Analytics, business intelligence, and reporting overview

Article
04/05/2024

Small and mid-sized companies rely on built-in analytics and reporting capabilities they can use out-of-the-box to help keep track of their business. Business Central provides reports and analytics tools that cover basic and complex business processes for such organisations. You can also do ad-hoc analyses directly from your home page.

Analytics needs in organisations

When you think about analytics needs in organisations, it might help to use a mental model based on personas described on a high-level, and their different analytics needs.

The model is based on the fact that different roles in an organisation have different needs when it comes to data. The higher a role is placed in the organisational chart, the more aggregated data someone in the role needs to do their work.

Roles often have preferred ways to consume and analyse data, ways that reflect the level of data aggregation they need.

Use the following sections to learn more about ways to consume data from Business Central:

Financial Reports
KPIs and dashboards
Ad-hoc analysis
Reports

Using Financial Reports to produce financial statements and KPIs

The Financial Reports feature gives you insight into the financial data stored in your chart of accounts (COA). You can set up financial reports to analyse figures in general ledger (G/L) accounts, and compare general ledger entries with budget entries.

Dimensions play an important role in business intelligence. A dimension is data that you can add to an entry as a parameter. Dimensions let you group entries that have similar characteristics, such as customers, regions, products, and salesperson, and easily retrieve these groups for analysis. Among other purposes, you use dimensions when you define analysis views and create financial reports. Learn more at Work with Dimensions.

To learn more about financial statements and KPIs, go to Using Financial reporting to produce financial statements and KPIs.

Using key performance indicators to meet your business goals

A key performance indicator (KPI) is a measurable value that shows how effectively you’re meeting your goals. Think of KPIs as your company’s scorecard, a way to measure whether you’re delivering on your objectives.

Identifying and tracking KPIs lets you know whether your business is on the right path, or whether you should change course. When used properly, KPIs are powerful tools that help you:

Monitor company financial health.
Measure progress against strategic goals.
Spot problems early on.
Make timely adjustments to tactics.
Motivate team members.
Make better decisions, faster.

To learn more about KPIs, go to Using key performance indicators to meet your business goals

Ad-hoc data analysis

Sometimes you might just want to check whether the numbers add up correctly, quickly confirm or debunk a hypothesis about the business, or maybe look for anomalies in your financial data. For ad-hoc analyses, you might not have a built-in report that helps answer your questions. For ad-hoc analyses, use these two features:

Data analysis on ledger list pages
Open in Excel

The Data analysis feature lets you open almost any list page, such as the General Ledger Entries or Customer Ledger Entries pages, enter analysis mode, and then group, filter, and pivot data as you see fit.

Similarly, you can use the Open in Excel action to open a list page, optionally filter the list to a subset of the data, and then use Excel to work with the data. For example, by using features such as Analyse Data, What-If Analysis, or Forecast Sheet.

Tip

If you configure OneDrive for system features, the Excel workbook opens in your browser by using Excel for the web.

To learn more about ad-how analyses, go to Ad-hoc data analysis.

Reports

A report in Business Central gathers information based on a specified set of criteria. Reports organise and present the information in an easy-to-read format you can use in Excel, print, or save as a file.

As an example of an interactive report in Excel, the *Aged Accounts Receivable report lets you analyse what your customers owe you and when payments are due.

For aged accounts receivables, Business Central also includes a report designed for print. The ability to print is handy if you prefer to have the data in a .pdf file.

Business Central comes with more than 300 built-in reports that you can use to support your business processes with data-driven insights. To get a quick overview of all the reports that are available for your role, you can open the report explorer from the role centre and all list pages and from Tell Me.

To learn more about using the report explorer to see all built-in reports, go to Exploring reports per Role.

The following table lists articles about how to use built-in reports in Business Central.

To	See
Learn how to use reports (bookmark, run, print, schedule, and change the layout).	Use Reports in Daily Work
Learn about which built-in reports are available in Business Central.	Report Overview
Use the Report Explorer to see all built-in reports.	Exploring reports per Role

External business intelligence and reporting tools

If you prefer to use business intelligence tools that aren't embedded in Business Central, the following table provides links to guidance on tools and ways to use external tools.

To	See
Use Power BI with Business Central data	Using Power BI with Business Central
Integrate external business intelligence tools with Business Central.	External Business Intelligence Tools
Extract data to data warehouses or data lakes	How to extract data to data warehouses or data lakes
Analyse Business Central data with Microsoft Fabric	Introduction to Microsoft Fabric and Business Central
Read data from Business Central using APIs	Business Central API v2.0