What's New: Excel Reports for Finance and Sales (2024 release wave 1)
Business Central 2024 release wave 1 adds eight Excel reports for finance and sales: trial balances, receivables and payables aging, and customer top list. They are marked preview but described as fully functional. The session covers how to find the reports, data aggregation limits and the roadmap, and demos Copilot in Excel (preview) finding outliers in vendor aging data.
- Introduction and session overview
- Discovering Excel reports
- Finance reports - trial balance
- Excel report limitations and data aggregation
- Sales reports - receivables and top customers
- Roadmap and upcoming reports
- Copilot capabilities introduction
- Copilot in Excel demo - outlier detection
- Key takeaways and user recommendations
- Additional resources and closing
Overview
The session covers the Excel reports released in the April 2024 wave, where eight reports were released across trial balance, payables and receivables. It shows how to find the reports, then walks through the trial balance report, the accounts receivable aging report and the customer top list.
It also explains data limits: the reports use aggregated data, not transaction-level detail. The session lists reports planned for later, then demos Copilot in Excel, including outlier detection. It closes with the point that Copilot suggestions need human review.
Key points
- The new Excel reports are marked preview because their design may still change, but the presenter says they are fully functional. You can find them on the role centers, in the Report Explorer (search for ‘preview’) or with Tell Me.
- Eight reports shipped in 2024 release wave 1: trial balances, receivables aging, payables aging and the customer top list.
- Trial balance data is aggregated at account and selected-period level, with no daily totals, and broken down by dimension values and account categories. About 100,000 rows was found to be manageable for performance.
- Trial balance has slicers for dimensions and account categories, comes in local currency and additional reporting currency versions, and has a printable layout plus raw data for pivot tables and charts.
- The accounts receivable aging report filters by aging date, due date, period length and count, can skip customers with zero balance, and offers views by period, local currency and currency. Data is aggregated per customer per period with a dimension breakdown.
- The customer top list report shows top customers by sales or balance with a chart. The top count can be changed, for example to 100.
- Planned reports include consolidation, closing trial balances, customer and vendor balance-to-date reports based on ledger entries, and then fixed assets, jobs, manufacturing and possibly service.
Features
| Feature | Status | At | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trial balance Excel report | preview, demoed | 1:58 | “they are marked with preview for now because we might have some design changes we want to do but they’re fully functional” (1:18) |
| Accounts receivable aging report | preview, demoed | 5:52 | “they are marked with preview for now because we might have some design changes we want to do but they’re fully functional” (1:18) |
| Customer top list report | preview, demoed | 5:52 | “they are marked with preview for now because we might have some design changes we want to do but they’re fully functional” (1:18) |
| Accounts payable aging report | preview | 5:52 | “they are marked with preview for now because we might have some design changes we want to do but they’re fully functional” (1:18) |
| Copilot in Excel - data analysis | preview, demoed | 12:00 | “right now in preview as of April or March 2024 U there’s also new things coming in Excel” (12:00) |
| Open in Excel functionality | status not stated | 11:25 |
AL objects mentioned
As heard in the captions. A name that matches one object page by exact type and name links to it; the others stay as named.
- report “Trial balance” at 2:18
- report “Age receivables” at 2:18
- report “Age payables” at 2:18
- report “Top list” at 2:18
- report “Customer top report” at 6:13
- report “Consolidation reports” at 10:03
- report “Closing trial balances” at 10:03
- report “Balance to date reports” at 10:03
- report “Asset list” at 10:44
- page “Report Explorer” at 1:18
Not found in BC28-30: report “Age receivables”, report “Age payables”, report “Top list”, report “Customer top report”, report “Consolidation reports”, report “Closing trial balances”, report “Balance to date reports”, report “Asset list”, page “Report Explorer”.
More than one object has this name, so none is linked: report “Trial balance”.
Quotes
- 1:18 “they are marked with preview for now because we might have some design changes we want to do but they’re fully functional”
- 4:40 “for the trial balance uh we have decided that the aggregation level is of course accounts the”
- 5:00 “we have broken it down per Dimension values in this case where we have also included account categories there’s a further uh breakdown there”
- 5:21 “we found out that when we’re looking at data around at 100,000 rows is what is manageable uh performance- wise”
- 9:43 “in this release in in in the first wave uh April wave we have released eight reports the trial balances and payables and receivables”
- 9:43 “we want to include uh more Finance reports the consolidation reports the uh closing trial balances uh we want to include more reports for”
- 12:00 “right now in preview as of April or March 2024 U there’s also new things coming in Excel and since Excel reports are in”
- 14:41 “we have machine learning on AI to suggest something for a human being to go and control so I’m always in the loop I”
Disclaimers in the video
- 1:18 preview: they are marked with preview for now because we might have some design changes we want to do but they’re fully functional
- 12:00 preview: right now in preview as of April or March 2024
Presenters (as heard): Brian Nilson, Kenny Pontop.