Transforming Financial Reporting in D365 Business Central with Power BI
- Tarana Rana
- Oct 7
- 8 min read
Discover how the Power BI and Business Central integration transforms the way finance professionals approach reporting, analysis, and decision-making.
Data is more than just numbers - it's the foundation of smart decisions, strategic planning, and business growth. If you're using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central as your ERP solution, you’re already halfway to uncovering powerful insights. But if you're not yet leveraging Power BI, you might be missing out on a massive opportunity to transform your financial reporting.
In this article, Sebastian Alexander, Director of Professional Services at Kwixand Solutions, shares insights into how D365 Business Central and Power BI work together to revolutionize financial operations and show you exactly how Power BI can help your finance team gain more time, accuracy, and strategic value.
We'll Cover:
The Biggest Challenge in Finance: Too Much Data, Not Enough Time
Finance professionals are under increasing pressure to do more than just “keep the books.” They’re expected to deliver strategic insights, identify performance gaps, and help shape business direction. But for many, the reality is far more manual and time-consuming than it should be.
Alexander explains, “The majority of finance leaders cite a lack of automation tools and technologies needed to transform manual processes and free up time. Instead of spending most of their days on analysis or cross-team collaboration, 62% of finance professionals are stuck in the drudgery of data entry and review cycles.”
That lack of automation isn’t just frustrating, it’s costly. When teams are stuck cleaning data instead of analyzing it, important issues can go unnoticed until it’s too late. As Alexander further notes: “Only 13% of organizations identify performance issues before they hit the books. Whether it's looking externally to negotiate better terms or supporting colleagues with ad hoc requests to drive financial clarity, it's clear that time can be better spent.”
This illustrates a core problem: most finance teams are spending their valuable time collecting data instead of interpreting it. This is exactly where Power BI can help.
A Brief Evolution of Financial Reporting
To fully appreciate the capabilities of Power BI today, it's useful to look at how far financial reporting has come. Fast forward to today, and Microsoft has been leading the charge in financial analytics evolution for decades:
1980s: Microsoft Excel introduced to help with small data aggregation.
1990s-2000s: SQL Server and OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) allowed for medium to large dataset analysis.
Today: Power BI in the cloud integrates multiple data sources, adds AI, and enables real-time visualization and forecasting.
Finance has evolved from manual ledger entries and spreadsheets to predictive, AI-driven insights that help businesses make better decisions faster. Plus, with Power BI built right into Business Central, organizations can harness the full potential of their financial data, faster and smarter than ever before.
Key Benefits of Power BI & D365 Business Central Integration
When Power BI was integrated with Business Central in 2018, it opened the door for finance teams to finally break free from spreadsheet hell. This integration allows you to view, analyze, and report on Business Central data, all within the same ecosystem. Here are the key benefits of this integration:
1. Embedded Dashboards in Business Central
You can embed Power BI dashboards and visuals directly into your Business Central homepage. With just a hover or click, users can drill down or up through data hierarchies, for example, quarterly sales to monthly figures to specific transaction details, without leaving your ERP solution.
“With the Power BI add-in installed, you can see Power BI embedded into your Business Central homepage. You can drill up to a higher level or drill down into the detail - all within the same interface,” adds Alexander. This means less friction and more focus.
2. Real-Time Data Insights
Using Power BI’s "Insights" function, finance professionals can uncover trends like seasonal dips in revenue, unusual spending spikes, or inconsistent cash flow patterns. There’s no need to manually sift through rows of data or build complex formulas. Power BI does the heavy lifting, highlighting patterns and anomalies automatically.
Alexander adds, “If you’re looking for insights or analytics on your dataset within Business Central, simply right-click on your tile and select the insights option to let Power BI’s built-in KPI analysis function do the work for you. Power BI analyzes report tile datasets to provide insight on trends - for example, when the lowest sales occur within a period.”
These instant insights not only save time, but they also allow finance teams to move from reactive reporting to proactive strategy, identifying issues before they snowball.
3. Custom Visualizations and Reports
Power BI allows finance teams to create customized, dynamic visuals that match their reporting needs and business logic. You can modify filters, rearrange fields, and personalize how the data is displayed, all in real time. Want to highlight a new KPI or filter for a specific department? Right-click, adjust, and the report updates instantly - no coding required.
As Alexander explained, “You can personalize your visualizations… rearrange the data, add or modify filters, or include additional data attributes. Each change you make is reflected real-time in the visual pane.”
The result? Reports that speak directly to your audience, whether it's the finance team, department heads, or executive leadership.
4. PowerPoint Integration
For many finance teams, preparing boardroom presentations can take hours. Power BI simplifies this with its “Export to PowerPoint” feature, generating presentation-ready slides that reflect your personalized filters and visualizations. Each layer of your Power BI report is turned into a slide, retaining all formatting and filters.
“Power BI takes a snapshot of your report, which respects the filters and visuals you personalized,” says Alexander. “If you export a multi-layer report, Power BI generates a PowerPoint file with a separate slide for each report layer.” That means less time formatting and more time focusing on what matters: your insights.
5. Alerts and Notifications
Power BI lets you set up alerts for key metrics. Whether a threshold is met or a trend is detected, the system can notify you via email or Microsoft Teams - keeping everyone informed in real time.
