Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2025 Wave 2 introduces AI agents that automate tasks like managing invoices, creating sales orders, and generating compliance reports. The update streamlines business operations, speeds up order processing, and improves financial and sustainability management with intelligent automation and real-time insights.
Microsoft's latest release, rolling out from October 2025 through March 2026, isn't just another software update—it's a fundamental shift toward intelligent business management powered by AI agents that actually understand your business. Let's explore the ten features that will make the biggest difference for SMBs like yours.
For expert guidance tailored to Australian SMBs, visit Work Made Simple (WMS).
The headline feature of Wave 2 is the introduction of intelligent AI agents that seamlessly integrate with Business Central to execute complex tasks. These aren’t simple chatbots—they’re sophisticated assistants that understand context, learn from your business patterns, and take action on your behalf.
These agents leverage Microsoft Copilot Studio and can be triggered by user actions or incoming data, such as emails received in Outlook. For SMBs, this means having 24/7 digital employees that never get tired, never make calculation errors, and continuously improve their performance based on your business data.
Here’s how it works: vendors send invoices to a designated shared mailbox, and the AI agent automatically monitors this inbox. When an invoice arrives, the agent uses generative AI to extract key information—vendor details, amounts, line items, and account codes—without requiring any image capture training. It then creates a draft purchase invoice in Business Central for human review before posting.
The agent is particularly intelligent about matching expenses to the right accounts. For example, if you receive an electrician’s invoice, it will automatically categorize it under the appropriate general ledger account based on your historical patterns and business setup. This automation can reduce AP processing time by 60-80% while virtually eliminating data entry errors.
Your sales team probably spends hours each week converting customer emails, PDFs, and spreadsheets into proper sales orders. The Enhanced Sales Order Agent eliminates this bottleneck entirely.
The agent can read unstructured data from emails and attachments, including PDFs and images containing quote requests. It automatically creates accurate sales quotes even when the customer request lacks structure or complete information. Recent Wave 2 enhancements include support for multiple ship-to addresses, capable-to-promise responses that consider future inventory availability, and the ability to resume processing with human input when needed.
For make-to-order manufacturers or businesses dealing with complex specifications, this feature is transformative. The agent learns from previous entries and can fill in missing details automatically, dramatically accelerating your quote-to-order cycle.
Data analysis shouldn’t require a computer science degree. Analysis Assist brings the power of business intelligence to every team member through natural language queries.
Instead of struggling with filters, pivot tables, or complex reports, users can simply type questions like “Show me vendors by location sorted by purchase amount” and receive immediate, accurate answers. The system works with custom fields and related tables, making it incredibly flexible for your specific business needs.
This democratization of data analysis means your warehouse manager can quickly identify slow-moving inventory, your sales director can spot regional trends, and your purchasing team can analyze vendor performance—all without waiting for IT support or learning complex software.
Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) compliance isn’t just for Fortune 500 companies anymore. With new regulations requiring sustainability reporting from smaller businesses, particularly in Europe and Australia, ESG compliance is becoming mandatory for many SMBs.
Business Central’s ESG Reporting Integration connects directly with Microsoft’s Project ESG Reporting app, allowing you to track greenhouse gas emissions, water usage, and waste across all three emission scopes. The system captures environmental impacts through general journals and purchase documents, tracks social and governance metrics using statistical accounts, and generates regulatory-compliant submission files for standards like CSRD, ASRS, and BRSR.
Starting in 2025, Australian businesses will need to include sustainability performance in their annual reports alongside financial statements. This integration ensures you’re prepared for these requirements without needing expensive third-party solutions.
For manufacturers and businesses dealing with physical products, quality control has often meant juggling spreadsheets, third-party software, and manual processes. The new Quality Management Extension brings comprehensive quality control directly into Business Central.
The system allows you to define quality checkpoints, track inspection outcomes, and associate quality data with specific production orders or batches. You can set up automated quality checks for purchase receipts, production output, and assembly processes, with configurable parameters for physical measurements like weight, dimensions, and density.
This is particularly valuable for sectors like food production, pharmaceuticals, electronics, and aerospace, where compliance is critical and full traceability is required. The extension also supports quality certificates and certificates of analysis—essential documents for regulatory compliance.
Financial reporting often feels like a necessary evil—time-consuming to create but essential for decision-making. Wave 2 transforms this experience with enhanced reporting capabilities that rival expensive specialized software.
The new system includes automated report scheduling via email or report inbox, Excel-based editing for familiar formatting, dynamic column headings that adjust based on data, multi-currency reporting capabilities, and automated alerts for general ledger changes. Reports can be customized with Excel layouts, making them look professional and polished for board presentations or investor meetings.
For SMBs that previously relied on manual report compilation or expensive third-party tools, this represents significant time savings and improved financial visibility.
Business Central’s Power BI integration receives major upgrades in Wave 2, bringing enterprise-level analytics to SMBs. The enhanced purchasing app includes refactored semantic models for easier customization, map visuals for location-based analysis, and built-in forecasting for smarter procurement decisions.
