The monthly close is one of the most time-consuming processes for finance teams. Reconciling accounts, posting accruals, explaining variances and rolling up forecasts often takes days, leaving little time for analysis and decision-making. For growing businesses, this delay can mean missed opportunities and slower responses to market changes.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, combined with Copilot and Power Automate, is transforming the way finance teams work. By automating repetitive tasks and providing AI-driven insights, businesses can close faster and forecast smarter. This blog explores practical tactics for automating accruals, bank reconciliation, variance narratives and forecast roll-ups using Business Central’s latest capabilities.
Why automation matters for the monthly close
Manual close processes are not only slow but also prone to errors. According to Gartner, finance teams spend up to 60% of their time on transactional activities during the close cycle. Automation reduces this burden, improves accuracy and frees up time for strategic work like forecasting and scenario planning.
Microsoft’s vision for “modern finance” centres on three pillars: automation, AI and integration. Business Central delivers all three, enabling finance teams to move from reactive reporting to proactive insights.
Automating accruals with Business Central
Accruals are essential for accurate financial statements, but calculating and posting them manually is tedious. Business Central allows you to set up recurring journals and allocation keys to automate accrual postings. For example, monthly expenses like insurance or subscriptions can be spread automatically across periods without manual intervention.
With Copilot, this process becomes even smarter. Copilot can suggest accrual amounts based on historical patterns and current commitments, reducing guesswork and improving accuracy. Finance teams can review and approve suggestions rather than starting from scratch.
Streamlining bank reconciliation
Bank reconciliation is another time-consuming task that often delays the close. Business Central automates much of this process by importing bank statements and matching transactions to ledger entries. Rules can be configured to handle common scenarios, such as matching payments to invoices or fees to expense accounts.
Copilot enhances this by identifying anomalies and suggesting matches for transactions that don’t fit standard rules. This reduces manual review and speeds up reconciliation, helping teams close days earlier.
Generating variance narratives with AI
Explaining variances between actuals and budget is critical for stakeholders, but writing narratives manually takes hours. Copilot in Business Central can generate draft variance explanations based on transaction data, budget assumptions and historical trends. For example, if marketing spend is higher than planned, Copilot can highlight campaign activity and timing as potential drivers.
Finance teams can edit and refine these narratives, turning what used to be a manual reporting task into a quick review process. This not only saves time but also improves the quality of insights shared with leadership.
Automating forecast roll-ups with Power Automate and Power BI
Forecasting often involves consolidating data from multiple sources and entities, which can be error-prone and slow. Business Central integrates seamlessly with Power Automate to trigger workflows that collect forecast inputs from different teams and update them in real time. Combined with Power BI, this creates dynamic dashboards for ARR, MRR or cash flow projections.
Copilot adds another layer by analysing historical data and suggesting adjustments to forecasts based on trends or seasonality. This helps finance leaders make informed decisions faster and with greater confidence.
Practical steps to implement monthly close automation
To get started with automation in Business Central, follow these steps:
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Identify repetitive tasks: Focus on accruals, reconciliations and variance reporting as quick wins for automation.
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Enable Copilot features: Activate AI-driven suggestions for journals, reconciliations and narratives to reduce manual effort.
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Build workflows in Power Automate: Automate data collection and approvals for forecasts and close tasks.
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Integrate with Power BI: Create dashboards for real-time visibility into close progress and forecast accuracy.
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Train your team: Ensure finance staff understand how to use automation tools effectively and review AI suggestions.
The payoff: speed, accuracy and insight
By combining Business Central, Copilot and Power Automate, finance teams can achieve:
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Faster close cycles: Reduce days of manual work to hours with automated accruals and reconciliations.
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Improved accuracy: AI-driven suggestions and automated workflows minimise errors.
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Better insights: Variance narratives and dynamic forecasts enable proactive decision-making.
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More time for strategy: Free up resources to focus on growth and performance, not just compliance.
As Microsoft states, “Copilot brings the power of generative AI to business processes, helping organisations work smarter and faster.” For finance teams, this means turning the monthly close from a bottleneck into a strategic advantage
Ready to close faster and forecast smarter?
If your monthly close still relies on manual processes, now is the time to explore automation with Business Central and Copilot. Start with accruals and reconciliations, then expand to variance narratives and forecast roll-ups for a truly modern finance function.