Do you want to see real performance improvements on your Business Central system without hiring a hundred new IT professionals?
Business Central has long been a trusted ERP solution for small and medium-sized businesses. However, — and here’s the rub — traditional ERP systems are notoriously tedious and mired in manual processes, data entry and recurring tasks that suck all the life out of your team’s productivity.
Enter the age of business intelligence (BI) and intelligence bots.
These days, with intelligent Copilot tools built right into Business Central, you can automate monotonous tasks, gain instant insights and make faster, smarter decisions than ever before.
Let’s look at what’s possible.
The contents of this article:
- What Is The Business Central Copilot?
- Why Business Central Performance Matters
- Intelligent Copilot Features For Breaking ERP Bottlenecks
- Real Business Results From AI-Powered Automation
What Is The Business Central Copilot?
Microsoft Business Central Copilot is an artificial intelligence (AI) assistant built directly into Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.
Picture your dream ERP employee — one that never sleeps, never takes sick days or vacation, and can process petabytes of data in nanoseconds. That is Business Central Copilot.
Business Central Copilot uses advanced AI and machine learning to automate routine tasks, analyze data patterns and provide actionable insights that empower your business to run more efficiently than ever before. Instead of hours spent digging through reports or manually entering data, Copilot does the heavy lifting, while your people do the heavy lifting.
One small thing…
According to a Microsoft survey, 9 out of 10 employees in small and medium-sized businesses want to use AI tools and reduce monotonous workloads. Copilot lets them do just that.
Why Business Central Performance Actually Matters
If you are like us, you’ll be eager to hear that there are performance-boosting techniques for your ERP system.
The reality is that slow ERP systems cost you money.
Think about every wasted minute where your team members are waiting for reports to load or manually keying data. That’s money down the drain, literally.
Data supports this. Studies have found that workers using generative AI tools can improve performance by 40% versus those without them. Let’s call that a stunning improvement!
In fact, performance isn’t only about speed.
It’s about accuracy, decision-making, and competitiveness.
When your Business Central platform runs faster, you can make better decisions, react to market changes more quickly and spot opportunities sooner.
Sluggish ERP performance causes bottlenecks that ripple throughout your entire organization. Finance teams twiddle their thumbs waiting on data reconciliation. Sales teams are stuck without real-time inventory information. Management makes decisions based on stale reports.
Sound familiar?
Intelligent Copilot Features For Breaking ERP Bottlenecks
Okay, let’s see what Copilot can really do.
Automated data summarization
Copilot can summarize complex records instantly.
Instead of clicking through multiple screens to understand a customer account or sales order, Copilot will comb through all of the data and provide you with the key information in a matter of seconds. The AI assistant will search related data, FactBoxes and statistics pages automatically.
You’ll spend less time digging around, and more time acting on the information you discover.
Smart sales line suggestions
Creating sales orders was once a tedious task, manually looking up customer history, previous orders and line items.
Not anymore.
Copilot will make sales line item suggestions to your team based on historic purchasing patterns. The AI assistant will learn what a given customer typically buys and recommend relevant products, quantities and configurations. This feature speeds up order entry and empowers your sales team to upsell smarter.
Intelligent bank reconciliation
Finance teams, rejoice.
Bank reconciliation is one of those necessary, yet time-consuming, tasks that accountants hate. Copilot changes the game by using AI-powered transaction matching to automatically reconcile bank statements with ledger entries.
Copilot will even suggest general ledger accounts for unmatched transactions and remember your preferences. What used to take hours now takes minutes.
Natural language queries
Ever wanted to search Business Central? Now you can.
Copilot understands natural language, so you can type queries such as “Show me last month’s top customers” without having to learn complex query syntax. This feature makes Business Central accessible to everyone on your team, not just the power users.
Predictive analytics for better planning
Copilot is not content to just show you what has happened. It also predicts the future.
The platform will use Azure AI to forecast cash flow, anticipate payment behaviors and estimate future sales and inventory requirements. These predictions will only get better over time, as the system learns from your actual business patterns.
The Real Performance Impact
Okay, all this sounds great in theory, but what kind of impact are we talking about in the real world?
Faster task completion
Companies have reported that routine ERP tasks that used to take 30-60 minutes can now be completed in under 10 minutes with Copilot assistance. This time savings compounds across your entire organization.
Fewer errors
AI-powered matching and suggestions significantly reduce data entry errors and reconciliation mistakes. This means less time spent fixing problems and more confidence in your data.
Better resource allocation
If Copilot is doing the rote tasks, your skilled employees can be doing the strategic work that actually grows your business.
AI adoption trends back this up.
Research indicates that AI-driven automation could boost productivity by 40% by 2035, and early adopters are already seeing these gains.
Here’s an interesting data point…
The AI in ERP market is set to explode, growing at a CAGR of 26.30% and reaching $46.5 billion by 2033. That gargantuan growth is not fluff, it’s companies voting with their wallets because this technology works.
How To Get Started Without Losing Your Mind
So you want to implement Copilot, but you are worried about the complexity?
Don’t be. Microsoft has made the integration of Copilot shockingly simple for Business Central users. Most features are enabled automatically or require minimal configuration changes.
The approach is simple.
Start with one feature that will solve your biggest pain point. If bank reconciliation is excruciatingly slow, start there. If sales order creation is glacial, try the sales line suggestions first.
Train your people gradually. Copilot is intuitive, but people need time to change their workflows. Create quick reference guides and encourage experimentation.
Measure the impact. Track how long specific tasks take before and after you implement Copilot features. These metrics demonstrate ROI and will help you pinpoint which capabilities are most valuable.
Remember that Copilot will learn and improve over time. The predictions will get more accurate, the suggestions more relevant and the automation more refined.
Wrapping Up
Business Central Copilot represents a fundamental shift in ERP.
Instead of passively storing your data, Copilot actively analyzes, predicts and automates. This transformation delivers tangible performance improvements across your organization.
The businesses that will win in 2025 aren’t the ones with the fattest budgets, they are the ones that use intelligent tools to work smarter, make decisions faster, and cut out the unnecessary friction.
If you are running Business Central and not leveraging any of Copilot’s capabilities, you are leaving serious performance gains on the table. The technology is mature, proven and ready to deliver results right now.
Pick one feature. Measure the impact. Rinse and repeat.
