Until now, there hasn’t been a straightforward way to report across Dynamics 365 data (CRM, Sales, Service, Field Service, Marketing, and Project Operations) and Business Central ERP data in a single, unified model. The challenge most organizations face is that sales and service data reside in Dynamics 365 Dataverse while finance and operations run in Business Central’s Azure cloud database. Each team can report within its system, but answering cross-functional questions, such as “Which opportunities became profitable revenue?” becomes problematic. Often, to achieve front-to-back office visibility, organizations are forced to export data from one or both systems manually, reconcile it in spreadsheets, perform custom SQL queries, or build one-off Power BI models. This often leads to conflicting versions of metrics across platforms and breaks when systems are updated. In some better cases, IT teams will use ETL tools to pull CRM data into a SQL database that can then be pulled together with Business Central data in a variety of ways, including data warehouses, data models, or other third-party or home-grown data organization tools. The downsides of this aren’t insignificant, including data latency, maintenance burdens, schema changes, complexity, andpotential data quality issues. Until now. Cosmos’s new Microsoft Dataverse reporting capability changes all of this. By connecting directly to Microsoft Dataverse and Business Central, Cosmos loads both into a unified, governed data model. Once the CRM and ERP entities are properly mapped, this provides leaders with a single source of truth for reporting, spanning from opportunity to cash, service to margin, and project to profitability, indefinitely. However, before we delve into the exciting new frontiers of Dynamics cloud reporting and business intelligence, let’s take a step back and explore what the Microsoft Dataverse is and why it matters in performance reporting and analytics across the Microsoft stack if you use Microsoft Dynamics Business Central. Also read: Business Central with Power BI: Why Reporting Integration Matters (and How to Do It) What is the Microsoft Dataverse (and Why Does It Matter for BC and CRM Reporting)? Microsoft Dataverse is the cloud data platform that powers many Dynamics 365 and Power Platform applications. It securely stores business data in standardized tables (such as accounts, contacts, opportunities, and cases) and provides those apps with a consistent, normalized, and optimized data model to work from. In practice, that means: Dynamics 365 Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, Marketing, Project Operations, and Power Platform apps all write to Dataverse. The data is already normalized and structured. You don’t have to manage a separate database for each app, and you can report across all of them seamlessly and natively without complex setup or tools. Where Dataverse stops is at the edge of ERP. Business Central doesn’t store its data in Dataverse. It has its own database, tables, and logic for financials, sales, inventory, projects, and operations. That’s perfect for transactions. It’s not ideal when you want Dynamics 365 Microsoft Dataverse reporting that also includes Business Central metrics. How Does Cosmos’ Dataverse CRM Reporting Work with Business Central Now? Cosmos’ Microsoft Dataverse reporting integration works through three core steps that eliminate the need for custom or manual data engineering: Direct Dataverse Connection: Cosmos connects to Microsoft Dataverse once, not to each individual Dynamics 365 app. Because Dataverse already unifies Sales, Service, Field Service, Marketing, and Project Operations data in standardized tables, you avoid managing separate exports or APIs for each application. Unified Cloud Data Platform: Both Dataverse entities (opportunities, accounts, cases, work orders) and Business Central entities (customers, GL entries, items, jobs, service orders) load into Cosmos’s Azure-based reporting model. Unlike disorganized transactional databases, this data model is structured for easy analytical queries across millions of records, so dashboards and reports are intuitive and fast to build. Pre-Built Data Model and Governance: Instead of spending months designing joins between “accounts” in Dataverse and “customers” in Business Central, Cosmos, or an internal IT team, you can quickly and easily map these once. The platform will establish which system owns the “golden record” for each entity, ensuring everyone reports from the same master data definitions. The result: Business users access Microsoft Dataverse and Business Central reporting through Excel, Power BI, or the Cosmos interface without writing SQL queries, managing data pipelines, or playing spreadsheet gymnastics. Ready to see how Microsoft Dataverse Reporting Works with Your Business Central Data? Schedule a 30-minute Demo to see it in action! What Problems Does Unified Microsoft Dataverse and Business Central Reporting Solve? Organizations with both Dynamics 365 apps and Business Central typically encounter four critical reporting gaps: The “Three Versions of the Truth” Problem: The sales team reports closed deals based on CRM data, but there are discrepancies between the CRM data and the actual sales records. Finance reports revenue based on invoiced amounts. Service reports margin based on actual costs. When these numbers don’t align, teams waste hours in meetings arguing about numbers rather than acting on real opportunities or accurate insights. Microsoft Dataverse