Power BI and Business Central integration
services
Live finance, sales, and inventory dashboards built straight on Business Central
Stop emailing CSV exports from Business Central every Monday. We connect your Business Central tenant to a governed Power BI semantic model so finance, ops, and sales leaders open one dashboard and see numbers that match the general ledger.
Submit your brief → discovery call within 48 hours → scoped proposal in 5 business days → first Business Central-connected dashboard live within 3 weeks of sign-off.
120+
Business Central tenants
connected to Power BI
3 wks
First production dashboard, on
average
11 hrs
Average weekly reporting time
recovered per finance team
Cash Position, Live from Business Central
$4.82M
Accounts Receivable
over 60 days
$612K
+12% versus last month
Accounts Payable due
this week
$284K
Across 47 vendors
Sales Month-to-Date
$1.94M
+8% versus plan
Inventory turns
6.4x
Trailing 12 months
Business Central Cloud → Dataflow Gen2 → Semantic ModelDirectQuery + Import (hybrid)
A Redefine production dashboard built on a Business Central Cloud tenant. Sample financial scenario.
The Business Central reporting tax
Business Central holds your numbers. Spreadsheets hold your decisions.
Most Business Central customers do the same thing every Monday: someone exports the same 12 reports to Excel, pastes them into a shared workbook, fixes the broken formulas, and emails the result. By the time leadership reads it, it is already wrong.
The old way: CSV roulette
Manual exports, broken trust
- Controller exports the general ledger trial balance to Excel on the first of every month and rebuilds the profit and loss report by hand.
- Sales team uses the Business Central built-in reports. Ops team uses a different Excel pivot. Numbers never match.
- Business Central standard analytics views break when you upgrade the tenant. Someone rebuilds them every release.
- Finance close takes 9 working days because half of it is reconciling spreadsheets, not actual accounting.
The new way: one model, one number
Governed model, trusted numbers
- Profit and loss, balance sheet, and cash flow are generated directly from the Business Central general ledger with DAX measures that reconcile to the penny.
- Sales, ops, and finance read the same semantic model. Dimensions and measures named once, used everywhere.
- Business Central OData and Dataflow Gen2 connectors survive tenant upgrades. Refresh runs hourly without a human in the loop.
- Close drops from 9 days to 4. The accountants do accounting; the dashboards do reporting.
Calculate your payback
How many hours does your Business Central reporting actually cost you?
Pick a scenario or move the sliders. The numbers update live. The calculator auto-cycles between three real customer profiles every 4 seconds. Click any slider or scenario pill to take over.
Quick
scenariosAuto-cycle
paused
3
Companies or legal entities consolidated in
Business Central4
Controllers, analysts, ops leads pulling Business
Central data10
Per person: exports, pivots,
reconciliations$75
Average blended rate: salary plus benefits and
overheadHours
recovered per month
128
Across the whole reporting team
Annual cost
of staying put
$115,200
If nothing changes in the next 12
months
Payback on a
Redefine Business Central integration
4.2 months
Based on typical fixed-scope
engagement
Book A Scoped
Estimate
No commitment. No pitch.
Math: hours per week multiplied by builders multiplied by rate multiplied by 4.33 equals monthly cost. Hours recovered assumes 80% reduction post integration. Payback uses a typical $48K Business Central integration engagement; your actual scope may differ.
Your team's time investment across a full build is typically 2 to 3 hours per week: one weekly validation call with your controller or business intelligence lead, async sign-off on measure definitions, and a final user acceptance testing session before go-live. We handle modeling, DAX, refresh setup, and documentation.
What you receive
Everything you need to read Business Central in one place
Fixed scope, fixed price, signed handover document. Your team owns the workspace, the model, and the source code at the end, not us.
Business Central tenant assessment and connector design
A 5-day deep read of your Business Central tenant: general ledger structure, dimensions, custom fields, Business Central extensions, refresh windows, and tenant licensing.
