What’s New in 2023 Release Wave 1 for Dynamics 365 Business Central

Microsoft has released the new updates to Dynamics 365 Business Central in the 2023 Release Wave 1 and has improvements with how it integrates with the Power Platform. There are some new features and functions that could be helpful for your business.

In this blog I’ll be sharing the Dynamics 365 Business Central update details about Statistical Accounts, syncing master data across companies, Business Event triggers added to Power Apps, and some new approval features with Power Automate flows.

You can read more about the latest updates from Microsoft’s 2023 Release Wave 1 here.

Table of Contents

• What’s New in Statistical Accounts
• Sync Master Data Across Companies
• Power Platform Business Event Triggers
• Power Automate Features

What’s New in Statistical Accounts

In Dynamics 365 Business Central, Statistical Accounts are a way to track non-financial transactions and values. With Statistical Accounts you can now record transactions to improve analysis and reporting.

Examples of Statistical Accounts include:

• Number of employees
• Equipment usage hours
• Square footage of office space

The Statistical Accounts are kept in a separate table. Transactions are recorded in the Statistical Account Journal and when Registered are recorded in the Statistical Accounts Ledger Entries. These pages are found by searching for Statistical Accounts.

How to Create Statistical Accounts

From the Statistical Accounts page, click on New.

As with a G/L Account, you can add Default Dimensions to ensure that Dimensions are recorded appropriately in the Statistical Journal.

Recording Transactions

Enter transactions in the Statistical Accounts Journal including any Dimension Values required. Unlike financial journals, there is no requirement to balance the Entry.

Instead of a Post function, use the Register function to move the Entry into the Statistical Ledger.

View and Analysis

All entries can be viewed in the Statistical Account Ledger Entries page.

As with the G/L Accounts, you can use the Statistical Account Balance page to view summarized Net Changes or Balances viewed by different time frames such as Day, Month, Year etc.

Reporting

Statistical accounts can be added as a line to the Row Definition on the Financial Reports and subsequently used in formulas.

Sync Master Data Across Companies

This new feature in Dynamics 365 Business Central allows you to move the setup and master data from the main company to another company within the same environment. This means that any changes regarding setup and/or your master data that are made in the main company are directly updated within the receiving company as well, using Job Queues.

You can enable this feature from the Master Data Management Setup page within the receiving company.

Here you can also access the synchronization tables and logs where you can select the tables, table filters, and fields that you wish to synchronize from the main company. Users in the receiving company can review the synchronization logs to confirm accuracy.

Power Platform Business Event Triggers

Microsoft continues to improve the way that Dynamics 365 Business Central integrates with the Power Platform. In this release, new Business Event triggers have been added to Power Apps, which can be a mechanism for notifying and triggering external systems from the Business Central application.

Users will be able to create a flow with a Dataverse connector and use the “When an action is performed” trigger to select the Business Central catalog. This will enable the flow to be triggered based on an event from within Business Central. An example would be that the posting of a Sales Invoice could trigger the flow that then automatically sends the invoice to a government-regulated e-invoicing service:

Power Automate Features

In addition to the changes within Power Apps, new features have been added to Power Automate flows for Dynamics 365 Business Central:

• Approve documents using mobile devices
• Approve documents using Microsoft Teams
• Support a chain of approvers and additional input

Please connect with us if you have any questions about the newest Release Wave for Dynamics 365.