Business Central New Feature Highlights
New features and highlights from Business Central 2026, Wave 2 [V29]
Overview
Business Central 2026 Wave 2 continues Microsoft's strategic focus on AI, automation, and connected business processes. This release expands the use of Copilot and AI agents, enhances ecommerce and integration capabilities, improves reporting and governance features, and introduces further investments in financial management, sustainability, supply chain operations, and platform performance. Collectively, these changes move Business Central towards a more intelligent, automated, and scalable business platform that helps organisations work more efficiently while maintaining greater control, visibility, and compliance.
New Feature Highlights
Copilots and Agents
Use the new Microsoft Copilot experience in Business Central to reason over business data, web results, and general knowledge in a modern chat experience aligned with the broader Microsoft Copilot ecosystem.
Improve purchase order matching in Payables Agent with line amounts and expected receipt dates. Align draft finalization with the Receipt on Invoice settings.
Run data queries with MCP Server
Use new MCP tools to define, validate, and run custom data queries. Your MCP application can then query data for which no existing APIs exist.
Development
Debug recorded Business Central failures with an AI agent
Describe a failing scenario to an AI agent, record the next matching Business Central session or a known session, and collect its snapshot for offline AL debugging.
Diagnose AL MCP server activity with file logging
Write AL MCP server diagnostics to a configurable file, select the appropriate detail level for troubleshooting, or turn file logging off when it isn't required.
Profile slow Business Central sessions with AI agents
Let an AI agent schedule profiling for a Business Central session, collect CPU and memory data, identify costly AL paths, and summarize SQL and HTTP activity.
Ecommerce
Set Use Shopify Order No. and Process Returns as on the Shopify Shop Card, then review contacts before you choose Create Sales Document.
Use Shopify's July 2026 API, activate secure access tokens, and use clearer synchronization diagnostics with Skipped Records and API Errors cues.
Map company tax identifiers, manage B2B catalogs, and control price synchronization for capabilities available with your Shopify plan.
Review suggested tax jurisdictions, confidence levels, and rate differences on the Tax Match Review page before you process sales document with sales tax.
Keep edited and exchanged Shopify orders aligned when you create sales documents and process refunds.
Turn on Sync HS Code and Country of Origin on the Shopify Shop Card page to include tariff numbers and countries or regions of origin into the product synchronization tasks.
Expense Agent
Configure mileage rates by effective date range and vehicle type to ensure accurate calculations that reflect changing policies and transportation methods.
Enable interim approvers for expense reports, allowing submissions to be routed through a temporary reviewer before final approval.
Automatically calculate employee withholding taxes within expense reports to improve compliance, reduce manual effort, and ensure accurate reimbursement process.
Review submitted expense reports with AI-based policy validation that flags suspicious or noncompliant items across lines and reports.
Improve expense accuracy with enhanced duplicate detection and prevention even with already posted documents, helping to reduce duplicate reimbursements.
Plan and approve travel in advance using travel requisitions with support for multiple travellers and integrated approval workflows.
Financial Management
Support multiple excise duties on a single item, enabling businesses to calculate and manage complex excise tax requirements with greater accuracy.
You can calculate withholding tax for vendors in the standard version of Business Central.
Introduce accelerated depreciation for fixed assets, enabling compliant calculations and reporting.
Configure vendor-specific number series for self-billing purchase invoices to meet supplier requirements and improve invoice traceability and compliance.
Enable withholding tax processing for employee-related transactions, ensuring accurate tax calculation, posting, and compliance across employee payments.
Governance and administration
Administrators can turn SIFT indexes on/off
Administrators can now turn SIFT indexes on/off directly in the Business Central application.
Monitor usage of Open in Excel with telemetry
Logging Open in Excel actions to telemetry makes data export events auditable, which can be critical for compliance, security investigations, and understanding how customers use Business Central.
Reporting and data analysis
Automate report outputs
Use the new APIs on the report inbox to extend automation with Power Automate or MCP to reports.
Bookmark list views and analysis tabs
Bookmark analysis tabs and list views to your role centre and/or incorporate them into profiles.
Brand document reports with report themes
With the new composable layouts feature, you can apply a report theme on layouts to get consistent look and feel on the PDF output. It is possible to set defaults on a global level, per company, per report, or per layout, giving the administrator full flexibility of theming.
Control the lifecycle of all report layouts
Set status on all types of layouts to control which layouts are available to end users.
Design document reports and layouts with the updated Word add-in
Create professional document reports using the enhanced Word add-in, including new design components, report themes, and header/footer layout controls to help you build and customise document layouts more efficiently.
Financial report changes are now always logged
Changes to financial row, column, and report definitions are automatically recorded in the change log for easier auditing.
Reduce complexity of report datasets
Word layouts now include a company information dataitem that is shared across all report datasets. This reduces the work needed for a report developer and standardizes how company information is used across report layouts.
Reuse header/footer layouts across document reports
With the new composable layouts feature, you can apply a header/footer on layouts to get consistent look and feel on the PDF output. It is possible to set defaults on a global level, per company, per report, or per layout, giving the administrator full flexibility of theming.
Run multiple financial reports and get a single PDF output
Define report packs that contain multiple financial reports, and then run them immediately or schedule delivery to report inboxes or by email.
Trace G/L account usage in finance reports
Financial report authors can now identify uncategorized accounts, trace account usage and calculations, and preview definitions before publishing.
Use conditional visibility in the updated Word add-in
Design document reports layouts with conditional visibility using the new HideIf logic control in the Word add-in.
Use system audit fields in analysis mode and in profiles
Use system audit fields in analysis tabs and add them directly to pages in profiles.
Supply chain management
Give subcontractors the right operation instructions by carrying routing comments and attachments into purchase orders.
Use direct transfer orders for source locations that require inventory picks or warehouse shipments.
Finishing an inspection fills in passed and failed quantities. Actionable posting errors let you jump to blocking inspection. Editing an inspection prompts you to assign it to yourself.
Configure subcontracting with assisted setup and notifications that open missing vendor or location setup. Contoso demo data helps evaluate different subcontracting scenarios.
Basic warehouse configurations now support subcontracting, so employees can process this work alongside their regular inbound and outbound activities.
Create released orders from Planning Worksheet, monitor and update capacity calendars, and open production BOMs and routings from actionable errors.
Sustainability Management
Show an estimated carbon footprint on service invoices and related documents by using sustainability data from items and resources in Service Management.
Reverse sustainability ledger entries posted from sustainability or general journals, directly from the Sustainability Ledger Entries page.
Enable carbon footprint tracking for fixed assets by adding sustainability accounts and CO₂e values to fixed asset transactions.
Track your carbon footprint in item journals and reclassification journals by adding CO₂e per unit and total emissions, with full value chain traceability.
Calculate CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O in purchase documents using formula-based inputs and emission factors that mirror sustainability journal logic.
Enable precise carbon footprint calculation using a new Specific tracking method for items that you track with serial or lot numbers.
User experiences
Agent actions review notifications on lists
Show and manage documents where agents require human interaction by using a new review bar on documents and lists.
Manage agent permissions easier
Assign additional permissions to agents when they request them.
Preview an image without having to leave the Business Central app.
Show recently searched in Tell Me
Find pages and reports faster by accessing recent searches in Tell Me (Alt+Q).
Accelerate data entry by using smart lookup suggestions that display your most recently accessed records for quick selection.
Updates to Agent UI experience
Manage agents more easily by grouping avatars and using a dedicated action to start new tasks.
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