reporting through Cosmos eliminates this by ensuring that all teams query the same, governed dataset and obtain accurate results. Manual Export and Spreadsheet Reconciliation: Without a unified data model, analysts export CSVs from Dynamics 365 and Business Central, then spend hours using VLOOKUP formulas to match accounts to customers or opportunities to orders. These spreadsheets become fragile, error-prone, and break whenever field names or relationships in the source systems change. Limited Visibility: You can see sales pipeline metrics. You can see P&L statements. However, connecting them and understanding which marketing campaigns drive profitable service contracts, or which sales representatives bring in the highest-margin business, requires custom development that most organizations can’t maintain long-term. Technical Dependency and Risk: Many organizations rely on one or two Power BI experts who build custom data models connecting Dynamics 365 to Business Central. When these individuals leave or are unavailable, reporting breaks. Dataverse reporting for Dynamics 365 with Cosmos reduces this risk by providing a supported, standardized platform rather than one-off custom solutions. Under the Hood Technical Details: How the Microsoft Dataverse Connector Works For IT leaders evaluating Microsoft Dataverse and Business Central reporting solutions, here’s how Cosmos handles the technical integration: Data Movement and Security Cosmos uses Microsoft’s standard APIs and connectors – the same infrastructure Power Platform relies on No data is stored outside Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure Cosmos inherits your existing Dataverse and Business Central security models, including row-level security and field-level permissions Refresh and Performance Incremental loads update only changed records, not full data extractions Typical refresh cycles run every 15-60 minutes, depending on data volume The Cosmos warehouse is optimized for rapid analytical queries across years of historical data Pre-aggregated tables accelerate standard reports (sales pipeline, customer aging, project burn rates) Scalability Cosmos runs on Azure SQL Database and Azure Data Factory – Microsoft’s enterprise-grade data services Handles millions of transactions without performance degradation Automatically scales compute resources during high-usage periods Supports multi-company and multi-environment reporting if your organization operates across regions or business units Maintenance and Updates Cosmos automatically adapts to Microsoft’s updates for Business Central and Dataverse Your partner or Cosmos account team notifies you of new features or required changes No downtime for routine maintenance or updates Also read: Best Business Central Reporting Tools: Compare Top 5 Excel-Based Options What Questions Can You Answer with Microsoft Dataverse CRM and Business Central Reporting? Once Dataverse and Business Central are integrated within the same Cosmos model, you can answer cross-functional business questions that were previously difficult or impossible to answer without manual data reconciliation. Here are four critical questions finance and operations leaders often face and can finally answer: How Long Does It Take to Convert Opportunities to Cash? Sales teams track when deals close in Dynamics 365 CRM. Finance teams track when invoices get paid in Business Central. However, the critical question “How long does it actually take to convert an opportunity into collected cash?” requires reconciliation between the two systems. With Microsoft CRM Dataverse and Business Central reporting in Cosmos, you can see: Complete opportunity-to-cash cycle time by linking CRM/CE opportunities to Business Central sales orders, invoices, and payment receipts Conversion rates at each stage (opportunity to quote to order to invoice to payment) broken down by product family, region, or salesperson to identify bottlenecks in your revenue realization process Forecast accuracy vs. actual revenue with automated variance analysis that compares CRM pipeline projections to Business Central invoiced amounts Days-to-cash by deal type or customer segment so you can prioritize opportunities that convert quickly and adjust payment terms for slower-paying segments Which Customers Are Actually Profitable? Most organizations can tell which customers generate the most revenue, but calculating true customer profitability requires combining data that lives in different systems: marketing spend and campaign attribution in Dynamics 365 Marketing, sales and service interactions in Dynamics 365 Sales and Customer Service, and actual margin, discounts, and collection costs in Business Central. With Business Central and Dynamics 365 CRM Dataverse reporting in Cosmos, you can answer: Lifetime value (LTV) after service costs by blending Dynamics 365 case history and service contract data with Business Central cost allocations Which accounts generate the highest margin, not just revenue by connecting CRM account records to Business Central customer profitability reports that include product mix, discount structures, and payment terms Early churn indicators based on engagement patterns by correlating Dynamics 365 support ticket volume, sentiment, and resolution times with Business Central payment delays, returns, and margin erosion Are Your Service Contracts Making or Losing Money? Most service organizations are aware of their revenue per contract but struggle to calculate true profitability because cost data resides in Business