2024 Release Wave 2 plans for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

We at allonline365 excited to share with you some of the new features and updates planned for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. On July 16, 2024, Microsoft unveiled its 2024 Release Wave 2 plans for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and the Microsoft Power Platform. This latest release, set to roll out between October 2024 and March 2025, introduces a wealth of new features designed to enhance customer experiences and drive digital transformation for businesses.

This release wave emphasizes leveraging advanced AI and Microsoft Copilot technologies to boost productivity and streamline operations. Users can expect intelligent automation, AI-powered insights, and immersive experiences that seamlessly connect data, insights, and individual users. In this article, we are focusing on the some our favourite features planned for Business Central. 

Key Features and Enhancements:

Simplify Collections with Copilot: Improve your cash flow and lower the cost of collecting payments for unpaid invoices by empowering your collections team with easy access to relevant and timely data about customers with outstanding payments, without having to do expensive task-switching between applications.

Chat with Copilot: 2024 release wave 2 introduced chat, a conversational experience where people can get assistance from Microsoft Copilot to find data, get unblocked, or learn new skills. Most users install one or more ISV add-on apps from Microsoft AppSource to enhance Business Central with industry-specific solutions, localized functionality, or other critical capabilities that meet their needs. Now, Copilot in Business Central is able to explain and guide workers through using functionality of these add-ons, transforming Copilot from a simple "librarian" to an in-house expert that understands your unique Business Central.

Faster Bank Account Reconciliation: Bookkeepers in SMB organizations need to import bank statements and reconcile transactions with their bank ledger entries, making sure all transactions are accounted for. While Business Central already reduces effort through rule-based transaction matching, the residual work to process the unmatched transactions every week remains cumbersome and quickly accrues to lost workdays. Copilot reduces bookkeeping effort by matching more transactions and suggesting G/L accounts to post the remaining transactions.

Enhanced Analysis Assist: Microsoft Copilot in Business Central is the AI-powered assistant that boosts creativity, improves productivity and eliminates tedious tasks. Copilot can help reduce the time it takes to identify trends and anomalies in your business data by enabling you to express your analysis as a simple sentence, and without ever leaving Business Central. By describing how you want to structure your data analysis, such as “show me vendors by location sorted by amount of purchases,” you can quickly get to insights instead of spending time on the clicks and keystrokes to construct analysis views.

Out-of-the-Box Power BI Reports: It's easier than ever to leverage your business data to get insights into your operations. You can analyse your business data with out-of-the-box Power BI reports for finance, sales, purchasing, inventory, manufacturing, and projects.

Manage Subscription Billing: Businesses are finding ways to create recurring revenue streams by selling goods and services on a subscription basis. This release lets you manage subscription contracts in Business Central. The new subscription module lets you spend more time selling and less time organizing and invoicing contracts.

Cloud Migration Tooling: Business users often attach links and notes to records in Business Central to add context and extra information. For businesses transitioning from on-premises to cloud environments, this feature ensures that these links and notes on records are included in the cloud migration without the need for the external tooling. This feature saves valuable time and reduces the risks of error with manual data transfer.

Flexible Environment Updates: Previously, relatively rigid update policies were in place for major and minor updates, this release changes that. With extended periods for major releases and optional minor updates, administrators have more flexibility to update environments in a way that suits their needs. Businesses have more time to prepare for updates and plan them for less busy periods.

Support for IPv6: The supply of IPv4 addresses is limited and will eventually run out. So, starting in 2024 wave 2, Business Central supports IPv6 addresses. The transition to IPv6 not only ensures seamless connectivity for your environments but also enhances the security of your data with IPv6’s built-in security protocols. More importantly, this update prepares your environments for the future as the world moves towards widespread IPv6 adoption.

Bulk Import of E-Documents: The e-documents framework in Business Central is the cornerstone for exchanging electronic documents and the import and export of data that supports operations and finances. Today, you can import e-documents manually, and only one at a time. In this release wave, we've extended the e-documents framework to handle the import of multiple files, and importing them from a SharePoint folder. Making it easier for people in accounts payable to import invoices and receipt documents so they can work with them. This speeds up total processing time and ensures a single point of entry for overhead invoices or other documents that use the e-documents framework.

The 2024 Release Wave 2 for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central promises to bring substantial enhancements designed to streamline operations, improve productivity, and drive digital transformation. By integrating advanced AI and Microsoft Copilot technologies, businesses can look forward to more intelligent automation, insightful data analysis, and immersive user experiences.

As we anticipate these exciting new features rolling out between October 2024 and March 2025, it’s clear that Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central continues to be a pivotal tool in driving business success.

For a detailed look at all the features planned for the 2024 Release Wave 2 for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central visit the Microsoft Release Planner.

For more information on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business contact us at +27 (21) 205 3650, email us at info@allonline365.com or visit our website www.allonline365.com.