Where to start with Business Central reporting

Business Central’s built-in reports are fine for day-to-day tasks. When you need something more - consolidated views across companies, faster month-end, or reporting leadership can trust - there are three routes worth understanding.

Start with a free Data Assessment

Signs you need more

When BC reporting is holding you back

Most businesses reach a point where Business Central’s native reports stop being enough. The triggers are usually recognisable before they become painful.

Month-end reporting takes more than two days

Finance and operations produce reports that do not agree

Leadership are asking for data that BC cannot easily provide

You have more than one BC company and need consolidated reporting

Your Power BI reports are slow or timing out

You want to use Copilot but are not sure if your data is ready

The options

Three routes from Business Central to better reporting

Power BI on Business Central

Best for most mid-market businesses

Microsoft's native connector pulls data from Business Central directly into Power BI. Fast to get started, familiar for anyone already in the Microsoft ecosystem. The limitation is that it queries BC live, which can be slow at scale and makes multi-company consolidation difficult.

Power BI for Business Central

Jet Reports or Cosmos

Best for Excel-first finance teams

Jet and Cosmos both write BC data into Excel using live connections. Finance teams who live in Excel often prefer this route because it keeps the familiar format while pulling from a single governed source. Hopton is a strategic partner for both Jet and Cosmos.

Our Jet and Cosmos partner pages

Microsoft Fabric with a data warehouse

Best for complex or high-volume environments

Fabric's BC connector mirrors your Business Central data into OneLake in near real-time. This gives you a full analytical copy of your data that Power BI can query without touching BC at all - faster, more scalable, and ready for multi-company and AI use cases.

Microsoft Fabric implementation

How to choose

The right route depends on your situation

For most businesses under 500 people on a single BC company, Power BI with the native connector is the right starting point. It is the simplest path to governed reporting and self-service, and it sets up the semantic model you will need for Copilot later.

If your finance team lives in Excel and you need to stay there, Jet or Cosmos will serve you better than forcing a Power BI adoption your team will not use. Both are mature, well-supported tools and Hopton works with both.

If you have more than one company, high transaction volumes, or you are planning to use Fabric AI or Copilot across your BC data, the Fabric mirroring route is worth understanding now - even if you do not need it today.

A Data Assessment will tell you which route fits your situation and what it would take to get there.

Go deeper

Not sure which route is right for you?

A 60-minute call with a senior consultant. We will review your current BC setup and tell you clearly which approach fits your business and what it would involve.