Does Business Central meet my needs? 5 common ways to extend your system with ISVs
Business Central has well-rounded base functions that support analytics, finance, supply chain, and manufacturing. Many different types of businesses use its capabilities and features to achieve their business goals.
But what about companies that need more business functions that Business Central does not include by default, such as more reporting or HR features? Businesses shouldn’t have to use separate business systems for each of these needs.
Instead, they can Business Central's base functionality with apps (aka add-ons or extensions) to further extend its capabilities, tailoring it to meet your business needs without the cost of custom development.
Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) build modern, cloud-based solutions within Business Central to accomplish specific business needs. You can find ISVs and their apps on AppSource, Microsoft’s online marketplace to buy, sell, and demo thousands of business applications and services.
ISVs must undergo multiple steps to be approved for market and offer their app on AppSource. Microsoft thoroughly vets its ISVs, and trusted applications with verified code are available in AppSource to address many of your additional needs and solutions not covered by Business Central's base functionality.
That said, we highly recommend consulting your Microsoft Partner before installing anything from AppSource into your Business Central and thoroughly testing in a sandbox before adding anything to your production environment. You want to ensure that none of your customizations or work processes are negatively affected by add-ons. Your Partner can help you test and verify that an add-on will be useful and won't cause any hiccups in your system.
The base functions of Business Central can take you a long way to meet your business system goals. Still, in this blog, we’ll discuss a few ways that you can extend your Business Central through ISVs and how they can support additional system needs like Reporting, Sales Tax, HR & Payroll, Warehousing & Manufacturing, and AP/AR automation.
AppSource, image courtesy of Microsoft AppSource
5 common ways to extend your system with ISVs
Reporting
First, it’s no secret that reporting is a major part of business; it is necessary to stay organized and make data-informed decisions. Business Central includes built-in reporting tools, such as analysis mode, which provides a fast in-list reporting option, and the financial reports/income statements, which are good for quick, basic reports but lack the personalization that you may require.
Many organizations look to Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) to further extend these capabilities. These ISVs are designed to work within Business Central and enhance your current functionalities. Some ISVs can change how the data is modeled, accessed, and analyzed, depending on which one you choose. Some companies work with their partners to create a Microsoft Power BI dashboard tailored to their data visualization needs.
Other companies find that an ISV like Cosmos provides the functions they need with built-in reporting, eliminating the need to jump between applications. This ISV leverages Microsoft Azure and Business Central’s data architecture to streamline reporting workflows, reduce manual data handling, and enable users to access actionable insights faster across financial and operational data. Depending on your needs, there may be many ways to accomplish your reporting goals.
Cosmos Reporting, Courtesy of Microsoft AppSource
Sales Tax
As a business, it is your responsibility to calculate and collect sales tax at the time a customer purchases your goods or services. Sales tax is necessary to make sure you are following the correct government procedures and to avoid issues with tax authorities. It is an easy thing to miss or slip up if not done correctly. Business Central provides basic sales tax support in its default version. You can set up tax groups, tax areas, and tax jurisdictions, along with other functionalities.
If you need more functionality, you can extend sales tax capabilities by adding an ISV app to your Business Central, which works alongside your other apps. Sales tax ISVs such as Avalara provide automated tax compliance within Business Central, reducing the complexity of compliance management while increasing accuracy and providing access to tax experts and tax-related resources.
So, if you are a business that prioritizes E-Commerce and is looking to switch to Business Central, there is a solution for your sales tax needs, whether you need basic or advanced features.
HR & Payroll
Another important Business Central function is managing your Human Resource responsibilities in one location, eliminating the need to navigate separate apps or sites. The base functionality of Business Central includes the ability to register new employees and maintain their information--including employee contracts, qualifications, and contact information–– and manage employee absences.
If you want to take it a step further, you can integrate an HR ISV, such as ADP or Greenshades, into your Business Central, providing even more comprehensive HR data and financial information in one place. This can include cloud-based solutions for HR, payroll, tax services, and time and attendance management.
Integrating your Business Central and HR apps will reduce administrative tasks and manual data entry, thereby increasing staff productivity. You will no longer need to outsource separate HR needs, because they will all be accessible in one location.
Warehousing & Manufacturing
Next, Warehousing and Manufacturing capabilities are crucial for businesses that physically move goods in and out of their warehouses. If you are working with Business Central Essentials, then functions like bins, stock control, and serial & lot tracking are all good functions to have in your toolbelt.
One way to extend these capabilities is to upgrade to Business Central Premium. Functions such as bills of materials, machine/work centers, and production scheduling are built-in capabilities in Business Central Premium that help maintain accurate, up-to-date inventory and warehouse management.
Tailoring your warehousing process to your specific business needs is crucial for ensuring that all your functions are utilized to their full potential. Integrating ISVs is also a great way to achieve this and further develop your capabilities toward your business needs.
ISVs such as Insight Works can add a variety of functions, including mobile warehouse data collection, inventory management, and integrated shipping, to help you enhance efficiency and accuracy. If you prioritize your warehouse and manufacturing workflows, you can build the most compatible functionality in your Business Central to maintain and exceed your previous productivity by adding ISVs.
Accounts Payable Automation
Accounts payable is a crucial component of business management. Managing accounts payable includes paying your vendors and reimbursing your employees for expenses. Accounts payable has useful functions and methods to make accomplishing easier, such as payables agents and the Payment Reconciliation Journal. Streamlining and simplifying these processes can also be achieved by integrating third-party ISVs into your Business Central.
When handling accounts payable responsibilities, such as reimbursing employee payments or processing invoices, ISVs like Continia and Mekorma offer extensions that can streamline your workflow. Features like advanced optical character recognition, used to understand document context through, A.I helps you automate up to 90% of manual tasks, increasing your workflow speed.
Accounts Receivable Automation
On the other hand, you have accounts receivable, which is responsible for closing sales invoices and purchasing credit memos. Functions for accounts receivable can also be extended to provide more tailored capabilities. An e-commerce-focused company needs to ensure it has seamless accounts receivable capabilities, such as a collections management tool, which is not offered in Business Central.
Nodus, Ebizcharge, and Versa Pay are ISVs that specialize in the accounts receivable add-ons. Allowing users to process credit cards, debit cards, and ACH checks, accept payments from any channel & automate e-invoicing, and expedite funding.
If you have clunky AP/AR workflows, considering an ISV extension can make life easier by increasing transaction accuracy, enhancing payment security, enhancing workflow, providing a single location for all payment processing needs, and more, tailored to your specific needs.
Business Central is a platform that can meet many of your business needs, oftentimes out-of-the-box. But for specialized processes and industry needs, ISVs are an affordable way to extend and personalize Business Central without the time and pricetag of custom development.
If you're looking to add ISVs to your Business Central environment, our recommended technology partners can help. View our list of preferred partners →