Edit

Handle External ESG compliance reporting

The European Union's (EU) Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) specifies how, and when, companies report on sustainability matters. To learn more about CSRD, go to CSRD Directive.

This article describes how to prepare your Business Central to help your business meet CSRD requirements.

Prerequisites

To use the features for External ESG reporting, you must have the following in place:

Use External ESG reporting

External ESG reporting provides templates based on ESG standards or frameworks. The tool helps you create, complete, and manage approval of comprehensive reports across both quantitative and qualitative metrics.

If you're new to ESG reporting, the following articles can help you get started:

Get started

The following sections describe each step in the process of setting up External ESG reporting.

Integrate with Dataverse and enable data synchronization

Connect your Business Central to Dataverse, and enable data synchronization. To learn more, go to Integrate with Microsoft Dataverse via data sync.

For External ESG reporting, key parts of the integration with Dataverse are the integration table and field mappings. Integration table and field mappings specify the data that synchronizes and the direction of the synchronization. That is, whether data created in one app synchronizes to the other, or data synchronizes in both directions.

When you turn on the Enable Dataverse Integration toggle on the Sustainability Setup page, Business Central creates the integration table and field mappings listed in the following table. In Business Central, you can review the table and field mappings on the Integration Table Mappings page.

Business Central Dataverse Synchronization Direction
ESG Concept Concept Dataverse --> Business Central
ESG Reporting Line Assessment Requirement Dataverse --> Business Central
ESG Reporting Name Assessment Dataverse --> Business Central
Posted ESG Report Line Fact Business Central --> Dataverse
ESG Range Period Range Period Dataverse --> Business Central
ESG Requirement Concept Requirement Concept ID Dataverse --> Business Central
ESG Standard Requirement Standard Requirement ID Dataverse --> Business Central
ESG Standard Standard ID Dataverse --> Business Central
ESG Reporting Unit Unit Dataverse --> Business Central

Set up an assessment in External ESG reporting

The next step is to set up assessments for your External ESG reporting. To learn more about how to set up an assessment in your External ESG reporting, go to Create assessments.

Set up External ESG reporting in Business Central

The ESG report is automatically created in Business Central from the assessment in your External ESG reporting. The next step is to connect the lines with the data sources in Business Central. To do that, follow these steps.

  1. In Business Central, select Search (Alt+Q) in the upper-right corner, enter ESG Reporting Aggregation, and then choose the related link.

  2. In the Name field, choose the assessment you created in Power Apps.

  3. In the Field Type field, choose either Table Field or Formula, and then do one of the following:

    To specify a data source, choose Table Field, and then follow these steps:

    1. For each line where you want to add an amount from Business Central, in the Table No. field, choose the table that contains the fields with the data you want to synchronize. When you choose a table, its fields are available in the Field No. field.
    2. In the Field No. field, choose the field that you want to synchronize.
    3. In the Value Settings field, specify whether you want to show values as a sum, or a total count.
    4. In the Account Filter field, choose the account to post to in your sustainability chart of accounts.

    To run a calculation on the values from the data source, choose Formula, and then enter the formula you want to use in the Row Totaling field. To learn more about formulas, go to Working with row formulas.

    Continue with the next step in this procedure.

  4. In the Reporting Unit of Measure field, enter the unit of measure in which you want to calculate values in your ESG report.

  5. In the Calculate With, Show, and Show With fields, define how you want to display values.

  6. In the Rounding field, specify whether you want to round values to the nearest whole number.

  7. To verify that the report works, choose the Preview action, and then verify the values.

Run the ESG compliance report

When your setup is ready, you can run the ESG compliance report.

  1. Select Search (Alt+Q) in the upper-right corner, enter ESG Reporting Aggregation, and then select the related link.
  2. Choose the Calculate and Post ESG Report
  3. A confirmation dialog displays. Verify that the template and batch are correct, and then choose Yes.

Review your posted ESG compliance report

You can review your posted ESG compliance reports in Business Central and in External ESG reporting.

To review your ESG report in Business Central, follow these steps:

  1. Select Search (Alt+Q) in the upper-right corner, enter Posted ESG Reports, and then select the related link.
  2. Open the posted report you want to review.
  3. The Posted ESG Report page shows the details about the posted report.

To review the assessment (ESG compliance report) in your External ESG reporting, follow these steps:

  1. Open your External ESG reporting.
  2. Find your assessment, and choose the Requirements tab.
  3. To view details about a requirement, including its fact value, expand the requirement.

Export your assessment from External ESG reporting

For example, if you want to share your ESG report, you can export it from External ESG reporting. To learn more about exports, go to Export assessments.

  1. Open your External ESG reporting.
  2. Find your assessment, and choose the Export action.

Sustainability management overview
Ad-hoc analysis of sustainability data

Find free e-learning modules for Business Central here

  • Last updated on