By Duncan Kerr, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Presales Architect, Infinity Group www.infinitygroup.co.uk, [email protected]
With the explosion of AI in recent years, Microsoft is now incorporating Copilot, an AI-powered assistant, across its solutions. This includes Dynamics 365 Business Central, Microsoft's flagship finance and ERP platform for small business organizations.
Explore the practical implications of these innovations and how they can benefit business operations.
Reclaim your time with conversational chat
One of Copilot's most important features is the ability to ask the AI questions in natural language and get responses. At the time of writing, this is only available within the US environment of Business Central (BC).
Users can now ask natural questions about their data in real time within the Business Central app. No more extracting, transforming, or loading data. You can also ask further questions about the data returned, allowing you to effectively drill down into the results. It provides an answer to the user's question and a link to prove it.
Another benefit is 24/7 guidance. Users can now ask how to complete a task without leaving the app. If you ask a question like “How to end the year,” she will immediately provide you with advice and even provide a link to her specific Microsoft Learn page.
Don't disturb the writer with text suggestions
Another useful use case for Copilot is the generation of narrative text that users can edit until they achieve their goals.
In Business Central, users often want to write a good “blurb,” or marketing description for a product. This can be difficult for non-marketers. Copilot generates blocks of text suitable for marketing. Users can choose their tone of voice, from formal to creative. Copilot then uses the attributes to generate the text.
Save valuable time spent on creative blocks.
automatic bank reconciliation
For many members of the finance team, bank reconciliation is one of the most complex and daunting tasks. Industries with high volume and low value transactions require dedicated resources to reconcile bank account entries on a daily basis.
Business Central has had the ability to import and automatically reconcile bank statements for some time. Although the system allows users to enter date ranges, the system often misses many obvious matches. This will be overlooked, especially if multiple bank ledger entries correspond to his one bank entry.
But no more. Copilot will now attempt to match more transactions. This additional support will be welcomed by financial users who have had to undergo difficult adjustments.
Electronic invoice verification
Electronic invoicing is mandatory in Europe. Although this has not yet been imposed in the UK, there is clear government guidance and businesses should expect this to become mandatory in the future.
As an evergreen SaaS platform built for worldwide requirements, businesses with Business Central have nothing to worry about.
This is different from OCR (such as Continia's Document Capture), which converts PDFs or scanned documents into an electronic format, but Business Central helps match vendor electronic invoices to purchase orders. We know that invoices often differ (price and quantity) from the original purchase order. This is where Microsoft Copilot comes in.
Ultimately, the adoption (mandatory or not) of e-invoicing will be proven. Unlike his SEPA standard for European banks, which has been largely ignored by UK banks, electronic invoicing is expected to introduce standards to make the purchase invoice process more efficient.
our summary
Copilot, the tool of the future from Microsoft, is here and can be found on Business Central. The two are working together to transform the user experience for Finance and his ERP.
Different users will benefit from different options, but there are plenty available to save time, increase accuracy, and reduce resource-draining tedious tasks.
Another thing to note is that this is only the first wave to release Copilot. Microsoft is just getting started, and I'm excited to see what the future holds.
