Why Business Central is the Future of Financial Management in Australia

According to research highlighted by Microsoft partner EY, 58% of finance leaders reported increased use of technology in finance functions, with an ongoing focus on automation to address fragmented data and manual processes in financial operations. Want to get your financial management right? Efficiency and insight are no longer optional for CFOs, they are essential.

Every business wants to have complete control over its finances

After all, good financial management leads to:

• Better cash flow
• More profitable decisions

Xero and MYOB have been mainly the tried-and-tested accounting platforms for Australian businesses. In recent years, there has been a paradigm shift where businesses are migrating to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, looking for better ways to manage their finance operations, as their business grows.

Australian businesses are adopting Dynamics 365 Business Central as it’s helping them manage their finance operations more efficiently.

There are several key benefits of moving to Dynamics 365 Business Central as it offers comprehensive financial management capabilities designed for small and mid-sized organizations in order to streamline financial processes, managing finances end to end, overseeing budget, accelerating month-end and year-end close, using unlimited dimensions, tracking fixed assets, and more. Maintaining financial health and making informed decisions with Business Central is transformative.

This Blog is for You If:

• You’re an Australian business owner, key decision-maker or finance leader with an aim to optimize financial management processes.
• You aspire to get real-time insights into cash flow, budgets or overall financial health.
• You’re planning to scale your business and need an ERP that grows with you.

A look at the Major challenges faced by financial teams

Let’s go through some of the common pain points:

• Ensuring all-in-one financial features for complete business control
• Manual and Time-Consuming Accounting Processes
• Adapting to complex pricing and billing models
• Inefficient Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable Processes
• Lack of Real-Time Financial Visibility
• Very Slow and Erroneous Bank Account Reconciliation
• Very poor Cashflow Visibility and Inaccurate Forecasts
• Automating financial reports and KPIs
• Ensuring data security and user access control
• Supporting business growth and scalability

How Dynamics 365 Business Central is optimizing Financial Management and ERP Finance in Australia?

The top reasons why Australian businesses turn towards Dynamics 365 Business Central for their financial management needs:

1.Real-Time Data and Insights for better Financial Visibility & informed decisions

One of the key benefits of Dynamics 365 Business Central is its ability to offer comprehensive, real-time insights into a company’s financial position. Unlike traditional financial systems, Business Central integrates with all other areas of an organization, such as inventory, sales, and project management. This robustly allows for a holistic view of the business’s financial health. Through dynamic dashboards and custom reporting features, businesses gain access to up-to-the-minute data that empowers them to make informed decisions faster.

2.Enhanced Cash Flow Management

Cash flow is the lifeblood of any business, and effective cash flow management is essential for long-term stability. Dynamics 365 Business Central offers powerful cash flow forecasting that help businesses predict and manage their financial needs with precision. The platform analyses patterns in past transactions, accounts receivable, and accounts payable to provide a clear picture of future cash flow trends.

3.Accounts Payable & Accounts Receivable Efficiency

One can manage company's short-term debts with Accounts Payable (AP) with features like invoice management, payment processing – suggesting vendor payments, vendor management, approval workflows, and reporting. Handle money owed to your company with Accounts Receivable (AR) with invoice creation, payment tracking, customer management, collections management, and reporting. These processes streamline financial operations and improve visibility into your company's financial health. Manage your receivables effectively with the Late Payments Prediction extension and adjust the terms of payment or the payment method as needed. Together, these AP/AR capabilities help organizations operate more efficiently, reduce errors, and maintain healthier financial operations.

4.Improved Bank account Reconciliation

A bank reconciliation should be completed at regular intervals for all your bank accounts to ensure that the company's cash records are correct. Import bank statement data from electronic files sent to your bank in ISO20022/SEPA format or other file types or direct bank connectivity. Reconcile bank statement data automatically to open bank account ledger entries and keep track of all bank statements. Use Copilot to help assist with bank account reconciliation. This feature offers two distinct tasks: One can improve the matching of transactions with ledger entries with automatch. Copilot uses AI technology o inspect those unmatched transactions and identify more matches, based on the dates, amounts, and descriptions. One can suggest general ledger (G/L) accounts. For residual bank transactions that can't be matched to any 9 Check writing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Capability guide ledger entries, Copilot compares the transaction description with G/L account names and then suggests the most likely G/L account to post to.

