Business Central Wave 2- What’s new and why it matters.

As always, Microsoft has packed Wave 2 with a host of new features and capabilities. There is a focus on e-commerce, Copilot, features for R & D companies who market and sell but manufacture off-site and a new Quality Management feature set which helps to meet ever demanding supply chains.  

You can find the full release plan here but below find some edited highlights our Business Central customers will find useful.

E-commerce- Shopify and Business Central

Further integration with Shopify and Shopify Plus

• When you integrate the apps, you simplify the process of defining prices and discounts. You also simplify managing and reporting taxes to comply with government regulations

To have some further details on how to enable staff-to-salesperson mapping for Shopify orders read here.

• When you use Shopify POS, you improve traceability and performance reporting by importing staff member information from Shopify to salesperson in Business Central on sales documents

Why this is good for your business Enable staff-to-salesperson mapping for Shopify orders | Microsoft Learn

Increase conversion rates by using familiar pricing and currency formats when you sell to international customers. Get a list of catalogues that Shopify defines for markets set price calculation settings and easily trigger a price update for catalogues.

• The Shopify connector lets you export customers from Business Central as B2B company locations in Shopify
• When you use the  Sell-to Customer and Bill-to Customer  fields on the company location level, you get more flexibility and convenience for managing customer information across both applications.

Copilot-even deeper integration to Business Central

• When you integrate the apps, you simplify the process of defining prices and discounts.
• You also simplify managing and reporting taxes to comply with government regulations.

To learn more how to capture more sales with a sales order agent read more here

We let you know earlier this year on this, but the Wave 2 release makes the agent more versatile!

• Enhancements to the Sales Order Agent enable it to manage more complex and varied sales enquiries on its own.
• You spend less time on manual tasks and respond faster.
• Sales and customer service teams can process more requests with improved accuracy, even when the input is unstructured or incomplete.
• Guide the agent with natural language inputs, which minimises workflow disruptions and keeps tasks moving. 

Why the Payable Agent makes it easier for the accounts payables

• The Payables Agent makes it easier for the accounts payables department to do 3-way matching among purchase invoices, orders, and receipts for expense types, products, and services.
• The agent uses AI to intelligently find matching orders and order lines that are not identified by a unique reference on the vendor’s invoice. This capability reduces manual effort and saves processing time. 

Business Central has new functionality for businesses who design, take to market, and sell but do not manufacture in house.

Learn all about using the subcontractor capabilities in production processes here

This feature expands on the subcontractor capabilities already in Business Central and aims to support companies who research, design, market and sell a product but do not manufacture in house.

How this will support your business:

• Logistic flows that manage subcontractor transfers for raw materials and components, along with warehouse handling and item tracking.
• Flexible pricing that considers the work centre, item, dates, and quantity.
• Finished good receipts with item tracking and warehouse handling from purchase orders.
• Logistic flow that manages subcontractor transfers of finished goods.
• Enhanced usability and more transparency in production processes.

The new quality management extension for Business Central helps you comply with industry standards and regulatory requirements. including quality checks in the process of receiving or producing goods improves product reliability and gives customers confidence in consistent quality.

Businesses can define and scope the quality checks they required such as:

• Purchase Receipts: Quality checks happen after you post purchase receipts, with or without warehouse handling.

• Production Output: Quality checks happen on production output, either manually or automatically (flushing), to verify that the manufactured products meet quality specifications.

• Assembly Output: Quality checks happens on assembly output, either manual or automatic (assembly-to-order), to ensure that the assembled items meet quality standards.

• Manual and scheduled checks: Quality checks trigger manually or at regular intervals on a schedule.

Microsoft’s commitment to Business Central SaaS is clear. 

Wave 2 continues Microsoft’s mission to make Business Central more intelligent, connected, and adaptable. Whether you sell online, leverage subcontractors, or need to meet strict quality demands, these updates help you: 

• Reduce manual effort and errors. 

• Improve transparency and compliance. 

• Respond faster to customer and market demands. 

Remember that Wave 2 starts to roll out from October onwards. A couple of the new features will be available earlier but when you receive your update will depend on the data centre your Business Central resides in. If you wish to know specifically when your business will benefit from the Wave 2 release – we can let you know.