The improved sales app expands datasets to include project and general ledger integration, enhanced sales forecasting capabilities, and customizable Excel layouts for tailored reporting. These tools provide finance and sales teams with richer, real-time insights for data-driven decision-making without requiring separate business intelligence software.
For businesses selling through Shopify, the enhanced integration in Wave 2 addresses many pain points that have frustrated users. The connector now supports the latest Shopify API (January 2025 version), includes enhanced B2B and Shopify Plus support, and provides improved troubleshooting tools for faster issue resolution.
Key improvements include staff-to-salesperson mapping for better reporting and traceability, market-specific price synchronization for global businesses, enhanced handling of sell-to and bill-to customer details per company location, and bulk updates of product variants for better performance.
The integration also includes better risk assessment handling and improved data visualization in log entries, making troubleshooting much simpler when issues arise.
Beyond just ESG reporting compliance, Wave 2 introduces comprehensive sustainability management tools that help SMBs understand and reduce their environmental impact while saving money.
The system tracks emissions across all three scopes (direct emissions, purchased energy, and supply chain impacts), monitors water usage and waste generation with intelligent recommendations from Copilot, manages carbon credits and sustainability certificates, and provides sustainability journals and ledgers integrated with financial records.
Starting June 2025, enhanced Power BI integration will provide prebuilt sustainability dashboards showing emissions by category, progress toward net-zero targets, and social governance metrics like workforce diversity. This isn’t just about compliance—it’s about using environmental intelligence to reduce costs and improve efficiency.
| Feature Name | Business Impact | SMB Benefits |
|---|---|---|
| AI Agents & Copilot Enhancements | Automates routine tasks with intelligent agents that work 24/7 | Reduces manual workload, increases accuracy, and frees staff for strategic work |
| Payables Agent | Automates vendor invoice processing from email to posting | Cuts AP processing time by 60–80%, reduces data entry errors |
| Enhanced Sales Order Agent | Converts emails and PDFs into accurate sales orders automatically | Accelerates quote-to-order cycle, handles multiple shipping addresses |
| Analysis Assist | Provides instant insights through natural language queries | Makes data analysis accessible to non-technical users, faster decisions |
| ESG Reporting Integration | Streamlines sustainability compliance with CSRD, ASRS standards | Prepares for mandatory ESG reporting, reduces compliance costs |
| Quality Management Extension | Built-in quality control for manufacturing and production | Ensures product consistency, meets regulatory requirements |
| Advanced Financial Reporting | Enhanced reporting with Excel integration and scheduling | Professional financial reports, automated distribution, better insights |
| Power BI Enhancements | Deeper analytics for sales, purchasing, and project data | Visual dashboards for better decision-making, forecasting capabilities |
These features aren’t just technological improvements—they represent a fundamental shift in how SMBs can compete with larger enterprises. Consider Sarah, who runs a mid-sized manufacturing company. Before Wave 2, her team spent 15 hours weekly processing vendor invoices, another 10 hours converting customer emails to sales orders, and countless hours creating monthly financial reports.
With Wave 2’s AI agents, the Payables Agent now handles invoice processing automatically, reducing the 15-hour weekly task to 2 hours of review and approval. The Sales Order Agent converts customer emails to quotes in minutes rather than hours, and enhanced financial reporting generates professional monthly reports with a few clicks instead of days of manual work.
More importantly, Sarah’s team can now focus on strategic activities—building customer relationships, improving products, and planning for growth—rather than getting bogged down in administrative tasks.
Microsoft’s 2025 Wave 2 represents more than just software updates—it’s a glimpse into the future of business operations where AI doesn’t replace human workers but amplifies their capabilities. For SMBs, this levels the playing field with larger competitors who have traditionally had access to more sophisticated systems and dedicated IT teams.
Ready to explore how these game-changing features can transform your business operations? The future of intelligent business management is here, and it’s more accessible than ever before. For expert guidance on implementing Business Central 2025 Wave 2, visit Work Made Simple (WMS). to discover how these powerful new capabilities can accelerate your business growth and competitive advantage.
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It’s the latest release of Microsoft’s business management solution for SMBs, introducing AI-powered automation, enhanced reporting, quality control, sustainability management, and improved e-commerce integration.
AI agents automate routine tasks like invoice processing and sales order creation, reducing errors and saving hours of manual work, freeing staff to focus on strategic activities.
The Payables Agent automates vendor invoice processing by extracting invoice data from emails and PDFs, creating draft purchase invoices, and reducing accounts payable processing time by up to 80%.
It streamlines compliance with sustainability regulations like CSRD and ASRS by tracking emissions, water usage, and waste, preparing your business for mandatory ESG reporting efficiently.
Yes, it offers advanced financial reporting with Excel integration, automated report scheduling, multi-currency support, and alerts, enabling professional and timely financial insights.
The latest updates support advanced B2B features, improved API compatibility, better order synchronization, and enhanced error troubleshooting, making e-commerce operations smoother.
Absolutely, it provides built-in quality checks and tracking for production, ensuring product consistency, regulatory compliance, and supporting quality documentation needs.