- OData version 4 versus Dataflow Gen2 trade-off
- Custom field and extension inventory
- Dimension and analysis view audit
- Multi-entity consolidation map
Governed semantic model with DAX library
A star-schema model in Power BI built from your Business Central ledger entries, items, customers, vendors, and dimensions, with measures named the way your finance team already names them.
- 40+ standard finance measures
- Row-level security by entity and cost center
- Reconciles to Business Central general ledger to the cent
- Versioned in Git, not handed off as a single PBIX file
A board pack of pre-built dashboards
Six production reports your chief financial officer and ops lead actually use on day one: profit and loss by entity, cash flow forecast, accounts receivable aging, accounts payable commitments, sales by item and customer, and inventory turns by location.
- Drill from profit and loss line straight to Business Central general ledger entry
- Sales rep scorecards with Business Central item margin
- 13-week rolling cash flow seeded from accounts receivable and accounts payable
- Mobile layouts for executive review on phones
Refresh, gateway, and monitoring
Scheduled refreshes that survive Business Central tenant upgrades and gateway swings, with alerts that tell us before they tell you.
- Hourly incremental refresh for finance data
- On-premises gateway when needed for Business Central on-premises
- Health alerts to Microsoft Teams or email on failure
Handover, training, and source-code transfer
When we leave, your team owns the workspace, the Power BI project file, the dataflows, and a 30-page runbook so your in-house business intelligence lead can extend without us.
- 2 half-day training sessions for analysts
- Git repository with full version history
- Optional support retainer if you want us on call
Client story
Fifty-three hours a month back to the business
Client
Corporate Gear
A 200-person industrial distributor running Dynamics 365 Business Central across three legal entities. Finance closed the books on the 8th, reconciled entity-level margin on the 12th, and handed leadership a merged board pack by the 15th. Every month. For years.
53 hrs
saved per month
Day 3
board pack delivered
What changed
Three Business Central companies merged into one consolidated Power BI model with row-level security by entity
Intercompany eliminations automated in Power Query, removing the need for manual journal cross-checks
Board pack published to Power BI service, eliminating emailed Excel attachments entirely
Gross margin drill-down by SKU and customer live the moment Business Central posts a shipment
Before
Month-end, the old way
After
Live dashboard, always current
How it happens
Six weeks from kickoff to live dashboard
Week 1
Discovery and data audit
We map every Business Central table your reports touch, document the business logic behind each key figure, and confirm access to the API or dataflow endpoint. No assumptions.
Week 2
Data model and semantic layer
We build the star-schema model in Power BI Desktop, write the date table, define the core measures in Data Analysis Expressions, and load a representative data slice for review.
Week 3 to 4
Report build and row-level security
Each report page is built against the approved wireframes. Row-level security roles are applied and tested. We share a draft workspace so your team can comment on the live build in real time.
Week 5
User acceptance testing and revisions
Your finance lead runs the acceptance testing checklist. We resolve every item. A second review round closes any residual gaps before deployment.
Week 6
Go-live, training, and handover
We promote to production, configure the refresh schedule, run the analyst training sessions, and hand over the Power BI project file, the dataflow definitions, and the 30-page runbook.
Why us
Built for Business Central, not bolted on
Generic business intelligence consultancies treat Business Central as just another data source. We have spent years on its API surface, its upgrade behaviour, and its quirks. That depth shows in delivery speed and defect rates.
| Capability | Clarkston Consulting | Generic BI firm | In-house team |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business Central API and dataflow expertise | Varies | ||
| Multi-entity consolidation with eliminations | |||
| Fixed-scope engagement, no scope creep billing | N/A | ||
| Documented row-level security and access model | Varies | ||
| Power BI project file and runbook at handover | Varies | N/A | |
| Upgrade-resilient refresh architecture |
By the numbers
What clients report after go-live
53
Hours saved per month on average per finance team
6
Weeks from kickoff to live dashboard, fixed scope
100
Percent of clients own the Power BI project file at handover
3
Day close-to-board-pack after go-live at Corporate Gear
Speed
Fixed-scope engagements start in under two weeks. Clients have a live workspace to review by the end of week two, not week eight.
