An international manufacturer already invested in Business Central
The client is an international chemical manufacturer running Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central as its ERP backbone. The deployment was working — this was not a rescue engagement or a failing system. Operations, finance, purchasing, and inventory all ran on the platform.
What made the situation worth addressing was a gap between data captured and insight available. A manufacturer at international scale generates substantial transactional detail across sales, procurement, and inventory movement. The organization sensed that detail held answers it wasn’t surfacing, and that standard reporting was leaving value on the table.
A working ERP that wasn’t yielding the reporting it could
The manufacturer was successfully using Dynamics 365 Business Central but felt they could get more out of their reporting. The data was there; the ability to see patterns in it quickly, in a form a finance leader could scan and trust, was not.
For a business of this scale, that gap has real cost. Questions about sales performance, purchasing trends, and inventory position either go unanswered or get answered slowly through manual effort — pulling extracts, building one-off analyses, and reconciling numbers before anyone can act on them. The organization wanted insight from sales and finance data first, then purchasing and inventory, and eventually accounts receivable and accounts payable.
- Underused ERP data: Business Central was capturing the detail, but standard reporting wasn’t translating it into usable business intelligence.
- Manual reporting effort: Getting to a clear view of performance meant building analyses rather than opening a dashboard.
- Fragmented functional coverage: Sales, finance, purchasing, and inventory each needed visibility, with AR and AP still unaddressed.
- Slow path to confidence: Without a quick way to sanity-check numbers against expectations, decisions waited on validation.
Why Velosio Insights, and why Velosio
The manufacturer learned they could further unlock the potential of their Business Central data with Velosio Insights for Business Central. Because Velosio was already the manufacturer’s Business Central partner, adding Insights to the existing system was an easy transition — no new vendor relationship, no re-discovery of the environment.
Pre-built, not custom-built
Velosio Insights ships with multi-dimensional data models and Power BI reports already built, eliminating the need for manual reporting or complex setups.
Native to the existing investment
Insights works directly against Business Central data, extending the ERP the manufacturer had already committed to rather than displacing or duplicating it.
An incumbent partner
Velosio already supported the manufacturer’s Business Central deployment, which made adding Insights a straightforward extension of an established relationship.
Phased functional rollout
The approach allowed the manufacturer to start with sales and finance, extend to purchasing and inventory, and sequence AR and AP for later.
A connected reporting layer for Business Central
Velosio Insights includes pre-built multi-dimensional data models and Power BI reports that transform raw Business Central data into clear, interactive visuals for monitoring business performance. Velosio implemented the reporting in phases aligned to where the manufacturer wanted visibility first.
| Workstream | What changed | Business value |
|---|---|---|
| Sales & finance reporting | 13 Power BI reports deployed against Business Central sales and finance data. | Quick, scannable insight into commercial and financial performance |
| Purchasing & inventory reporting | More than 20 reports covering procurement activity and inventory position. | Visibility into supply-side activity alongside sales performance |
| Multi-dimensional data models | Pre-built models structure raw Business Central data for analysis without custom development. | Faster time to value; no complex setup required |
| Interactive Power BI delivery | Reports delivered as interactive visuals rather than static extracts. | Users explore performance directly instead of requesting analysis |
“The sales reports are valuable and provide good insights. The data is represented in a way that I can get some quick insights into it. The numbers generally look in line with my expectations.”Finance and IT Manager, international chemical manufacturer
From raw ERP data to visuals the team acts on
The team is happy with the insight they now get from their data. The value shows up in how quickly a finance leader can look at a report and know whether the business is tracking where it should be — and in the fact that the numbers hold up against expectation, which is what makes a reporting layer trustworthy enough to build decisions on.
Clear, actionable insight
Raw Business Central data becomes easy-to-understand visuals, so the team can quickly see what’s working and what needs attention.
Time and effort saved
Pre-built Power BI reports are ready to use, eliminating the need for manual reporting or complex setups.
Smarter decisions
With real-time, accurate insight available on demand, the team can make data-driven decisions with confidence.
Numbers that hold up
Reported figures track in line with the finance team’s expectations — the credibility test that makes a reporting layer usable.
| Metric | Before | After | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sales & finance reporting | Standard Business Central reporting | 13 interactive Power BI reports | Validated |
| Purchasing & inventory reporting | Limited dedicated visibility | 20+ interactive Power BI reports | Validated |
| Report build effort | Manual reporting and custom setup | Pre-built models and reports, ready to use | Qualitative |
| Time to insight | Analysis assembled on request | Quick insight direct from the visual | Qualitative |
Why Velosio Insights for Business Central matters
Most manufacturers running Business Central are sitting on more analytical value than they extract from it. The constraint usually isn’t data quality or platform capability — it’s the effort required to model that data and build reporting that people will actually open. That work is expensive enough to defer indefinitely, which is how a well-run ERP ends up underdelivering on intelligence.
Velosio Insights removes that barrier by shipping the modeling and the reports pre-built. The strategic value is not any single dashboard; it’s that the organization now has a reporting foundation it can extend cheaply. Once the models are in place and users trust the numbers, adding the next report becomes a small ask rather than a project — which is exactly why this manufacturer moved so quickly from consuming reports to specifying new ones.
A foundation built for deeper operational and financial intelligence
Now that they have their feet wet with Insights, the manufacturer is looking to tweak existing reports and add more. On the commercial side, they want a visual of orders received by product line by month, and a run-rate view of book-and-ship within the month to help anticipate what to expect — potentially with seasonality or trend built in. Product costing over time is another priority: whether material spend is rising month over month or year over year, tied back to margin by product line.
In finance, the interest has shifted from what the numbers are to what drives them. The team already has reports on AR and AP balances; what they want next is visibility into which customers and vendors make up those balances, whether they’re trending up or down, and how much they change month to month — the same question applied to inventory. Warehousing is a third area, with interest in a dashboard showing shipments expected to go out and receipts expected to come in within the week, plus on-time delivery measurement against both committed and customer-requested dates. Purchasing rounds it out, with visibility into where price increases are landing on inventory materials and where savings are being found by item and product line.
“For the finance information, I have reports on what the numbers are already, but what I need to know is what are the key drivers behind the increase in AR or AP.”Finance and IT Manager, international chemical manufacturer