5.Better Budgeting and forecasting

To meet your financial goals with Business Central’s budget & forecast capabilities, you can track business progress using budgets in the general ledger. Use budgets in financial reports, user-defined analysis in account schedules, or in data sent to Power BI for data sharing and analysis. Import budget information to and from Microsoft Excel for enhanced calculation capabilities when you prepare budgets. The system supports multiple budget versions, allowing you to model different scenarios and adjust plans without starting over.

6.Seamless Integration with Microsoft Ecosystem

For multiple Australian businesses using Microsoft products such as Office 365, Excel, and Teams is an everyday functional need. Dynamics 365 Business Central is designed to integrate seamlessly with these tools, creating a unified, collaborative environment where financial data flows smoothly between applications. This integration allows for more effective communication and collaboration across departments, as well as simpler data sharing and reporting.

7.Faster Financial Closing

Month-end closing used to take days or even weeks. With Business Central, you can close your books in hours. The system automates many of the manual processes involved in financial closing. This faster closing cycle means you get financial results to stakeholders sooner. The bonus is: Making decisions based on more current data helps spending less time on administrative tasks.

8.Improved Financial Decision Making

The need is: Access to real-time financial data changes how you make decisions. Instead of relying on outdated reports & may be gut feelings, you can make decisions based on current, accurate information. Business Central’s built-in analytics help you identify trends. Through this, you can spot opportunities, can avoid potential problems before they become serious issues & it is a data-driven approach to decision-making.

9.Multicurrency and Multi-Entity Support

When business operates internationally or has multiple legal entities, Business Central is capable to handle this complexity as Multicurrency accounting ensures that you stay compliant and very accurate when making global transactions. Intercompany postings make consolidation smoother across entities. You can set different fiscal years, tax rules, and reporting formats, all within one platform. This means you can grow globally without outgrowing your ERP.

10.Subscription Billing

One can bill the contractually agreed services on a recurring basis with subscription billing. The integrated, flexible billing models support many subscription model scenarios for pricing models, price management, renewals, and billing periods and frequency, Can manage recurring invoices of services to minimize sources of error, store all the information in one place and keep an overview of contract management in a way reducing manual effort by simplifying and automating processes. Also, Usage based billing extends the recurring billing features of subscription billing.

Business Activity Statement (BAS) Reporting, and Australian Taxation Compliance (ATO) Made Easy

Compliance is one of the most time-consuming and risky aspects of running a business in Australia. Mismanagement of Australian Taxation requirements can lead to penalties, audits, and costly corrections. Business Central is designed to simplify and automate this.

The BAS is a form that all businesses submit to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to report their taxation obligations.

The Business activity statement (BAS) feature is designed to help you fill in your BAS. The statement resembles the calculation worksheet that the ATO provides when you receive the BAS form in the mail.

BC Provides localized Australian features like BAS (Business Activity Statement) reporting automation, ST calculation and reporting, ATO-compliant reporting formats & Standard Chart of Accounts for Australia.

Supported by a Strong Network of Australian Partners

Implementation is a major concern for businesses adopting a new ERP system. Fortunately, Business Central is backed by a robust community of Australian Microsoft partners that specialize in:

• Implementation and onboarding
• Australian taxation localization
• Custom development
• Integration with industry systems
• Training

This ensures that companies have local expertise available throughout their ERP journey.

Why Business Central will continue to lead Financial Management in Australia?

If we can have few summary points, Dynamics 365 Business Central is the future of financial management as it has multiple relevant capabilities:

• End-to-end ERP finance functionalities
• Australian taxation compliance
• Advanced automation that reduces manual financial workloads
• Scalability for growing Australian businesses
• Seamless integration with Microsoft ecosystem
• AI-driven insights for financial decision-making
• Cloud-based security that is world-wide acclaimed

Conclusion

Australian businesses that with great readiness enable intelligent transformation now will have a competitive advantage in the future. With its comprehensive financial management features, compliance capabilities, and powerful ERP foundation, Dynamics 365 Business Central is positioned to become the leading ERP finance in Australia.

You can monitor the performance of your global financial operations in real-time, predict outcomes, and make data-driven decisions ​to drive agility and growth.

Ready to Transform Your Financial Management? Partner with us at Dynamics Square, Australia’s trusted Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central experts

Contact us!