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Billing Agents in Business Central and How to Configure "Pay as You Go"

Billing Agents in Business Central and How to Configure Pay as You Go

Running a business today means juggling countless invoices, purchase orders, customer requests, and financial data. What if an intelligent assistant could help shoulder some of that load, automating routine tasks so your team can focus on what matters most? Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is introducing just that—AI-powered billing agents designed to streamline processes like vendor invoice handling, sales orders, and more, all with flexible, usage-based billing through a “Pay as You Go” model.

Table of Contents

This blog will explore what billing agents in Business Central are, the benefits they bring, and how to configure the "Pay as You Go" billing option step by step. Whether you’re an accountant, IT admin, or business leader, this approachable guide will help you harness AI agents to boost efficiency while managing costs smartly.

For expert guidance tailored to Australian SMBs, visit WMS.

What Are Billing Agents in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central?

Think of billing agents as your virtual office assistants dedicated to financial tasks. Powered by AI and Microsoft Copilot Studio, these agents autonomously process incoming requests like vendor invoices or customer sales orders.

Key functionalities include:

Key functionalities include
  • Vendor invoice processing — reads incoming supplier invoices from a monitored email inbox, extracts key fields (supplier, amount, due date, line items) and creates a draft purchase invoice in Business Central
  • Sales order management — receives customer purchase orders via email or API, validates against product catalogue and pricing, creates draft sales orders for review
  • Approval routing — flags exceptions, mismatches or high-value transactions for human supervisor review before posting
  • Duplicate detection — identifies potential duplicate invoices from the same supplier before they are created
  • Status notifications — sends automated confirmations and status updates to vendors and customers without staff involvement
  • Reconciliation assistance — matches received goods receipts to purchase invoices and flags discrepancies automatically

These agents operate in the background, saving time and reducing human error while keeping your team informed when manual intervention is needed.

Why Use Billing Agents? The Business Benefits

Why Use Billing Agents_ The Business Benefits
  • Accelerate routine financial workflows: Free up accountant and AP team bandwidth by automating repetitive tasks.
  • Improve accuracy: Reduce data entry errors with AI extraction and validation.
  • Enhance responsiveness and customer service: Quickly turn customer emails into confirmed sales orders.
  • Maintain control: Supervisors retain oversight with alerts and review steps.
  • Scale flexibly: Pay only for what you use with consumption-based billing, aligning costs with business activity.

In other words, billing agents help businesses operate smarter without committing to fixed high-cost systems upfront.

Understanding the Billing Model: What Is “Pay as You Go”?

Microsoft uses a consumption-based billing model for these AI agents. You pay for the actual AI interactions used, measured in “messages,” which reflect the complexity and number of tasks processed.

Two billing models are supported:

Key functionalities include:

Purchase message packs in advance, suitable if you can predict usage.

Pay as You Go:

Charged monthly based on actual AI consumption, ideal for flexible or unpredictable volume.

Billing Model How It Works Best For
Prepaid Message Packs Purchase a bundle of AI messages in advance at a fixed rate Businesses with predictable, consistent agent usage
Pay As You Go (PAYG) Charged monthly based on actual message consumption Businesses with variable or growing agent usage
Hybrid Model Combine prepaid packs for baseline + PAYG for spikes Most Australian SMBs scaling into AI agent automation

“Pay as You Go” ensures you only pay for what your business actually uses — there’s no overcommitment or unused capacity.

How to Configure Pay as You Go Billing for Billing Agents

Step 1: Set up Azure Subscription and Link to Power Platform

Set up Azure Subscription and Link to Power Platform
  • If you’re a reseller, create an Azure subscription for your customer.
  • Link that Azure subscription to the customer’s Power Platform environment using the Power Platform admin center or Power Apps.
  • If you’re a customer, contact your reseller for assistance or work with your Azure admin to link properly.

This connection allows consumption billing data to flow correctly.

