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If you want some help to decide what to do with your cash, have a look at the charts on the Accountant Role Center:
This article describes where the data in the charts comes from and, if necessary, what to do to start using the charts.
The Cash Cycle and Income & Expense charts are ready to go, based on the Chart of Accounts and financial reports. The accounts are where the data comes from, and financial reports calculate the relationship between sales and receivables. Some accounts and financial reports are provided. You can use them as-is, change them, and add new ones. If you add G/L accounts to your chart of accounts, for example, by importing them from QuickBooks, map the accounts on the Financial Reports page for the following reports:
Financial report name | Where it's used |
---|---|
I_CACYCLE | Cash Cycle |
I_CASHFLOW | Cash Flow |
I_INCEXP | Income & Expense |
I_MINTRIAL | As an income statement if you don't use the chart of accounts |
Note
It's a good idea to keep the calculations that are provided for the financial report.
Enter accounts in the Totaling field for Total Revenue, Total Receivables, Total Payables, and Total Inventory. To map to a range of accounts, enter the account numbers separated by ".." as in 1111..4444. Alternately, to map to specific accounts, enter the account numbers separated by a vertical bar as in 2222|3333|5555.
Tip
Verify your mapping by choosing the Overview action.
The Cash Flow chart is based on:
To help you get going, Business Central provides some accounts and cash flow setups. You can add, change, or remove them.
To set up the accounts, search for Chart of Cash Flow Accounts, choose the link, and then fill in the fields. Hover over a field to read a short description. Repeat these steps for Cash Flow Setup.
The Cash Flow Forecast chart uses cash flow accounts, cash flow setups, and cash flow forecasts. Some are provided, however, you can set up your own by using an assisted setup guide. The guide helps you specify things like:
Cash flow forecasts can use Azure AI to create a more comprehensive forecast. The connection to Azure AI is already set up for you. You just need to turn it on. When you sign in to Business Central, a notification displays in a blue bar and provides a link to the default cash flow setup. The notification displays only once. If you close it, but then decide to turn on Azure AI, you can use the assisted setup guide or a manual process.
Note
Alternatively, you can use your own predictive web service. For more information, see Create and use your own predictive web service for cash flow forecasts.
To use the assisted setup guide:
To use a manual process:
Tip
Consider the length of the periods that the service will use in its calculations. The more data you provide, the more accurate the predictions will be. Also, watch out for large variances in periods. They will also impact predictions. If Azure AI does not find enough data, or the data varies a lot, the service will not make a prediction.
Subscriptions for Business Central come with access to several predictive web services in all regions where Business Central is available. Learn more at the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Licensing Guide. The guide is available for download on the Business Central website.
These web services are stateless, meaning they use data only to calculate predictions on demand. They don't store data.
Note
You can use your own predictive web service instead of ours. For more information, see Create and use your own predictive web service for cash flow forecasts.
To make predictions about future revenue and expenses, web services require historical data from receivables, payables, and taxes.
Due Date, Amount (LCY) fields of the Customer Ledger Entries page, where:
Before it uses the predictive web-service, Business Central compresses transactions by Due Date based on the value in the Period Type field on the Cash Flow Setup page.
Due Date, Amount (LCY) fields on the Vendor Ledger Entries page, where:
Before it uses the predictive web-service, Business Central compresses transactions by Due Date based on the value in the Period Type field on the Cash Flow Setup page.
Document Date, Amount fields on the VAT (Tax) Ledger Entries page, where:
Before it uses the predictive web-service, Business Central compresses transactions by Document Date based on value in the Period Type field in the Cash Flow Setup page.
For Business Central online, the model is published by Microsoft and connected to the Microsoft subscription. For other deployment options, you have to create Machine Learning resources in your own Azure subscription. You can find sample steps in the sample repo. The purpose of this task is to get the API URI and API key.
Analyzing Cash Flow in Your Company
Setting Up Finance
Work with Business Central
Forecasting API overview
Events
Mar 31, 11 PM - Apr 2, 11 PM
The ultimate Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, SQL, and AI community-led event. March 31 to April 2, 2025.
Register todayTraining
Module
Forecast your cash flow in Dynamics 365 Business Central - Training
Learn how to use the cash flow forecast feature in Dynamics 365 Business Central to gain insights into your company's cash flow.
Certification
Microsoft Certified: Dynamics 365 Finance Functional Consultant Associate - Certifications
Analyze and translate financial business requirements into processes and solutions that implement industry recommended practices.