BC/NAV Microsoft Platform General Session: Harnessing the Power of BC/NAV in the AI Era

Attendees arrived bright and early with coffees in hand for a well-rounded BC/NAV General Session. They were greeted by Christopher Warren, Director, Information Technology, ivWatch, LLC; Meenakshi Singh, BC Sr. Solutions Architect, Western Computer, and host/moderator Michael Konstas, President and Chief Finance Officer, DCI. Warren is the outgoing chair of the Business Central Board of Advisors, and, as part of the introduction, he thanked incoming chair Singh.

In the ensuing General Session, BC/NAV was approached from several angles, all with the aim of ensuring that businesses understand how it can be utilized successfully to improve business processes and outcomes.

Business Central Updates

Kennie Pontoppidan, Principal Program Manager, Microsoft, gave an overview of 2026 BC/NAV updates, including demos. Business Central has over 55,000 customers, and Pontoppidan encouraged users to check out Microsoft’s YouTube Channel.

• Microsoft Fabric integration: A new mirroring capability, currently in public preview, allows Business Central data to flow directly into Microsoft Fabric without custom data pipelines, supporting cross-company analytics and Power BI reporting.
  
• Enhanced financial reporting: Users can schedule multiple financial reports, combine them into a single PDF, and distribute them by email. New APIs also support further automation.
  
• Expanded manufacturing capabilities: Improvements include enhanced error validation, quality management functionality, and subcontracting features.
  
• New IT and security capabilities: Expanded APIs for permissions and approvals help IT departments conduct audits and manage security more efficiently.
  
• Master data management: New functionality enables organizations to manage and synchronize master data across Business Central environments, not just between companies.
  
• Reimagined document reporting: New composite layouts allow organizations to apply shared themes, headers, and footers across reports without redesigning each document individually.

Pontoppidan demonstrated the last capability with a Nashville-inspired theme featuring Dolly Parton. A designer (“Jolene”) created a Word-based theme that could be applied across Business Central documents, illustrating how companies can change the appearance of invoices and reports without modifying their underlying structure.

Upgrade, Don’t Change

A Fireside Chat moderated by Michael Konstas spotlighted what happened when expanding oil, gas, and petrochemical company John H. Carter sought to shift from Business Central to something that could handle his company’s new demands.

Cliff McDaniel, Director of Operations at John H. Carter, discussed how Greg Kaupp, Partner at ArcherPoint by Cherry Bekaert, helped the company navigate the decision and subsequent upgrade. Kaupp told the audience, “We want to see everyone in this room get upgraded.”

The upgrade was not without difficulties, but the results were encouraging: Approximately 70% of users said they preferred the new system.

Kaupp also introduced Field Notes for Business Central, a free tool designed to simplify feedback and support requests. He encouraged other organizations to modernize their environments rather than remain on outdated versions.

Agent Updates

Aleksandar Totovic, Principal Product Manager, Microsoft, demonstrated how AI agents are changing how organizations interact with Business Central.

Among the capabilities he highlighted were:

• Sales Order Agent: Processes incoming customer orders from emails, checks inventory, prepares order information, and involves employees when decisions or exceptions require human attention.
  
• Payables Agent: Uses AI to extract information from incoming vendor invoices, recognize historical patterns, and prepare invoices for processing while keeping finance professionals in control of exceptions.
  
• Expense Agent: Automates expense-report creation by extracting information from receipts, categorizing expenses, identifying payment methods, and checking expenses against company policies.
  
• Expanded Copilot capabilities: Help users summarize customer and vendor information, locate relevant functions through natural-language searches, and obtain insights from Business Central and external information sources.
  
• Model Context Protocol (MCP) integration: Allows AI agents and external applications to interact with Business Central capabilities while respecting its existing business logic, permissions, and governance.
  

Totovic shared findings from McKinsey’s August 2026 State of AI report, revealing a substantial gap between AI adoption and financial returns. Nine in 10 organizations use AI in at least one business function, while 44% are scaling AI across the enterprise. Yet only 6% report that AI has contributed at least 5% to earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) and describe its impact as significant.

Final Thoughts

In a final customer discussion, Mark Hamblin of Insight Works highlighted how a Business Central modernization project helped an electronics distributor move away from outdated processes. The customer, Tim Freeman, Director of Operational Analytics, Dow Technologies, described replacing paper-based warehouse picking with a warehouse management system, helping increase order accuracy to 99.8%.

The session underscored that Business Central’s relevance in the AI era depends not only on Microsoft’s expanding capabilities, but also on organizations’ willingness to modernize their systems and rethink how they operate. Rather than making ERP obsolete, AI is creating new opportunities to build on its foundation.