Business Central to Power BI, done for you
Skip the DIY connector setup. A senior US-based engineer builds the financial, sales, inventory, and job reporting your Dynamics 365 Business Central role centers can't show — then keeps it refreshing. Prepaid hours, no contracts, most builds in 3–5 business days.
Representative dashboard — sample data
Custom Business Central reporting
If your company runs on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central but reporting still means exporting to Excel, a custom Business Central Power BI dashboard turns that ERP data — financials, sales, inventory, and jobs — into live, interactive views. We build and maintain it for you, senior-led and US-based, so you stop rebuilding reports by hand each month.
Business Central is a capable ERP, but its role centers and account schedules stop short of real analysis: limited trending, no cross-module views, and little drill-through. We add a Power BI layer on top of the same data so the dimensions, posting groups, and item categories you already use carry straight through into reporting your whole team can trust.
Reports we build from Business Central
Buy a block of prepaid Flex hours and, if you're unhappy within the first 4 hours, we refund you in full — no questions asked. Hours are deducted only for work you've reviewed and approved, there's no project minimum, and your banked hours never expire.
Why teams pick us
You send the request; a senior engineer builds and maintains the reporting around your actual chart of accounts and dimensions.
Microsoft's stock Business Central Power BI apps are generic starting points you configure yourself. We're the opposite: you send the request, a senior engineer builds and maintains the dashboard around your actual dimensions, posting groups, and companies.
P&L by dimension, cash flow and AR aging, sales and margin by customer or item, inventory availability and turns, job or project costing with WIP, and a one-page executive KPI board — beyond what role centers show natively.
We use Business Central's standard Power BI integration — the built-in connector plus the OData and API endpoints your tenant already exposes. Cloud or on-premises, we confirm the exact method in your scope estimate before spending a single hour.
One US-based engineer with 20+ years on the Microsoft platform builds it end to end — no offshore handoffs, no junior guesswork on your ERP data.
Buy a block of Flex hours, get a scope+hours estimate before any work, and hours deduct only for approved builds. No project minimum, no retainer, full refund inside the first 4 hours if you're unhappy.
It's a reporting solution we build around your Dynamics 365 Business Central data — not a template app. We map your chart of accounts, dimensions, items, and jobs into live financial, sales, inventory, and project views, then maintain the model as your ERP changes. You review; we build and keep it running.
Business Central is excellent at running the business but limited at analyzing it: account schedules are rigid, role centers show snapshots, and cross-module questions — margin by item and customer, WIP against job budgets, inventory turns by location — take exports and pivot tables. A Power BI layer sits on top of the same data and makes it interactive: filter by dimension, company, or period and click through to the underlying entry. Because we build it to your setup rather than a generic model, the dimensions and posting groups you already use carry straight into the dashboard. This page covers our ERP-specific work; for the broader finance report set, see Power BI for finance teams.
We rebuild the reports Business Central handles awkwardly: P&L and balance sheet by dimension, cash flow with AR/AP aging, sales and margin analysis by customer, item, and salesperson, inventory availability and turns, and job costing with WIP and budget-versus-actual. Each is interactive — filter by dimension or company and drill to the ledger entry.
Most teams come to us because a specific report is painful in the ERP. Common asks: a multi-period P&L that trends 12–24 months across dimensions and companies; AR aging with DSO trend and follow-up flags so collections actually gets worked; sales and gross-margin ranking by item category and customer with YoY comparison; inventory dashboards showing availability, aging stock, and turns by location — a natural fit if you also run production, see our manufacturing & logistics work; and job cost views that put actuals, budgets, and WIP on one page. We scope only the reports you need, so a first engagement stays small and focused rather than a sprawling ERP BI project.
Here is a report-by-report view of where the ERP's built-in reporting stops and where the dashboard we build picks up — the same ledgers, made interactive, trendable, and drillable.
| Report | Business Central native limitation | Power BI dashboard version |
|---|---|---|
| P&L / financial statements | Account schedules: rigid layouts, limited trending | 12–24 month trend by dimension, drill to G/L entry |
| Cash flow & AR aging | Static aging report, no DSO trend | Aging buckets, DSO trend, per-customer follow-up flags |
| Sales & margin | List-style analysis reports, weak cross-filtering | Margin by customer/item/salesperson, YoY, rankings |
| Inventory | Availability by item, little aging or turns analysis | Turns, aging stock, availability by location on one page |
| Jobs / projects | Job task lines, WIP hard to see at a glance | Actual vs budget vs WIP per job, portfolio roll-up |
| Executive KPI board | Role centers: per-user tiles, no shared board view | Single-page owner/board KPI view, auto-refreshed |
Through Business Central's standard Power BI integration: the built-in Dynamics 365 Business Central connector, backed by the OData and API endpoints the ERP exposes. Cloud tenants connect with your existing login; on-premises deployments use the same endpoints through a data gateway. The exact method goes in your scope estimate before any hours are used.
Microsoft documents the integration — connector setup, authentication, and the stock Power BI apps — in the Business Central and Power BI guide (opens in new tab) on learn.microsoft.com, and that supported path is what we use. Where a report needs data the standard endpoints don't cover, we publish additional API pages or queries in Business Central itself rather than resorting to fragile exports. We are not affiliated with Microsoft and never imply a partnership; our engineers are Microsoft-certified and we simply use Microsoft's supported, documented tools. Whichever route your deployment requires, it's written into the scope estimate you approve before work begins.
You buy prepaid Flex hours that never expire: Starter 20h at $125/hr ($2,500), Growth 40h at $115/hr ($4,600), or Power 80h at $100/hr ($8,000). A first Business Central dashboard typically fits inside one block. No project minimum, no retainer — refill only when you're ready for more.
