Business Central 2022 release wave 1 delivers time saving features

Dynamics 365 Business Central is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution that offers SMBs a way to centrally manage all aspects of business operations in one application. Each year, Microsoft releases two waves of updates including enhanced functionality, bug fixes, and new features. The latest release, Business Central 2022 release wave 1, becomes available to customers on April 1.

For a recap of features from the prior release, 2021 release wave 2, click here.

Our team of consultants reviewed the Business Central 2022 release wave 1 plan and compiled a list of top features users should utilize to save time.

Companies today use multiple bank accounts at different banks, and as such, Business Central 2022 release wave 1 introduced a new feature that allows you to change the bank account on sales and service documents for flexibility in directing customer payments. Users can now set default bank accounts for companies, and for individual currencies, by choosing Use as Default for Currency on the Bank Account page.

When a sales document is created, the default bank account is assigned based on the currency specified in the Company Bank Account Code field on the sales document.  When the document is posted, the banking information can be printed on the invoice format to alert customers to the correct payment information.

Business Central 2022 release wave 1 has also introduced validations that check documents and journals while you work and sends an alert if there is an issue that can prevent you from posting. These alerts can save you time and improve productivity, rather than waiting until later to discover an issue.

If your administrator enables the Feature: Check documents and journals while you work feature on the Feature Management page, Business Central will validate the data you enter on documents and journals in real-time. A new tile, Issues Total, in the Check Document FactBox will show a total of issues found in the document. These issues can be reviewed and resolved prior to sending a document for approval or posting.

This new feature will save you both time and money if you work with businesses that are both a customer and a vendor. By consolidating customer and vendor balances, you can avoid making unnecessary payments or receipts and save on transaction fees. Turn a contact company into a customer or vendor by using the Create as Customer or Create as Vendor actions on the Contact Card page. The Customer Card page offers the Balance as Vendor field, and the Vendor Card page includes the Balance as Customer field for companies that were created or linked to the same contact company. On the Payment Journal page, you can use the Net Customer/Vendor Balances action to net the customer and vendor balances for the company within the Payment Journal.

At times you may need to post payable and receivable transactions to a different G/L account than the one that is specified on the customer or vendor posting group. Controllers can now define policies for posting these transactions, and accountants can change them during posting by choosing a substitute.

You can enable alterations of default customer or vendor posting groups by choosing Allow Alteration of Posting Group on the Sales and Receivable Setup and Service Mgt. Setup pages for customer posting group changes, and the Purchases and Payables Setup page for vendor posting group changes. On the Customer Posting Groups or Vendor Posting Groups pages, you can then specify the posting groups to allow substitutes by choosing Substitutions.

When a document or journal is created, the Customer or Vendor Posting Groups can be changed according to the list of approved Substitute Posting Groups defined for the Default Customer or Vendor Posting Group.

The Business Central Outlook add-in now offers the option to copy email attachments from an Outlook item to the Business Central record within the add-in, saving time by eliminating the need to leave Outlook. For example, the add-in will automatically display the contact record matching the email sender, from which you can navigate to the customer’s most recent sale. Once you have identified the order that the email relates to, the attachments feature will copy files from the current email to that order.

Users can now create and edit Business Central report layouts more easily by using the full functionality of Excel such as sliders, diagrams, charts, and pivot tables. Excel layouts work the same way as Word and RDLC layouts in that they can be edited and saved back again into Business Central. To create a new Excel layout, open the report request page, and then run the report with the option Excel document (data only). The report will generate an Excel file with sample data and the fields that are available in the report definition, then you add your new layout to additional tabs in the Excel file.

• You can now set default dimensions for a location on the Location Card page by choosing Location, and then Dimensions. This feature can help people avoid making a mistake and having to enter a dimension manually on the transaction level.
• The Bank Account Statement report was improved to allow for more efficient validation and auditing. The report now shows a more detailed snapshot of bank information as of the time when the bank reconciliation was posted, and includes new fields, G/L Balance, Outstanding Payments, and Checks.
• Developers and administrators can now get insights into database performance more easily. The Business Central platform will make data about database wait statistics as a virtual table, so that the data can be accessed from AL code. Microsoft is also adding a page on top of the new table to make it easy to get the data without having to write code.

Rand Group has a team of experienced consultants ready to answer any questions about new features in Business Central 2022 release wave 1. Contact us for Business Central support or learn more about our support services.