Introducing: Expense Management (2026 release wave 1)

Overview

The session introduces Expense Management, described as a long-standing functional gap in Business Central. It was built as an AI-driven feature, and the recommendation is to use it with the expense agent, which adds auto-categorization, automated collection of expense information and checks against company policies written in natural language. The agent is not enabled in all regions currently, and the agent was not used in the demo.

The demo covers the non-agent path: setup of expense users, categories, subcategories, posting groups, locations, rules and per diem, then creating expenses and expense reports. It covers project linking, customer billing, mileage, multi-currency, itemization, participants, rule violations that block posting, and the ledger entries created on posting. The session also compares the workflow with and without the agent.

Key points

• Without the agent you must start with an expense report and add lines directly. With the agent you start with expenses and they convert to reports. Attachments and OCR extraction need the agent.
• Per diem is configured by location (country, city, province) with calculation modes: none, full calendar day, overnight stay, or 24-hour rolling period. A minimum-hours threshold, partial per diem (flat percentage or eligible hours) and reductions per meal type are available.
• Payment method decides reimbursement: only expenses the employee paid with their own money are reimbursable. Company card or company bank account expenses are expensed but not reimbursed.
• There are two posting group types: expense posting groups for detail lines and employee posting groups for the report header. All system users must be set up as expense users linked to employees.
• Refundable expenses post to the general ledger. Non-refundable ones are tracked but not posted. The default is set on category or subcategory and can be overridden per line with permissions.
• Posting is blocked by rule violations and by itemization lines that do not total exactly the expense amount. Attachment enforcement can be optional, warning or error.
• Expenses cannot be used when Business Central is used outside the agent. Modifying them in Business Central requires a Team Member license. Credit card provider integration is not in public preview yet.

Features

A status with a roadmap link comes from the Microsoft 365 roadmap feature this part of the video covers (matched by Haiku; links Opus dropped are not used); other statuses need a status word in the video itself.

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.

• page 6996 “Expense Agent Setup” at 7:44

Quotes

• 0:19 “expense management and why did we start with expense management? This is long time functional gap in a Business Central.”
• 0:44 “We decided to build new functionality but created as a AI-driven. So, we didn’t just wanted to create new new feature. We wanted to”
• 0:57 “Our recommendation, use expense management as a expense agent. So, use with the agent. And every agent will provide much much more functionalities and”
• 2:05 “So, in a case of expense management without agent, you will not have expenses. You can start to collect expenses directly creating expense report.”
• 3:41 “Currently, this is not in public preview but we will have connection with the credit card provider. So, you can collect information from from”
• 13:11 “you have standard rate of mileage this is if when you are using your private”
• 13:24 “per diem calculations so you have none because in some countries you do not calculate per diem”
• 14:25 “can configure here what is minimum amount for full per diem”
• 21:18 “expenses are not possible to be used if you are using Business Central outside of agent”
• 22:45 “if this is a refundable and pay by card, you will see reimbursed amount is zero because you already pay by company card”
• 23:54 “system will automatically when you post expense report create sales invoice to this customer”
• 26:10 “if this is for example hotel, it will require itemization. If this is entertainment event, it will require participant”
• 26:22 “So, now you can see based on this starting date and time system calculated for each of day full per diem”
• 26:50 “this is something you can work only if you are using agent and you want to open expenses from Business Central”
• 28:14 “you have this rule violations. So, you cannot post because of rule violations”
• 30:17 “itemization must uh total zero must be equal to to uh completely expense amount”
• 31:50 “but when you start with expense report and add uh lines there directly this is only one”

Disclaimers in the video

• 1:10 preview: agent is not enabled in all regions currently
• 3:41 not-in-this-release: credit card provider connection is not in public preview but will be available
• 21:18 other: expenses are not possible to be used if you are using Business Central outside of agent
• 21:32 other: you need to have team member license to open it

Presenters (as heard): Isaac Sattelmeier.