Traditional ERP-focused BI firms charge $175–250/hr, set project minimums, want $10K+ to start, let unused hours expire, and don't begin for 4–6 weeks. Flex Support flips that: $100–125/hr, no minimums, banked hours that never expire, and a start this week. You buy a block, send your request, and we reply with a scope+hours estimate before any work — hours deduct only for approved builds. If you're weighing budget across the board, our affordable Power BI consulting page covers the pricing model in depth, and you can read how prepaid Flex hours work; this page keeps the focus on your Business Central build.
After you approve the scope estimate, most builds ship in 3–5 business days, senior-led start to finish. We set the dataset to scheduled refresh so numbers update automatically — daily or several times a day within Microsoft's Power BI refresh limits — meaning your financial and operational views stay current without anyone re-exporting from the ERP.
Turnaround depends on scope, but a focused first dashboard — say P&L by dimension, AR aging, and a sales view — usually lands within 3–5 business days of approval. Once live, refresh cadence is set to match your posting and close rhythm: Power BI Pro supports up to eight scheduled refreshes per day, with more frequent options on higher tiers. We configure the schedule, monitor it, and fix breakages as part of your banked hours, so the dashboard keeps working long after the build — that's the maintain part template apps leave to you.
This fits SMB owners, controllers, and operations leaders whose company runs on Business Central but who have no in-house BI team. If you're pricing help generally, see our affordable Power BI consulting; if you want to hand off ongoing development, see outsource Power BI development. If your data lives in a different ERP, we build the same reporting there too — see our NetSuite Power BI dashboards, or, if the group runs a second system without Business Central's first-party connector, our Acumatica Power BI dashboard page covers extracting that data through Generic Inquiries and OData feeds instead. Subsidiaries running an open-source stack are covered on our Odoo Power BI dashboard page, where margin, project and inventory reporting is modeled from the Odoo external API or a database replica. Here, we focus on your Business Central build. For the wider Dynamics estate — Sales, Customer Service, and Finance & Operations — see our Dynamics 365 Power BI dashboard page. Wholesale businesses on Business Central can see Power BI for wholesale distributors.
If you haven't migrated yet and the ledger still lives in Great Plains, our Dynamics GP Power BI dashboard page covers building the same reporting straight off the GP company databases, so the model carries over when you do move.
The ideal fit is a small or mid-sized company that migrated to Business Central from NAV, GP, or QuickBooks and now wants reporting that matches the new system's depth — distributors and manufacturers watching inventory and margin, project-based firms tracking jobs and WIP, and multi-company groups that need one consolidated view. It also suits teams with an existing Power BI report that's broken or slow and needs a senior fix. Contact is form-only — send your request through the form and we'll reply with a scope estimate.
business days, typical
hours, never expire
own everything
A first Business Central dashboard usually fits inside one Flex block, and hours deduct only for work you approve. See Flex pricing →
How it works
Tell us your Business Central deployment (cloud or on-premises) and the reports you need. We map your chart of accounts, dimensions, and companies, then reply with a scope and hours estimate before any work begins — hours deduct only for builds you approve.
A senior US-based engineer connects through Business Central's standard connector and OData/API endpoints, builds the semantic model and DAX, and validates totals against your ledgers — most focused builds in 3–5 business days.
We publish to your workspace, set scheduled refresh within Microsoft's limits, and hand over the report and credentials. You own everything, and we maintain the refresh from your banked hours.
Representative perspective
We moved to Business Central expecting better reporting and still ended up exporting to Excel every month-end. Now the P&L by dimension, AR aging, and inventory views refresh on their own and I open one dashboard before the leadership meeting.Controller, mid-sized distribution company
Representative perspective
Our jobs and WIP lived in Business Central but nobody could see margin per project without exports. One senior engineer built the job-costing dashboard on prepaid hours, and it saved us from hiring a BI person.Operations leader, project-based services firm
Tell us your deployment and the reports you need. We'll scope the task and tell you the hours before any work begins — drawn from prepaid Flex hours that never expire, with no project minimums and no obligation.
FAQ
We use Business Central's standard, documented Power BI integration: the built-in Dynamics 365 Business Central connector in Power BI, backed by the OData and API endpoints Business Central exposes for its pages and API queries. Where a report needs data those endpoints don't cover, we publish additional API pages or queries in Business Central itself. The exact approach is written into your scope estimate before any hours are used.
Yes. Business Central online (cloud) connects through Power BI's built-in connector with your existing login. On-premises deployments expose the same OData/API endpoints, but the connection details differ — authentication, gateway setup, and endpoint URLs — so we confirm your deployment type in the scope estimate and set up the on-premises data gateway where it's needed.
No. We're an independent US-based Power BI service and we don't claim any Microsoft partnership. We build using Microsoft's supported, documented tools — including the Business Central connector and API endpoints documented on learn.microsoft.com. Our engineers are Microsoft-certified, but we never overstate the relationship.
Yes. We configure scheduled refresh so your financial, sales, inventory, and job views update on their own — within Microsoft's documented Power BI refresh limits (up to eight refreshes per day on Pro). No one has to re-export from Business Central, and we monitor and fix the refresh as part of your banked hours.
That's a common ask. Send us the file or workspace and we'll diagnose it against your Business Central data, then fix the model, DAX, or refresh in the same prepaid hours. If you'd rather hand off all ongoing work, our outsource Power BI development page covers that arrangement.
Book a free demo
Tell us the task. We scope it, you approve, and a senior consultant delivers — typically in 3–5 business days. Prepaid hours that never expire.
The fastest way to reach us is the form — tell us the task and we'll reply within one business day.