Reliability
Refresh architectures built to survive Business Central tenant upgrades. We track the release wave schedule and test against preview environments.
Ownership
Everything we build transfers to you. Power BI project file, dataflow definitions, Data Analysis Expressions library, and the runbook. No vendor lock-in.
Related services
More ways we help
Power BI implementation
End-to-end build from blank workspace to production-grade report suite, any data source.
Learn moreEmbedded analytics
Embed Power BI reports inside your own customer portal or software product with token-based security.
Learn moreLegacy report migration
Move SQL Server Reporting Services, Crystal Reports, or Excel dashboards into a governed Power BI environment.
Learn morePower BI training
Hands-on workshops for analysts and report authors: Data Analysis Expressions, data modelling, and self-service patterns.
Learn moreReport audit and optimisation
Slow refresh, DirectQuery timeouts, or unexplainable numbers? We audit, fix, and document the root cause.
Learn moreQuestions
Frequently asked questions
We use the Business Central OData version 4 API or the native Power BI connector depending on your environment and refresh volume. For larger data sets we build Power Query dataflows that stage the data in a lakehouse before the semantic model reads it, which keeps incremental refresh fast and keeps the Business Central API load low. We document the chosen architecture in the runbook so your team can maintain it after handover.
Fixed-scope engagements run between $42,000 and $58,000 depending on the number of Business Central companies, the report count, and whether row-level security covers multiple entities. We price fixed scope so you know the total before we start. After the discovery call we send a one-page scope statement with the exact figure. There are no hourly overruns and no retainer obligations unless you choose an ongoing support arrangement.
Not necessarily. For most mid-market companies a Power BI Pro licence per user is sufficient. Premium Per User or Premium Per Capacity becomes relevant if you want large dataset storage beyond one gigabyte, very frequent refresh schedules, or paginated reports for pixel-perfect board packs. We assess your refresh requirements and report complexity during discovery and make a recommendation before any licence cost is committed.
We build refresh architectures that insulate the Power BI model from Business Central schema changes as much as possible. Where a breaking change is unavoidable, the 30-page runbook we provide at handover documents the exact steps to update the connection. Clients on our optional support retainer get proactive testing against the Business Central preview environment before each release wave so breaks are caught before they hit production.
Yes, and this is one of our most common engagements. We build a composite model that pulls each Business Central company through its own connection, appends or blends the data based on your chart-of-accounts structure, and applies intercompany eliminations in Power Query. Row-level security then controls which entity a given user can see, so the chief financial officer can view the consolidated group while a regional controller sees only their own entity. We have done this for two-entity and seven-entity structures.
Is this right for you?
Who this engagement is built for
Good fit
You run Dynamics 365 Business Central and your finance team exports data to Excel for every report
Month-end close takes longer than it should because management wants numbers before the books are fully closed
You have two or more Business Central companies and consolidation is a manual, error-prone process
You have a Power BI licence already but no one with the Business Central connector or Data Analysis Expressions expertise to build the model
You want to own the output and maintain it in-house after the engagement, not pay a retainer forever
Not a fit
Your primary ERP is not Business Central (SAP, Oracle, NetSuite). We have separate service pages for those integrations
You need a one-page operational dashboard by end of week and have no appetite for a structured scoping process
You are not yet on Business Central and are still evaluating whether to migrate from your current system
Your organisation requires all vendors to pass a six-month procurement process before any engagement can begin
Get started
Tell us about your Business Central setup
A 30-minute discovery call is all it takes to assess fit and outline scope. Fill in what you know and we will come prepared with relevant questions.
Discovery call, 30 minutes
We review your Business Central environment, current reporting stack, and priority reports. No sales pitch.
Scope statement within 3 business days
One page: deliverables, timeline, and a fixed price. No ambiguity, no hourly rate.
Kickoff within 2 weeks of signing
We hold a start date once scope is agreed. Most engagements kick off within 10 business days.
Request a discovery call
Please fill in your name and a valid work email before submitting.
No spam. No obligation. We respond within one business day.
Request received
We will review your details and reach out within one business day to schedule the discovery call.