Sales analytics in Business Central - the past, the present, and the future (2025 release wave 1)

In this post, I will discuss your options for built-in BI, analytics, and reporting in the Sales module of Dynamics 365 Business Central. Browse it to learn more about your options in different versions of Business Central.

But the real and devious intent behind the article is to involve users and functional consultants in what improvements we should do in this space for the 2025 release waves. Scroll down to get to that part. I mean it. Seriously. Without feedback from you guys, the best I can do is to guess on what matters and then improve that. And I don't work with sales processes in Business Central as a customer, I'm just working with requirements for the product.

If you work with Business Central version 2022 release wave 2 (or earlier)...

then you have different options

• standard sales reports
• built-in analytical pages

that all have been in Business Central for ages.

As a recent thing, we documented all of these and added an overview article so that you know what is available.

For more information, see

https://aka.ms/bcSalesAnalytics

(Hot tip for Microsoft partners: this aka link might come in handy if you need to demo/mention the sales analytics capabilities for a client)

Related to sales, we recently also did a major update to the documentation for reporting in the CRM module to make it even easier for you to understand the reporting options there:

For more information, see Relationship management reports

If you read some of the documentation for sales analytics and have input for improvements, then reach out to me. You are the expert; I am the novice. Let's work together to make the world a little bit better (in context of finance analytics and reporting).

If you work with Business Central version 2023 release wave 1/2 or 2024 release wave 1...

then you have more options. Namely that you can take any list page into Analysis Mode and group/pivot your project data as you see fit. Directly in the client. And you can save any such analysis tab, get a copy in Excel, or share the analysis definition with a friend.

For sales, we even described example scenarios in the documentation. Here are some examples:

• Analyze your expected sales volume
• Get an overview of the customers that purchase the most, or that owe the most.
• See what your customers owe you, for example, broken down into time intervals for when amounts are due.

Check out this article to learn more: Ad-hoc analysis of sales data

If you have good scenarios to share that would fit this article, do reach out. Then we can add them together (and you can get your name added to the article. Wouldn't that be cool?

In 2024 release wave 1, you also got a new Excel report for sales. It is currently hidden on the Business Manager role centre (but we will fix that)

The report is currently in preview, but that will also likely change soon...

If you work with Business Central version 2024 release wave 2...

then you are in for a treat (if you use the online version of Business Central). We just (in version 25.1 - the first minor update to this release) released a Power BI app for Sales with 11 reports. The reports allow you to

• Analyze high level information on sales activities. Identify sales figures for quantity or amounts from both posted and unposted documents.
• Analyze sales by weekday over different periods. The heat maps highlight the days on which you sell the most, which helps you identify patterns in your sales.
• Analyze sales trends by smoothing out spikes and drops using the 30 Day Moving Averages report.
• Analyze the aggregated sales over a rolling 12-month period. Use this analysis as an alternative to a Year-to-Date report.
• Compare sales in one period with the same period in a prior year, quarter, or month.
• Analyze accumulating sales for a desired period.
• Analyze sales by item and view key sales metrics as a percentage of total sales.
• Analyze sales by customer and view key metrics. Metrics include sales amount, sales quantity, cost amount, gross profit, gross profit margin, and the sales amount as a percent of total sales.
• Analyze sales by salesperson and view key metrics. Metrics include sales amount, sales quantity, cost amount, gross profit, gross profit margin, and the sales amount as a percent of total sales.
• Analyze sales by location and view key metrics. Metrics include sales amount, sales quantity, cost amount, gross profit, gross profit margin, and the sales amount as a percent of total sales.
• Analyze item sales budgets against actual sales. View target variances for both sales amounts and sales quantity.

For more information, see Power BI Sales app

What about 2025 release wave 1+2???

OK relax, you lovely people with an interest in sales analytics. I'm not spilling the energy drink on the grand plan here, this is why we have release plans...

Having said that, here are my thoughts on what might happen within sales analytics (hint hint):

• All sales finance reports will get a teaching tip to improve the in-client help (and this will also link to the documentation article for the report).
• The Report Explorer for sales reports will include all reports (I need to check if that is already the case).
• The new Excel report might get out of preview and be Generally Available (GA)
• The new Power BI reports might be improved (what would you like to get in this space?)
• You might get new improved queries for ad-hoc analysis on things such as Sales header + sales lines, Posted sales inv header + posted sales inv lines, or Return orders (think new flattened star schema models on common sales scenarios)
• Some existing sales reports might be deprecated.

If you want to influence the scope (as a Microsoft partner for Business Central), then go to the Yammer site and join the discussion here (I promise you that there are already some juicy ideas).

Feedback for the Power BI app for Sales: https://www.yammer.com/dynamicsnavdev/threads/3086287738347520

If you want to influence the scope (as a Business Central customer), then connect with me here on LinkedIn and write me (or comment on this post).

Signup to the newsletter (and/or spread the word)

That's it for now. Thanks for reading along. Do comment on things that resonated with you when reading the article.

Want to read earlier posts in about reporting and analytics in Business Central. Maybe this series will interest you:

History and strategy of analytics in Business Central (2020-2024)

• Analytics, BI, and reporting in Business Central from 2020 until now - part 1 (2020 release wave 1+2)
• Analytics, BI, and reporting in Business Central from 2020 until now - part 2 (2021 release wave 1+2)
• Analytics, BI, and reporting in Business Central from 2020 until now - part 3 (2022 release wave 1+2)
• Analytics, BI, and reporting in Business Central from 2020 until now - part 4 (2023 release wave 1+2)
• Analytics, BI, and reporting in Business Central from 2020 until now - part 5 (2024 release wave 1)
• Analytics, BI, and reporting in Business Central from 2020 until now - part 5? (what happened to "getting access to all my data"?)
• Analytics, BI, and reporting in Business Central from 2020 until now - part 6 (analytics features in 2024 release wave 2)

General posts on analytics in Business Central

• Built-in BI and Reporting tools in Business Central
• Ho ho ho. How to track out-of-the-box KPIs in Business Central Power BI reports

Posts by functional area

• Project analytics in Business Central - the past, the present, and the future (2025 release wave 1)
• Manufacturing/production analytics in Business Central - the past, the present, and the future (2025 release wave 1)
• Finance analytics in Business Central - the past, the present, and the future (2025 release wave 1)

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