Simplifying essential manufacturing processes in Business Central with Power Automate Flows

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is a robust ERP application for small and midsize businesses and is an ideal solution across a plethora of industries. There’s a pre-built module for Manufacturing that is loaded with industry-specific functionality for financial management, supply chain, inventory, order processing, and more. The best part is that Business Central unifies day to day processes, so instead of needing multiple systems for separate activities that occur at different stages of the manufacturing process, everything you need—from forecasting, invoicing, production orders, capturing time and materials, and accounting—all happens in one cohesive, sleek workspace.

With straightforward and tried-and-true features packed to the brim, it’s not hard to see why Business Central is the right choice for so many manufacturers. But that’s not all—so many functions of this already reliable system can be made even easier by sending repetitive tasks through automated flows using Power Automate.

Highlights of Business Central for Manufacturing

With licensing for the Manufacturing module, you get great industry-specific features like production bill of materials, routing management, demand forecasting, warehouse management, production reporting, and more—all on top of powerful functionality for financial management that Business Central is known for.

There are some features of Business Central Manufacturing that are naturally automated, like pulling a BOM into a production order, creating pick tickets, and pulling in forward or backward flushing methods. But, integrating Power Automate with Business Central opens a door to a new realm of productivity by introducing flows.

Pre-built Power Automate Flows for Manufacturing

Flows can automate a chain of events after a pre-defined event triggers the flow. Power Automate has a catalogue of pre-built flows specifically designed for Business Central, with the ability to build no or low-code flows yourself. Approvals for purchase orders, invoices, quotes, and more can all be automated and sent to the right recipients with the simple click of a button.

The best part is that you don’t have to be well-versed in code to implement these flows into your business processes. Using pre-built flows from Power Automate are simple to install, save time and energy, and keep operations moving so you don’t have to slow down. But, if you’re up for a learning experience, you can build your own flows to work exactly how you need them to. Pre-built flows can also be customized and tweaked as necessary, so you can find one that best fits what you’re looking for and edit it to your exact needs.