3 Reporting Challenges Every Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Finance Team Faces and How Velixo Solves Them in Excel
Ask any finance team working in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central what slows them down at month-end, and you’ll hear a familiar refrain. Reporting takes too long. Consolidation is messy. Budgeting feels like déjà vu every cycle. Even with a modern ERP at the center, much of finance’s most important work still happens in Excel.
That’s not a shortcoming of Business Central as a system of record – it’s a reflection of how finance actually operates. Business Central provides a solid operational backbone, but its built-in reporting tools weren’t designed for the level of agility and flexibility today’s teams need. When leadership asks for a new view or a “quick pivot” in analysis, finance knows that often means hours of rework, reformatting, and report rebuilds. The result? Deadlines slip, nights get longer, and teams spend more time reshaping data than interpreting it.
Velixo bridges that gap. By connecting Excel directly to Business Central with live, bi-directional links, Velixo gives finance teams the freedom to adapt fast, without compromising accuracy, governance, or control. The result: faster closes, cleaner consolidations, and reports that keep up with the pace of decision-making.
Reporting gaps stall decision-making
Every finance leader knows the feeling; management asks for a “quick look” by region or a board-ready P&L with new subtotals, and what sounds simple turns into hours of work. In Business Central, financial reporting relies on a structured report writer built around row definitions and column definitions that must be built and maintained separately. Even small changes can send teams back into the design screens, wondering whether the structure they have will still work or if it’s time to start over.
For dimensional analysis, it’s even more complex. To report by department, customer group, or project, users must create Analysis Views – and keep them synced to ensure results aren’t stale. The catch? Many finance users never touch them at all. It’s usually a job for a power user or administrator, which adds more bottlenecks and more uncertainty about whether the data being used is truly up to date.
That’s why the final 20% of reporting polish can consume 80% of the effort. By the time the report is ready, management’s next question has already changed.
Velixo changes that rhythm. With purpose-built, real-time functions for Business Central, Velixo lets teams design reports in Excel once. From there, users can pivot dimensions, update parameters, or drill down into transactions with a single refresh. Reports stay live, accurate, and connected to Business Central, so finance can focus on insights, not maintenance.
Data entry is manual and error-prone
If reporting is where finance loses time, data entry is where patience runs out. Many companies still plan and build their budgets in Excel; the environment where finance naturally thinks, collaborates, and iterates. But when it’s time to load that work into Business Central, the process often grinds to a halt.
Budgets and journals must be reshaped to fit a strict import layout — a format designed for system structure, not human workflow. The result is hours spent reformatting, validating, and reimporting, just to make the data “fit.” It’s not that Business Central is wrong — it simply expects data in a structure most finance teams don’t build in.
Velixo closes that gap. From the very same workbook used to build the budget, users can write it directly back into Business Central — securely and seamlessly, without rework or reformatting. The same holds true for journals and other data updates. Velixo respects every control and validation in BC, but it lets finance teams stay rooted in their own process.
No more exporting, reshaping, or hoping an import doesn’t break. Just clean, governed data flowing both ways — exactly as it was built.
Multi-company consolidation is too complex
For many growing organizations, success brings complexity. New entities, new currencies, new geographies — and for finance, that means more consolidation work. Business Central supports multi-entity environments, but true consolidation typically requires creating a separate consolidation company and syncing data from each subsidiary.
That structure works, but it’s inherently static. The consolidated data is rarely live, and because inter-entity transactions aren’t automated, finance teams must manually identify and eliminate them to produce accurate consolidating schedules and reports. Even after all that work, Business Central’s native consolidated reporting doesn’t allow users to drill into the underlying transaction details, leaving finance teams without full visibility into what drives those figures. Every late journal entry means another round of syncs, reconciliations, and guesswork — adding hours or even days to each close cycle.
Velixo changes that. A single workbook can connect to multiple Business Central companies and environments at once, consolidating results in real time. Intercompany eliminations can be created, adjusted, and even posted back to Business Central directly from Excel, automating what used to be one of the most time-consuming steps in the close process. Finance teams can drill into any balance, see the detailed transactions behind it, and trust that every adjustment stays fully auditable in the ERP.
The result is faster consolidation, cleaner audits, and a process that scales effortlessly as the business grows — all while staying securely tied to Business Central’s source data.
Why Excel remains the finance workhorse
Across finance technology, one truth has stood the test of time: Excel remains central to how finance thinks and moves. Recent benchmarking shows spreadsheets are used by virtually all FP&A teams — 96% for planning and 93% for reporting on a daily or weekly basis.1
Business Central provides the foundation every ERP should — governed, reliable data and controls. Excel provides the flexibility finance depends on. The opportunity is to connect these strengths into one seamless workflow.
That said, keeping data “in Excel” as the system of record is risky — technology leaders caution that spreadsheet sprawl creates conflicting versions and undermines data management.2 The enterprise needs a single source of truth for trustworthy analytics and decision-making.
Velixo makes the connection without compromising that truth. We bring live Business Central data into Excel so teams can analyze, model, and report at full speed — while the ERP remains the home for organizational data. Flexibility where you work; integrity where your data lives. The result: faster closes, cleaner audits, and reports that evolve as quickly as your business does.
See Velixo for Business Central in action
Velixo for Business Central is more than a reporting tool. It is a way to bring your ERP to life in Excel to close faster, analyze deeper, and plan smarter without adding complexity.
If you are attending the Dynamics Community Summit in Orlando (October 19–23), visit us at our booth to see how it works firsthand. We will show you how finance teams are cutting days off their close, eliminating rekey errors, and consolidating across entities in real time. Or learn more about Velixo for Microsoft Business Central here.
Sources
- Association for Financial Professionals (2025). 2025 AFP FP&A Benchmarking Survey Report: Technology & Data (press release + report overview).
Press release:
Survey: Lack of Reliable and Accessible Data Holds FP&A Back From Success with TechnologyReport overview:
2025 AFP FP&A Benchmarking Survey Report: Technology & Data - Bousquette, I. (2024, May 31). “Sorry AI, Old-School Spreadsheets Are Still King.” The Wall Street Journal. wsj.com – Sorry AI, Old-School Spreadsheets Are Still King