Explore the Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations 2025 release wave 1 plans

The 2025 release wave 1 of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations brings updates to the two main applications that make up the suite: Dynamics 365 Finance and Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management (SCM). With a focus on AI and automation, this release is designed to help you streamline your financials and supply chain processes so you can make smarter, faster decisions. In this blog, we’ll break down the top updates and new features in Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations 2025 release wave 1 so you can see how they can help your organization.

The 2025 release wave 1 of Dynamics 365 Finance takes Copilot and AI automation to the next level, making financials more efficient and reducing manual work. From AI-driven workflows for AP clerks to natural language document search and automated asset summaries, these features will help finance teams work smarter, not harder.

Key AI & Copilot enhancements:

• Immersive homepage & AI-powered AP workflows: AP clerks get a new homepage with AI-generated insights, status updates on invoice processing, and an AI-guided worklist to approve or exception process.
• Copilot-generated fixed asset summaries: Instantly see asset book details, including acquisition cost, depreciation, and net book value, without digging into reports. Future-focused insights help with planning depreciation and disposals.
• Natural language search in document explorer: Users can search for financial documents across legal entities with conversational queries, improving efficiency and visibility across business processes.
• AI-powered help & guidance in Business Performance Analytics: Copilot provides real-time help within the app, summarizing Microsoft Learn documentation and reducing IT support dependency.
• Automated dimension & cube creation in planning: Copilot analyzes your Excel planning spreadsheets and suggests optimal configurations for dimensions, values, cubes, and formulas, reducing implementation time.

Dynamics 365 Finance 2025 release wave 1 introduces updates to Business Performance Analytics and Planning, enhancing automation, data accuracy, and global accessibility. These features will streamline financial planning, improve forecasting, and enable faster decision-making with real-time insights. You can use AI-driven analytics, increased data refresh rates, and multilingual support to get ahead of the competition.

Key updates:

• Outlier detection for planning: Identify and exclude anomalies in financial scenarios to improve forecasting and agility.
• Quick-start planning templates: Set up planning in minutes not weeks with pre-built templates.
• More frequent data refreshes: Increase data update frequency to twice daily for better reporting and decision-making.
• Managed extensibility of data models: Integrate custom data sources for tailored analytics and deeper insights.
• Multilingual support: Expand access with translations for data, metadata, and application interface for global teams.

Dynamics 365 Finance 2025 release wave 1 introduces key features to Advanced Bank Reconciliation to improve automation, accuracy, and efficiency. These features reduce manual work, provide better control over financial transactions, and leverage AI-driven recommendations for reconciliation tasks.

Key updates:

• Cancel customer payment journals from bank reconciliation worksheet: Reverse posted customer payments directly from the bank reconciliation worksheet, reduce errors, and improve financial accuracy.
• Preview automatic bank reconciliation matching results: Simulate and preview matching results before posting, so you can identify discrepancies and review exceptions in advance.
• Enhanced bank reconciliation report: New reports include trading party details, voucher numbers, and descriptions for better financial transparency.
• Bulk upload of reconciliation matching rules: Streamline reconciliation setup with enhanced data entity support for bulk uploading and configuration of matching rules.
• AI-driven account reconciliation assistance with Copilot: Automate reconciliation issue detection and resolution recommendations with AI, proactively address subledger-to-ledger discrepancies, and maintain an audit trail.

The 2025 release wave 1 of Dynamics 365 Finance introduces a new ledger account-only journal built on a new journal framework. This feature improves performance, simplifies multi-company journal entries, and provides better visibility into errors and accounting previews. These features address long-standing issues with journal processing, particularly for high-volume transactions and period-end activities.

Key updates in 2025 release wave 1:

• Significantly improved performance: Faster import, validation, and posting for large journals.
• Multi-company journal entries: Enter vouchers for multiple legal entities in one journal, simplify intercompany transactions.
• Voucher-level processing: Validation, approvals, and posting at the voucher level, more control and efficiency.
• Voucher type classification: Introduces a new “Voucher type” to categorize transactions for better lifecycle management.
• Improved error handling & accounting previews: Better visibility into errors per voucher and the ability to preview accounting entries before posting.
• New data entities for OData & DMF: More integration capabilities with new entities for data management and reporting.

