Business Central AI Dashboard: Financial Reports Without Power BI

You need a financial dashboard in Business Central. The standard approach: export to Excel, build pivot tables, or set up Power BI with a connector, a workspace, and a data refresh schedule. For a simple “how are we doing this quarter?” question, that's a lot of overhead.

What if you could just type “Show me a financial dashboard for Q1” and get KPI cards, charts, and tables — directly inside BC?

The problem with BC reporting today

Business Central has built-in reports: Account Schedules (Financial Reporting), Analysis Views, and report objects. They work, but they have limitations that frustrate most users:

• Rigid layout — Account Schedules require manual row/column setup. Changing a report means editing the schedule definition.
• No charts — BC reports output tables, not visual dashboards. If you want a bar chart or KPI cards, you need Power BI.
• Navigation-heavy — Getting a vendor profile means checking the Vendor Card, then Ledger Entries, then Purchase Orders, then Purchase Invoices — four different pages.
• Power BI licensing — Power BI Pro costs CHF 10/user/month. Embedding in BC requires additional configuration. Data refresh isn't real-time.
• Excel exports — The default fallback. Export, pivot, format, repeat. Every time someone asks “what are our top customers?”, it's a 15-minute exercise.

The AI alternative: ask, don't build

Zentriq Agent takes a different approach. Instead of building dashboards, you ask questions. The AI reads your BC data in real-time and generates visual answers: KPI cards, bar charts, line charts, pie charts, and formatted tables.

No Power BI license. No Excel exports. No report configuration. Just ask.

What kind of dashboards can you get?

Financial dashboard

Ask: “Show me a financial dashboard for Q1.”

You get:

• KPI cards — Revenue, expenses, net income, accounts receivable — each with formatted values.
• Monthly breakdown — Revenue and expenses per month, so you can spot trends.
• Top customers — Ranked by revenue contribution.
• Aging receivables — Grouped by 30/60/90+ days.

All computed from your actual BC ledger entries, in real-time. Not a cached Power BI dataset from last night's refresh.

Profit & Loss statement

Ask: “Show me the P&L for February.”

The Agent pulls data from your General Ledger, groups by account category (Revenue, COGS, Operating Expenses), and formats a clean P&L with subtotals for Gross Profit and Net Income. Same data as your Account Schedule, zero configuration.

Balance Sheet

Ask: “Generate a balance sheet as of March 31.”

Assets, liabilities, equity — pulled from your GL entries, grouped by account category, with proper subtotals.

Sales analysis

Ask: “Top 10 customers this quarter” or “Compare sales Q1 vs Q4 last year.”

You get bar charts for rankings, side-by-side comparisons for period analysis. The Agent uses customer ledger entries with posting date filters — accurate to the day.

Vendor and customer profiles

Ask: “Tell me about vendor Fabrikam.”

You get a full profile in one view: contact info, YTD purchase amount, number of open invoices, list of open POs. No need to navigate between 4 BC pages.

Monthly trends

Ask: “Show me sales trend for the last 6 months.”

Line chart with monthly totals. See seasonality, growth, or decline at a glance.

AI dashboard vs Power BI: when to use what

Power BI is the right tool for fixed, shared dashboards that 20 people look at daily. But for the 90% of reporting needs that are ad-hoc — “what were our sales last month?”, “who's our biggest vendor?”, “show me the aging” — an AI dashboard is faster, cheaper, and requires zero maintenance.

What data does the AI access?

The Agent reads your BC data through the standard BC API, using your own credentials. It can access:

• General Ledger entries and accounts
• Customer and vendor ledger entries
• Sales and purchase documents (orders, invoices, credit memos)
• Items, inventory, and value entries
• Aged receivables and payables
• Income statement, balance sheet, trial balance (when available)

The Agent can only see data you have permission to see. Your BC permission sets apply.

Getting started

Financial dashboards are included in every Zentriq Agent plan, including the free tier.

1. Install the Zentriq extension in your BC environment
2. Sign in with your Microsoft account
3. Ask: “Show me a financial dashboard for this quarter”