Central, while service activity data is stored in Dynamics 365 Field Service or Customer Service. With Microsoft Dynamics 365 Dataverse and Business Central reporting in Cosmos, you can see: Gross margin per contract, asset, or territory by combining Dynamics 365 work order data with Business Central cost allocations for parts, labor, travel time, and overhead SLA attainment vs. actual revenue and margin to identify which service commitments are profitable vs. which erode your bottom line through penalties, excessive travel time, or unplanned overtime Cost per technician, route, or work order type to optimize dispatch rules, identify training opportunities, and spot inefficient service delivery patterns before they compound Contract renewal profitability trends by analyzing historical service delivery costs against contract rates to inform pricing discussions and identify at-risk renewals These scenarios represent just a fraction of what’s possible when you connect Dynamics 365 app data from Dataverse to Business Central through a unified reporting model. Let’s talk about your specific use case! Why Joining Dataverse and D365 BC Data Matters for Microsoft Partners and Customers For Microsoft partners, the Cosmos Dataverse integration transforms a common request, such as “We want end-to-end reporting from CRM to ERP,” into a repeatable, productized pattern rather than a one-off data project each time. Partners can: Standardize on Cosmos as the reporting foundation for Business Central and Microsoft Dynamics 365 apps Deploy proven data models and joins for common Dynamics 365 and Business Central scenarios Focus their time on industry-specific KPIs and dashboards, not data plumbing For organizations using Dynamics 365 CRM/CE, other D365 apps, and Business Central, the benefit is straightforward: a single source of reporting, eliminating the need to hire or outsource a team of data engineers. No more copy-paste between systems No more “three dashboards, three answers” to the same question No more disjointed, unaligned, and varying reporting processes Everyone, from finance to sales to service to executive leadership, works from the same, governed Cosmos data layer. Dynamics 365 Apps and Business Central Reporting: Cosmos vs. Alternative Approaches Organizations exploring reporting for their Dynamics 365 apps with Business Central data typically evaluate three approaches. Here is how they compare: Custom Power BI Development Best for: Organizations with dedicated BI teams and simple reporting requirements Challenges: Ongoing maintenance burden, breaks when systems update, technical dependency risk, isn’t a financial reporting tool Timeline: 2-4 months for initial builds using DAX or Power Query, ongoing support required Also read: Business Central with Power BI: Why Reporting Integration Matters (and How to Do It) Build Your Own Data Warehouse Best for: Large enterprises with data engineering resources or outsourcing budget Challenges: 6-12 month implementation, high upfront and ongoing costs, requires specialized skills Timeline: 6-12 months minimum, ongoing management required Cosmos Platform Best for: Organizations wanting enterprise-grade cross-system reporting capabilities without enterprise-level complexity Advantages: Pre-built Business Central data models, same-day implementation, straightforward pricing, fast integration of Dynamics 365 app data sources, ongoing support and updates Timeline: 1-3 weeks to production reports Bottom line: Cosmos delivers the governance and scalability of a custom data warehouse with the speed, security, reliability, and simplicity of a cloud-based SaaS solution. Getting Started with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Dataverse Reporting in Cosmos The hardest part of doing Dataverse and Business Central reporting correctly is often the upfront modeling: deciding on keys, mapping entities, and joining everything together. But Cosmos doesn’t just ship a connector and walk away. The team also offers a fixed-fee services package to: Map and join standard Dataverse entities (Dynamics 365 CRM/CE, marketing, sales, customer service, etc.) to Business Central Set up the common keys and relationships in the Cosmos data model Align master data (accounts/customers, projects/jobs, etc.) Deliver a working, unified Microsoft Dataverse and Business Central reporting model quickly If Dataverse already standardizes Dynamics 365 data, Cosmos’s job is to standardize the reporting layer on top of it, allowing you to integrate your finance and operational data in Business Central without forcing a six-month data project. Instead of requiring every team to reconcile its own version of the truth, you get a single, unified, and governed model that shows how sales activity, service delivery, projects, finance, and bottom-line performance all connect. That’s beneficial for partners who seek a repeatable approach to delivering front-office to back-office reporting, and it’s ideal for customers who simply want clear answers without having to build a data platform from scratch. See Microsoft Dataverse and Business Central Reporting in Action The best way to understand how Cosmos bridges the gap between your Dynamics 365 app and ERP data is to see it in action. In a customized demo, we’ll show you: How Dataverse and Business Central data combine in a single Cosmos model Pre-built reports for your industry (service, distribution, projects, or manufacturing) How business users access insights through Excel and Power BI Implementation timeline and