Step 2: Link Business Central Environment to Power Platform

Link Business Central Environment to Power Platform
  • Use the Business Central admin center, where an internal admin will link the Business Central environment to the Power Platform environment.
  • This allows Business Central to inherit billing and environment settings for agent usage.

Step 3: Enable Agents in Business Central

Enable Agents in Business Central
  • After linking, activate the specific agent capabilities you want, such as the Payables Agent (for invoice processing) or Sales Order Agent.
  • Assign permissions and designate agent supervisors who will intervene when the agent requires review.

Step 4: Monitor AI Usage and Charges

Monitor AI Usage and Charges
  • Use the Power Platform admin center and Azure billing to track message consumption and spending.
  • Adjust agent usage or notification thresholds to control costs.

What Does Pay-as-You-Go Business Central Billing Mean for Australian SMBs?

For Australian small and medium businesses, the Pay-as-You-Go AI billing model removes one of the biggest barriers to ERP automation adoption — the fear of committing to expensive fixed contracts before understanding actual usage.

Australian SMBs in retail, distribution and manufacturing are beginning to use Business Central’s billing agents to automate their highest-volume, lowest-value tasks — processing supplier invoices, handling customer order acknowledgements and managing approval workflows — without hiring additional finance staff.

Microsoft’s Azure infrastructure for the PAYG billing model is available through Australian data centres, meaning your consumption data and financial records remain within Australian borders — supporting your Australian Privacy Act obligations.

Should Australian Businesses Use Business Central Billing Agents or Continia for Accounts Payable Automation?

Factor BC Native Billing Agents Continia Document Capture
Setup complexity Moderate — requires Power Platform + Azure linking Simple — installs as AppSource extension
Invoice capture method Email inbox monitoring (AI) Email, scan, EDI, portal
Australian GST handling Automatic via BC Full GST/BAS + approval workflow
Cost model PAYG consumption-based Fixed monthly licence
Best for High volume, flexible AI automation Structured AP workflow + compliance
Maturity New/evolving — 2025+ feature Established — used by 1000s of AU businesses

Cost Control & Budgeting Best Practices

Saves Storage Costs
  • Vendor invoice processing — reads incoming supplier invoices from a monitored email inbox, extracts key fields (supplier, amount, due date, line items) and creates a draft purchase invoice in Business Central
  • Sales order management — receives customer purchase orders via email or API, validates against product catalogue and pricing, creates draft sales orders for review
  • Approval routing — flags exceptions, mismatches or high-value transactions for human supervisor review before posting
  • Duplicate detection — identifies potential duplicate invoices from the same supplier before they are created
  • Status notifications — sends automated confirmations and status updates to vendors and customers without staff involvement
  • Reconciliation assistance — matches received goods receipts to purchase invoices and flags discrepancies automatically

Setup / Configuration Steps

This connection allows consumption billing data to flow correctly” is a conclusion with no setup steps before it.

Step 1 — Link Business Central to Power Platform

  • Navigate to your Business Central Admin Centre
  • Under Environment settings, connect your BC environment to the Power Platform environment for your organisation
  • Ensure the same Microsoft Entra (Azure AD) tenant is used for both environments

Step 2 — Connect Azure Subscription for Billing

  • In the Azure Portal, create or identify the subscription that will be used for Copilot/AI consumption billing
  • Link this subscription to your Power Platform environment under Billing settings
  • Verify the connection — Business Central should now reflect the billing linkage in Admin settings

Step 3 — Activate the Billing Agent

  • Inside Business Central, navigate to the Billing Agent Setup page
  • Enable the agent type you want to activate (e.g. Payables Agent)
  • Configure the monitored email inbox — this is the mailbox the agent will watch for incoming invoices or orders

Step 4 — Assign Cost Owners and Set Budgets

  • Designate a Finance Manager or IT Lead as cost owner 
  • Set spending alerts in Azure Cost Management
  • Configure monthly budget caps to prevent unexpected overruns

