration and development.

TVision is here to help

If you want to know more about Bevica (powered by Microsoft Business Central) and how TVision could help you, please feel free to contact us to arrange a demo to see how it could be the perfect ERP to help you overcome your business challenges.

If you are already a TVision customer and want to know how and when these Business Central 2022 Wave 2 updates will affect your business, contact us.