According to Alexander, “You can send alert notifications via email or post directly to Teams, improving communication and collaboration. Once created, you have the option to change your alert settings at any time.” This real-time monitoring helps teams react faster and focus on the metrics that drive performance, without constantly checking reports.
🔎 Learn More: 11 Business Benefits of Microsoft Power BI
Power BI's Cross-Platform Capabilities: Collaboration Without Friction
One of the most powerful aspects of Power BI is its cross-platform integration. Finance teams no longer must juggle between apps, spreadsheets, and siloed systems to gather the full picture. “This eliminates the need to flip between systems, increasing efficiencies to save you time,” notes Alexander. With Power BI, financial data becomes collaborative, contextual, and instantly accessible across the Microsoft ecosystem and beyond.
Other key integrations include:
Microsoft Teams
Share live reports directly within Teams channels, making it easier for finance, operations, and leadership to collaborate and make decisions in real time. You can share reports, dashboards, and datasets directly.
SharePoint
Embed interactive dashboards right into your intranet or department portals using SharePoint. This ensures visibility for everyone, from CFOs to frontline managers, without requiring them to leave the tools they use daily.
Excel and Power Query
Extend the power of your reports by blending Business Central data with Excel models and external data sources using Power Query.
CRM, HR & Inventory Systems
Power BI doesn’t just work with Business Central, it connects with a wide range of systems like Microsoft CRM, HR platforms, inventory tools, and third-party databases.
The result? A single source of truth for your business, giving teams across departments access to the same real-time insights, with no more data silos or version control headaches.
🔎 Learn More: Ultimate Buyer's Guide to Power BI
Power BI & AI Capabilities
One of the most exciting features AI-driven capabilities of Power BI is the Q&A feature.
Using natural language queries, users can ask questions like:
"Show me quarterly revenue by region"
"What were the top 5 expense categories last month?"
"Forecast next month’s sales"
Even better, you can specify the type of visualization you want. Just ask for a bar chart, line graph, or table, and Power BI will generate it for you. Alexander explains, “The Q&A feature allows viewers to take questions in natural language to explore specific insights, which is great for responding to live questions and presentations.”
Smart Narratives
Power BI also uses AI to generate automatic written summaries of your reports, providing clear, plain-English explanations of what the data is saying. These summaries are ideal for presentations or reports, especially when sharing insights with stakeholders who aren’t deep in the numbers every day.
If you're not sure what to ask, “Click ‘Show all suggestions’ and let Power BI return a set of questions related to your dataset,” Alexander explains. “Select a question that fits the results you’re looking for and watch Power BI transfer the results to meet your ask.”
Combined with personalization, visualization, and natural language functionality, Power BI’s AI toolkit is making advanced financial reporting more human, more intuitive, and more strategic than ever before.
The Future of Finance Is AI-Powered
As Power BI continues to evolve, Microsoft is integrating more AI and machine learning capabilities to give finance professionals an even greater edge.
Imagine using simple prompts to:
Forecast cash flow
Detect unusual transactions
Evaluate risk scenarios
Visualize budget variances instantly
Generate C-suite presentations without lifting a finger
These capabilities are already live, and they’re only getting better. No longer an innovation, AI capabilities are becoming the standard for modern financial teams.
“Next-generation AI can transform common finance activities… giving you time back,” says Alexander. “You can eliminate time spent searching for and validating data using the Q&A feature. Use simple prompts to access insights, including annotations and underlying supporting data.”
Key Takeaways For Finance Teams
The message is clear: if you're using Business Central, but still relying on Excel for reporting, you’re not getting the full value from your data.
7 Big Wins of Power BI for Finance Teams
1️⃣ Speed: Build reports and visuals faster than ever. Power BI helps finance teams go from raw data to polished visuals in minutes.
2️⃣ Clarity: Drill down and up through data hierarchies. Whether you're summarizing data or investigating anomalies, Power BI’s drill-up and drill-down functionality gives you full visibility.
3️⃣ Control: Customize views, filters, and metrics. Finance professionals can easily tailor visuals to specific audiences, data sets, or departments.
4️⃣ Automation: Let AI surface trends and generate narratives. Power BI will do the heavy lifting. It highlights patterns and writes data summaries for you.
5️⃣ Productivity: Eliminate manual data wrangling. You’re no longer stuck in the drudgery of repetitive data entry and review cycles.
6️⃣ Collaboration: Share dashboards company-wide or externally. Empower decision-makers by giving them real-time access to key financial data.
7️⃣ Scalability: Consolidate multi-entity data with ease. Managing multiple entities or plants? Power BI makes it seamless to consolidate and report across them.
At the end of the day, this isn't about charts or dashboards, it’s about building a finance function that’s ready for the future.
Looking to Get Started? Kwixand Solutions Can Help
Whether you're evaluating Power BI, already using Business Central, or looking to overhaul your reporting strategy, the team at Kwixand Solutions is here to help guide your transformation.
As a trusted Microsoft Dynamics 365 partner, Kwixand Solutions specializes in helping organizations across Canada and the U.S. transform, from implementation to optimization, analytics, and cloud transformation.
Our approach is built on experience, integrity, and long-term partnership. We don’t just deliver dashboards - we help you build a smarter, faster, more connected finance function that scales with your organization. Whether you’re dealing with multiple entities, disconnected data sources, or inefficient manual workflows, we’ve seen it all and helped clients solve it.
If you're curious about how to get started, or how to get more out of the tools you already have, book a free consultation to chat with us today.
