Business Insights: Leveraging Analytics and Reporting with Dynamics 365 Finance

In today’s business landscape, the ability to harness data effectively is crucial for maintaining a competitive edge. Dynamics 365 Finance is a cloud-based enterprise resource solution that offers advanced analytics and reporting features designed to optimize financial operations. Despite the advanced capabilities, extracting relevant reports from this platform can prove challenging. What this article aims to do is explore ways to effectively leverage Dynamics 365 Finance.

What is Dynamics 365 Finance?

Dynamics 365 Finance is a comprehensive platform designed to streamline financial operations through a range of features including:

·?????? Cash Management

·?????? Business Performance Management

·?????? Tax Management

·?????? Quote to Cash

·?????? Accounting and Financial Close

·?????? Financial Planning and Analysis

These features are supported by live data integration across various business functions such as human resources, sales, and supply chain. Microsoft’s AI, Copilot, then augments this seamless data integration by providing automated forecasting and predictive insights.

Common Challenges in Extracting Relevant Reports

Despite the features provided by Dynamics 365 Finance, extracting relevant and actionable reports can remain challenging without strategic use of the platform.

1.?????? Complex Data Integration: While integrating data from multiple business functions can be beneficial, extracting the information into a cohesive report can be complex. It is important to carefully choose which data sources to include, and how to structure that data to your business specific needs.

2.?????? High Customization: The extensive customization provided can come in as a double- edged sword. While customization allows for tailored reports, it is important to know what customization is necessary for your specific industry. If not, unnecessary customization can increase costs and increase the delay to receiving valuable reports.

Leverage a Few Best Practices

To help navigate the complexities of report generation and make the most of this powerful platform, consider implementing the following best practices tips. These approaches are designed to help mitigate the above challenges and ensure effective use of Dynamics 365 Finance Reporting and Analytics.

·?????? Prioritize Data Quality and Structure: Ensure data is clean and well-organized to generate accurate reports. Collaborate with the IT team to minimize data inaccuracies and performance issues, especially when integrating data from external applications outside of Dynamics 365 Finance.

·?????? User-Friendly Reporting Interfaces: Design accessible reports and dashboard layouts, while providing training to reduce dependency on IT. This empowers end-users to access and interpret key metrics without waiting. While also providing IT time to be spent on other priorities for smooth reporting operations.

·?????? Leverage Automation and Scheduling: Take advantage of the many automation features that are innately found in Dynamics 365 Finance. By taking the time to configure this, it helps reduce the risk of human error while ensuring the business leaders receive relevant information without requesting it manually. This supports agile decision-making and streamlines operations.

Analytics and Reporting Tools in Dynamics 365 Finance

To address these challenges and utilize the approaches, it is important to leverage the core reporting tools within Dynamics 365 Finance:

1.??? Power BI (Business Intelligence)

Power BI is one tool that is seamlessly integrated with Dynamics 365 Finance. Power BI enables the creation of custom dashboards and reports from live data. This tool also supports the integration with external data sources, offering even further customization for businesses specific needs.

However, Power BI and Dynamic 365 Finance are complex tools to use. The technical skills required for effective usage of this tool are skills in data modeling and Dynamics 365 Finance configuration.

2.????Electronic Reporting (ER) Framework

The ER framework excels in producing regulatory-compliant financial reports and can export in formats such as Excel or XML. It offers easy configuration without requiring coding, supports automation to report generation, and flexibility in reporting structure depending on business needs.

While strong in document formatting, it lacks advanced data visualization compared to other tools. These reports may also need ongoing maintenance whenever there are changes made in data structures or reporting adjustments, which could be resource intensive.

3.????Financial Reporting (Management Reporter)

Financial Reporting excels in generating detailed financial reports, gathered through live data from Dynamics 365 Finance. This tool is much simpler to use compared to the previous tools we discussed and allows users to generate reports without the help of their IT team. It also includes flexible reporting design and has the option for automatic report generation based on configuration.

It is specifically designed for financial reporting and relies solely on general ledger data. It does not offer advanced analytics or visualizations, which may limit its usefulness for broader data analysis.

Conclusion

By understanding and addressing the challenges of generating reports and analytics, businesses are taking the first steps to utilizing the potential of Dynamics 365 Finance. Implementing the best practices and picking the right tools specific to your business needs are crucial. To maximize these efforts, consider partnering with an experienced implementation provider to enhance your efforts. A knowledgeable partner can offer specialized support, ensure seamless integration, and optimize the platform to your enterprise needs.

Here at Valore Partners we excel in connecting disparate systems and streamlining operations for our customers. To learn more about how we can help you achieve these goals, reach out to us today.