Step 5 — Test Before Going Live

  • Run a test invoice through the monitored mailbox
  • Verify the agent correctly extracts data and creates a draft purchase invoice
  • Check the message consumption counter in Power Platform Admin Centre
  • Confirm approval routing triggers correctly for flagged exceptions

Real-World Example: How the Payables Agent Works

Imagine a vendor sends you an invoice via email. The Payables Agent monitors a mailbox linked to Business Central and:

  1. Detects a new email containing a vendor invoice attachment (PDF or structured data)
  2. Reads the invoice using AI — extracts supplier name, invoice number, date, line items, amounts and GST
  3. Searches Business Central for the matching vendor record and open purchase order
  4. Creates a draft purchase invoice in Business Central — pre-populated with extracted data
  5. Flags any mismatches (price variance, missing PO, unrecognised vendor) and routes to the designated supervisor for review
  6. Once approved by the supervisor, posts the invoice to the accounts payable ledger
  7. Records the entire interaction as AI message consumption for PAYG billing purposes

All these steps use AI messages, which tally up for billing purposes under the Pay as You Go model.

Tips for Successful Agent Billing Management

  • Assign clear roles for agent supervisors to efficiently handle alerts.
  • Review consumption reports regularly to avoid surprises.
  • Use message pack subscriptions if your usage is steady and predictable.
  • Combine prepaid capacity with Pay as You Go for cost optimization.
  • Stay updated on new agent capabilities as Microsoft continuously expands these AI tools.

Summary: Unlock Efficiency with AI Billing Agents and Flexible Billing

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central billing agents are game-changers, automating tedious financial tasks and helping businesses become more agile and responsive. The “Pay as You Go” billing model offers a transparent, cost-effective approach to adopt AI-driven automation without heavy upfront commitments.

Setting up consumption-based billing involves simple environment linking through Power Platform and Azure, giving you control over agent activation and spending.

Ready to empower your finance teams, reduce manual errors, and pay only for what you use? Start exploring billing agents and “Pay as You Go” billing in Business Central today—embracing the future of smart business management.

If you want more detailed technical guidance or demos, Microsoft’s official documentation and community videos provide step-by-step visuals to complement this introduction.

This is just the beginning—AI agents in Dynamics 365 Business Central are evolving fast, promising even greater productivity gains ahead. Take that step forward and let your business thrive on automation.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What are billing agents in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central?

Billing agents are AI-powered assistants that automate financial processes such as processing vendor invoices and managing sales orders, helping reduce manual work and improve accuracy.

It is a consumption-based billing model where you pay monthly based on actual AI agent usage, measured in message units, allowing flexible and cost-effective automation.

Configuration involves linking your Business Central environment to the Power Platform and Azure subscription, enabling agent activation and usage monitoring.

Tasks include reading and extracting data from vendor invoices, creating purchase invoices drafts, handling customer sales orders, and notifying supervisors for approval where needed.

Agents work mostly autonomously but include human-in-the-loop features for approvals, exceptions, and manual reviews to maintain accuracy and control.

Yes, including limits like one payables agent per company, dependency on mailbox and LLM availability, and restricted access rights to ensure security.

Usage can be tracked in the Power Platform admin center and Azure billing portal, enabling you to adjust usage and budgeting as needed.

Yes. Microsoft’s consumption-based billing for Business Central AI agents is available in Australia through Azure’s local data centres. Australian businesses can configure PAYG billing through their existing Microsoft 365 or Azure subscription, with billing in AUD through Microsoft’s local billing arrangements.

Business Central’s native billing agents are a newer, AI-driven approach to AP automation, while Continia is a mature, structured document capture solution purpose-built for Business Central. Many Australian businesses use both — Continia for structured AP workflows and compliance, and billing agents for emerging AI automation tasks. Work Made Simple WMS can advise on the right combination for your business.

Work Made Simple (WMS) is a certified Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central partner in Australia with expertise in AI automation, Copilot setup and PAYG billing configuration. We help Australian SMBs adopt Business Central’s AI capabilities at the right pace and scale.

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