In addition to the above features, this release includes several features to improve financial management, integration, and reporting efficiency. Key features:

• Improved bank account lifecycle management: Approval workflows, protected fields, and audit history for better control over bank accounts.
• Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations integration: Financial planning with direct data access and AI-assisted modeling.
• Expanded financial tags usage: Financial tags in Accounting Source Explorer and Business Performance Analytics for deeper analysis.
• Enhanced fixed asset management: Asset splitting with preview options and intercompany asset transfers for better accuracy.
• Greater budget control flexibility: Multiple account structures for more detailed financial tracking and reporting.
• Cross-company transactional data views: Accountants can analyze and export financial data across multiple legal entities.

Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management (SCM) 2025 release wave 1 introduces AI-powered features to increase efficiency, automate procurement, and improve user experience. These features use D365 Copilot to provide smarter assistance, reduce manual work, and streamline supply chain operations.

• Copilot follow-up questions for in-app guidance: Users can continue the conversation with Copilot by selecting automatically generated follow-up questions based on previous queries, so they can learn and navigate the system better.
• Supplier communications agent for procure-to-pay automation: Automate procurement tasks like following up with vendors, processing purchase order confirmations, and managing change requests based on AI-driven email analysis.
• AI-driven purchase order updates: The supplier communications agent scans email inboxes, identifies vendor messages related to purchase orders, and applies user-defined rules to automate updates and responses.

The 2025 release wave 1 of Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management enhances the Planning Optimization engine to streamline operations and improve efficiency. These features support key manufacturing and inventory management processes to enable better planning, cost reduction, and service levels.

• Lean manufacturing: Minimizes waste and maximizes customer value, based on the principles of the Toyota Production System.
• Catch weight management: Supports industries like food and beverage by enabling pricing and measurement based on actual product weight rather than fixed units.
• Step consumption: Allows non-linear material consumption, so resources are allocated in process manufacturing based on production quantities.

The Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management 2025 release wave 1 introduces demand planning features to improve forecast accuracy and optimize supply chain operations. These features provide advanced capabilities that leverage multiple data sources and sophisticated algorithms to provide better demand projections and financial performance.

Key enhancements include:

• Assortment planning: Allocate demand across different dimensions (products, customers, channels) using a defined allocation basis.
• Time freeze: Prevent baseline forecasts from updating during predefined periods when continuous forecasting is running.
• Forecast with signals: Define multiple input signals and select between the Prophet forecast algorithm, XGBoost forecast algorithm, or a best-fit model that dynamically determines the optimal forecasting method.
• Auto-detect seasonality: Automatically identify seasonal patterns across different dimensions (products and locations) to refine forecast accuracy.

The 2025 release wave 1 of Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management introduces quality management features to enhance regulatory compliance, product quality, and continuous improvement. These features minimize third-party solutions so organizations can maintain high-quality standards while meeting regulatory requirements. The solution promotes customer satisfaction, risk mitigation, and operational excellence through integrated feedback-driven quality management.

Key features include:

• Optimized testing strategies: Flexible sampling plans, skip-lot testing, quality-order creation triggers, sample management, instrument calibration, and AQL testing.
• Regulatory compliance: Support for approved customer lists, customer-specific certificates of analysis (COA), and enhancements to electronic signatures.
• Digitized manufacturing for precision and compliance: Electronic batch records and production dispensing for greater accuracy.
• Continuous improvement and risk mitigation: Corrective and preventive actions (CAPA) management and improvements to non-conformance tracking.
• Enhanced user experience: Simplified entry of quality test results and new workspaces for quality management.

The 2025 release wave 1 of Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management introduces additional features to improve vendor management, traceability, contract lifecycle management, and supplier collaboration.

Key updates include:

• Enhanced vendor rebate management: Resubmit and edit vendor rebate deals, posting profiles for reconciliation flexibility, and consolidated rebate output for vendor invoices.
• Supply chain traceability: Track attributes and data for supply chain traceability, product deviations, and measurement data retrieval.
• Contract lifecycle management integration: Integrate external contract lifecycle management systems to manage supplier contracts, purchase agreements, and terms in the source-to-pay process.
• Supplier relationship management: Manage supplier relationships from a central dashboard, supplier portal, and Power Apps for supply chain process engagement.

The 2025 Release Wave 1 of Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations offers organizations the tools to optimize financials and supply chain, with AI and automation. Whether you need to streamline financial planning, improve supply chain efficiency, or meet regulatory compliance, these features are the foundation for the future.

Contact Rand Group today to learn more about how these features can benefit your business. Our experts can help you get the most out of Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations to transform your operations and achieve long-term success.