fixed-fee pricing for your specific requirements SCHEDULE A DEMO NOW FAQs: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Dataverse Reporting with Business Central and Cosmos Can you use Microsoft Dataverse with Business Central for reporting? Yes. While Business Central doesn’t run natively on Microsoft Dataverse, as Dynamics 365 apps do, you can connect the two systems for unified reporting. Cosmos provides this connection by: Loading data from both Dataverse and Business Central into a single cloud-based data model and reporting platform Applying a pre-built data model for Business Central Governing master data definitions across Dataverse-based Dynamics 365 apps and Business Central so all teams report from the same source of truth This enables reporting across Dynamics 365 apps (Sales, Service, Field Service, Marketing, and Project Operations) and Business Central financials in one place, without the need for manual exports or custom SQL queries. How long does it take to set up Microsoft Dataverse reporting with Business Central? Standard implementation depends on data complexity, customization, and training requirements. Cosmos itself is installed and ready to use within 1-2 hours. From there, fixed-fee service packages starting at $1,000 USD/$1300 CAD are available that include: Mapping standard Dataverse entities to Business Central tables Setting up common join keys and relationships Aligning master data between systems (accounts/customers, projects/jobs) Delivering a working, unified reporting model This accelerated timeline is possible because Cosmos ships with pre-built data models for Business Central scenarios, rather than requiring entire custom development from scratch. What’s the difference between Cosmos and building my own Dataverse Business Central model in Power BI? You can connect Power BI directly to both systems, but you’ll need to: Design and maintain all table relationships and joins manually Write DAX or Power Query code for business logic and calculations Handle data refresh schedules and performance optimization Document and govern data definitions across your organization Cosmos provides: Pre-built, tested data models Automated data refresh and performance optimization Governed definitions and master data management Support and updates as Microsoft releases new features Bottom line: DIY approaches may be practical for simple reporting but become increasingly difficult to maintain as requirements grow. Cosmos reduces project risk, speeds time-to-value, and provides ongoing support. Do I need technical skills to use Microsoft Dataverse reporting in Cosmos? No. Once your Cosmos environment is configured, business users can: Build any reports they need directly in Excel using familiar pivot tables and formulas Create Power BI dashboards without writing DAX code Run ad-hoc queries through the Cosmos interface The technical complexity (data modeling, joins, refresh schedules, master data governance) is handled at the platform level, so finance and operations teams can focus on analysis rather than data engineering. What types of organizations benefit most from connecting Dataverse to Business Central? Microsoft Dataverse and Business Central reporting delivers the highest ROI for organizations that: Use Dynamics 365 apps (Sales and Service, or Sales and Field Service and Project Operations) alongside Business Central Need to answer cross-functional questions like “Which opportunities became profitable revenue?” or “What’s the true lifetime value of our top customers?” Currently reconcile data manually in spreadsheets or rely on one-off custom Power BI models Want to reduce technical dependency on specialized BI developers Will Microsoft Dataverse and Business Central reporting work with our customizations and ISV solutions? Yes! Cosmos can incorporate custom Dataverse tables and fields from your Dynamics 365 customizations or ISV add-ons. During implementation, the Cosmos team will: Identify which custom entities need to be included in reporting Map relationships between standard and custom tables Include custom fields in the unified data model The same approach applies to Business Central extensions. This flexibility means you get unified reporting even if your systems don’t match Microsoft’s out-of-the-box configuration/ Anthony Bonaduce Chief Revenue Officer About the Author Latest Posts Anthony Bonaduce brings nearly a decade of sales leadership expertise to the Microsoft Channel, where he has built lasting partnerships and driven significant growth for data analytics solutions. As co-founder of Cosmos Data Technologies, Anthony combines his passion for relationship building with deep industry knowledge gained through executive roles at Jet Reports (now insightsoftware) and Rand Group. Anthony’s business philosophy centers on exceptional customer service and transparent communication—principles he credits as the foundation of his success. His proudest achievement includes expanding Jet’s partner channel to unprecedented levels, earning him the trust of countless Microsoft partners and clients. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with concentrations in Finance and Marketing from the University of Oregon. When he’s not helping clients unlock their data potential, Anthony enjoys cheering on the Oregon Ducks, playing golf, and spending time with family and friends. How to Get Custom Business Central Inventory Reports in Minutes August 17, 2026 What is Cloud Reporting? 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