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The Modern CFO’s Guide to Business Central

9 Nov, 2026

Being a CFO used to sound reasonably straightforward: keep an eye on the numbers, make sure everything adds up and try not to wince too much when someone asks for next year’s budget.

Okay, maybe it was never quite that simple.

But the role has definitely changed. Today’s CFO needs to know more than what happened last month. They’re being asked what’s happening right now, what could happen next and what the business should do about it.

That’s difficult when answering a simple question means opening three spreadsheets, waiting for someone to send over a report and working out which version of the numbers is the actual version.

This is where Dynamics 365 Business Central becomes much more than an accounting system.

 

The numbers are only useful if you can see the bigger picture

Most businesses aren’t short of data. The problem tends to be finding it, joining it together and turning it into something useful.

Business Central brings areas including finance, sales, projects and supply chain management together, while providing reporting, dashboards and KPIs. It also connects with familiar Microsoft tools including Excel and Power BI.

For a CFO, that wider view is important. A number on a finance report can tell you what happened, but being able to see what’s happening elsewhere in the business can give you a much better idea of why.

And that’s when finance becomes much more interesting.

Business Central data is going further

This is an area that’s changing pretty quickly.

Business Central is introducing data mirroring with Microsoft Fabric, Microsoft’s data and analytics platform. This creates new opportunities to bring Business Central information into a broader analytics environment and use it alongside tools such as Power BI.

For the CFO, the technical workings probably aren’t the interesting bit.

What you can do with the information is.

A more connected data landscape creates opportunities to understand performance across the organisation rather than looking at finance in isolation. It means the conversation can move away from“Where do I find that number?” and towards“What is that number actually telling us?”

And honestly, that’s a much better use of everyone’s time.

Less time building reports, more time understanding them

There’s nothing particularly strategic about spending half the morning copying figures between spreadsheets.

The interesting bit comes afterwards: spotting patterns, asking questions and deciding what to do next.

And that’s where the latest Business Central developments get particularly interesting.

Alongside Copilot, Business Central 29.0 is expanding its MCP Server capabilities with data queries, opening up more Business Central data to AI agents for scenarios such as reporting and analysis.

In less technical terms, we’re getting closer to being able to have a genuinely useful conversation with business data rather than manually piecing together the answer first.

Does that mean we leave AI in charge of the finances and pop off down the pub?

Probably best not.

Human judgement still matters. But if the technology can take away some of the legwork involved in getting to the information, finance teams can spend more time deciding what that information actually means.

Stop looking only in the rear-view mirror

Finance has always been very good at telling us what happened. Revenue did this. Costs did that. Margin went up. Cash went down.

Useful, obviously.

But the modern CFO also needs to ask: what happens next?

Business Central includes cash-flow forecasting alongside reporting and analysis capabilities, including connections with Power BI and Excel. Microsoft also positions the platform around making data-driven decisions using real-time dashboards and business intelligence.

So instead of simply saying, “Here are last month’s numbers,” finance can increasingly contribute something much more valuable:

“Here’s what we’re seeing, here’s where there could be a problem and here’s what we should do about it.”

That’s a very different role for finance.

AI doesn't make the CFO less important

If anything, I’d argue it makes good financial judgement more important.

Microsoft continues to introduce Copilot and agent capabilities into Business Central. Its documentation describes Copilot as working collaboratively with users, while agents can independently handle particular tasks with human oversight and review.

The opportunity isn’t to remove the finance team from the equation. It’s to question which parts of their day genuinely need their attention.

If technology can help with some of the searching, compiling and repetitive work, your people have more time for the things they’re actually there to do: question, interpret, advise and make good decisions.

 

So, does every CFO need Business Central?

No.

And I think that’s important to say.

Business Central isn’t automatically the right answer because your finance system is getting a bit creaky or because somebody mentioned AI in a board meeting.

The better question is whether your current setup gives you the visibility, information and flexibility you need to help steer the business.

Can you find useful information quickly? Can your team spend more time analysing than compiling? Can you see what’s happening beyond the finance department? And can you turn all that information into decisions without spending half your life trying to find it first?

If the answer is “well… sort of”, perhaps that’s the place to start.

Finance should help decide what happens next

Accurate accounts will always matter. But for the modern CFO, they’re the starting point rather than the finish line.

The real opportunity is being part of the bigger conversations around investment, efficiency, risk and growth.

And that’s ultimately where Business Central, Fabric, Copilot and emerging AI capabilities start to become genuinely useful. Not because they give finance teams more data, but because they create new ways to turn the data a business already has into something useful.

Because the modern CFO shouldn’t just be able to tell you where the business has been.

They should help decide where it goes next.

 

Where does String come in?

If your finance system is starting to feel like something you’re working around rather than something that’s working for you, let’s have a chat.

Whether that’s Business Central, making better use of your data, exploring what AI could genuinely do for your finance team or untangling processes that have become unnecessarily complicated, we’ll help you work out what actually makes sense.

No shiny technology for shiny technology’s sake.

 

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