Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central: Top Features for Accountants 

Accountants are detail oriented by nature, and they want to get things right the first time around. This can be a challenge, though, if your organization lacks the proper enterprise resource planning system.

 

Dynamics 365 Business Central makes it easy for accountants to do their jobs well. With Dynamics 365, your organization’s accountant(s) have quick access to all of your company financials. Adding new accounts to the general ledger is a snap, and new journal expenses can be entered into the system via direct integration with Excel. Perhaps most importantly of all, using an ERP like Dynamics 365 Business Central allows accounting professionals to properly analyze any and all of your organization’s accounts to check for consistency and potential errors.

 

Watch this video for a look at these key features for accountants offered in Dynamics 365 Business Central, or keep reading the post below.

 

Quick Access to Financials in Dynamics 365

Everything starts from the RoleTailored homepage which an accountant can access in Dynamics 365 ERP. This homepage comes with certain default access points, including finance, journals, cash management, cash flow, and more -- but it’s also completely customizable to suit your organization’s needs.

 

From the homepage, hovering the mouse over the Cash Flow Forecast allows you to access a range of financial details. From there, it’s easy to drill down into one particular aspect of the forecast -- for example, Receivables -- and access individual invoices from there.

 

In addition to accessing financials directly, Dynamics 365 Business Central also makes it easy to control how data is entered into the system. By selecting Administration from the RoleTailored homepage and then clicking on Accounting Periods, you can opt to close various inventory and/or accounting periods so that they can no longer be accessed for data entry. This eliminates potential for error and allows you to control what your organization’s team members are able to access.

 

While most key tasks are incorporated into the RoleTailored homepage, an accountant user will also need to access specific reports. With Dynamics 365 Business Central, it’s easy to make these reports immediately accessible without a lot of clicking through to various pages. These reports can then be exported to Word, PDF, Excel, or any number of other file formats.

 

Adding a New Account to the General Ledger in Dynamics 365 

Adding new accounts to the general ledger is an important task that an accountant user will need to have the ability to perform. For example, imagine that your business is growing and you need to add new expense accounts as a result. Doing so should be quick and simple -- and with Dynamics 365, it is.

 

From the RoleTailored homepage, you simply click through to Chart of Accounts, select the Add a New Account option, fill in the requested information, and you’re done. It’s as easy as that.

 

Entering a Journal Expense in Dynamics 365 Business Central

Once a new account has been added to the general ledger, you’ll want to enter and track individual expenses within that account.

 

To do this, you’ll select General Journals from the Chart of Accounts page. Journals can be grouped together according to different variables. Here, though, we can simply select the Default Journal Batch. From there, it takes a matter of seconds to select the account you want to create an entry for, enter the amount of the expense, and complete the journal entry.

 

Of course, Business Central offers a whole host of other powerful features when it comes to journal entries. For example, by selecting Navigate -> Dimensions -> Department, you can assign a journal entry to a specific department within your organization.

 

You can also import journal entries directly from Excel rather than entering them manually. This can save you a huge amount of time if you’re already tracking various expenses in spreadsheet format. From the Default Journal Batch, you’ll notice an Edit in Excel button in the ribbon at the top of the screen. When you select this button, you’ll be taken directly to an Excel Sheet for editing. By copying and pasting in various values, you can quickly create multiple journal entries.

 

Using Dynamics 365 Business Central to Analyze an Account

Lastly, let’s take a quick look at how to analyze an account in Business Central.

 

From the RoleTailored homepage, you can access the account in question. Let’s look at Accounts Payable in this example. From within the Payable account screen, click the Ledger Entries button in the top bar. This allows you to see each and every entry associated with the Accounts Payable account. Alternatively, you can select G/L Account Balance to view the general ledger balance by week, month, or for a range of dates.

 

Dynamics 365 Business Central: A Powerful ERP for Accountants

As you can see, Dynamics 365 Business Central is a powerful ERP solution for accountants. With Business Central, you can:

 

• Reduce the number of clicks that an accountant user has to perform in order to complete various tasks
• Improve your control over your organization’s data
• Limit accounting errors and ensure correct data entry

 

Are you ready to implement Dynamics 365 Business Central and take your organization to the next level? We can help! Contact JourneyTEAM today to get started.

 

---

Article by: Dave Bollard - National Director of Marketing

JourneyTEAM is an award-winning consulting firm with proven technology and measurable results. They take Microsoft products; Dynamics 365, SharePoint intranet, Office 365, Azure, CRM, GP, NAV, SL, AX, and modify them to work for you. The team has expert level, Microsoft Gold certified consultants that dive deep into the dynamics of your organization and solve complex issues. They have solutions for sales, marketing, productivity, collaboration, analytics, accounting, security and more. www.journeyteam.com | 800.439.6456