What is Dynamics 365 Finance? An Overview

Get enlightened how Dynamics 365 Finance ERP can help you maximize financial visibility and profitability and accelerate your finance and operations for your business.

Let's ask basic questions first before going any further.

What is Finance?

Finance is the “Art and Science of managing money!” It's that simple.

Why is Financial Management so important in Business?

Finance is the life cycle of your business, or more precisely - it is a critical function for the survival of the organization.

Financial decisions involve qualitative and quantitative factors that further require both art and science.

The art of finance involves human skills, creativity, risk-taking, and effective communication, while science involves observing and experimenting to understand the environment and create value for shareholders using proven theories and concepts.

Corporate finance involves managing assets and liabilities to generate a fair rate of return for shareholders.

Familiarity with the three financial statements (income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement) is crucial for your finance team.

A less complex financial management strategy is to use a minimum amount of assets and the right mix of liabilities and equity to meet risk tolerance while maximizing revenues.

Thus, your finance management department should focus on increasing revenues while minimizing costs and expenses to generate a fair rate of return (or return on investment – ROI).

And to accelerate your finance management, employ the right finance software system like Microsoft's Dynamics 365 Finance (earlier; Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations). Such systems help your finance team win.

If you are concerned that your current finance system is finding it hard to manage the increasing flow of financial activity, it may be time to get started with upgrading your existing finance ERP software to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance - an all-in-one cloud solution for your company's finance.

By implementing Dynamics 365 Finance, you can effectively manage multiple processes simultaneously, while also supporting your expanding financial practices to fuel innovation and enhance productivity.

So, let's know about this finance ERP from Microsoft.

What is Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance?

Dynamics 365 Finance is a comprehensive finance management application to help you streamline all your financial processes and enhance your financial decision-making.

This powerful finance tool enhances your ability to seamlessly and effectively manage crucial practices such as budgeting, planning, forecasting, and AI analytics, as well as aiding you with key reporting capabilities.

Additionally, D365 Finance enables enterprises like yours to efficiently manage global compliance and regulatory services while keeping costs under control.

With such an advanced finance ERP solution, you can optimize your financial operations and ensure compliance with ease.

Now that you know what Microsoft Dynamics 365 is and how capable it is. Let's explore how Dynamics 365 Finance can help you achieve these goals.

Benefits Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance

Rolling out a cloud solution like Microsoft Dynamics 365 for finance can bring several benefits to your organization, including:

Streamlined Financial Processes: With Dynamics 365 Finance, you can streamline and automate your financial processes, reducing the time and effort needed to complete financial tasks.

Greater Financial Visibility: This cloud ERP solution gives you real-time financial insights, enabling you to make data-driven decisions and manage your finances more effectively and efficiently.

Enhanced Productivity: With features such as automated workflows and approvals, Dynamics 365 Finance can help you improve productivity and reduce manual errors.

Better Compliance: The solution includes built-in compliance features, allowing you to stay compliant with relevant regulations and avoid penalties.

Enhanced Scalability: Dynamics 365 Finance is highly scalable and can support the growth of your organization, enabling you to manage financial operations across multiple locations and business units.

Advanced Data Analytics and Insights: The solution includes advanced analytics capabilities, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, providing deeper insights into your financial data and supporting more informed decision-making.

Reduce Costs: Achieve cost minimization and best spending across business geographies through process automation, budget control measures, and financial intelligence, planning, and analysis tools with Dynamics 365 Finance.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance is a sure help if you are willing to get up and improve the efficiency, accuracy, and compliance of your financial operations while driving the growth and success of your organization.

Features of Dynamics 365 Business Central

Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance is a comprehensive financial management application that offers you a range of features to help your team manage your financial operations.

With this finance ERP software, you can unify and automate your business processes by integrating financials into core processes and automating repetitive tasks to boost productivity, support evolving business models, and maximize financial performance.

You can drive agility and growth with Dynamics 365 Finance’s powerful financial reporting, embedded analytics, and AI-driven insights.

Some of the key features of Dynamics 365 Finance include:

Budgeting and Forecasting: You can use the budgeting and forecasting capabilities provided by D365 F&O (formerly known as Dynamics 365 Finance) to better plan and make informed decisions.

General Ledger: D365 Finance assists you with a centralized view of all financial transactions and supports multiple currencies, budgets, and financial dimensions.

Accounts Payable: This feature in Dynamics 365 Finance helps you manage vendor invoices, payments, and credit memos, and enables you to automate invoice processing and approvals.

Accounts Receivable: This advanced finance solution is powered by Microsoft’s latest tech and enables you to manage customer invoices, payments, and credit memos, and supports features such as collections, customer credit limits, and sales tax calculations.

Cash and Bank Management: Dynamics 365 for finance allows you to manage your cash and bank accounts, bank reconciliations, and cash forecasting, and supports features such as electronic bank statement imports and payment reconciliation.

Fixed Assets: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance helps you manage your fixed assets, including acquisition, depreciation, and disposal, and supports multiple depreciation methods.

Project Management and Accounting: D365 Finance helps you to manage project finances, including project budgeting, tracking costs and revenues, and project invoicing.

Financial Reporting and Analytics: This feature in Dynamics 365 finance offers you a range of financial reporting and analytics tools to help you gain insights into your financial data, including financial statements, business intelligence, and artificial intelligence capabilities.

Global Compliance: The built-in regulatory and compliance features in Dynamics 365 Finance, including tax and audit management, help you meet local and global regulatory requirements with super ease.

Moreover, a study conducted by Forrester Consulting in 2022 on behalf of Microsoft found that deploying Dynamics 365 Finance resulted in a substantial return on investment (ROI) of 122% over a three-year period.

The study also reported legacy cost savings of over $3.5 million, and finance personnel productivity improvements of 55%.

These are just some of the many features of Dynamics 365 Finance.

With this game-changing solution, you can seamlessly manage your financial operations more effectively, while gaining deeper insights into your financial data to quickly make informed decisions.

Why use Dynamics 365 Finance to Maximize Outcomes?

As an organization grows and expands, managing financial operations can become increasingly complex.

Dynamics 365 Finance is a finance-centric solution for your business. It helps you flawlessly streamline your financial processes, enhance productivity, improve compliance, and maximize financial insights.

See how Dynamics 365 finance solution helps you hone your financials:

Streamlining Financial Processes

1. Automating financial tasks

2. Centralizing financial data

3. Improving financial visibility

Enhancing Productivity

1. Automating workflows and approvals

2. Reducing manual errors

3. Enabling self-service capabilities

Improving Compliance

1. Meeting regulatory and compliance requirements

2. Minimizing the risk of penalties and fines

Maximizing Financial Insights

1. Analyzing financial data with advanced analytics tools

2. Supporting data-driven decision-making

3. Showing trends and opportunities for further optimization

Supporting Business Growth at Scale

1. Scalability of the cloud ERP - Dynamics 365 for Finance

2. Supporting global financial operations

3. Prop up mergers and acquisitions

How Can Dynamics 365 Finance help make my business grow at scale?

Dynamics 365 Finance is a powerful business software tool that can help businesses to streamline their operations and optimize their financial management.

Here are some of the key benefits that Dynamics 365 Finance can offer to businesses looking to get started at full throttle and make waves: 

Enhanced Financial Visibility: Dynamics 365 Finance provides increased real-time visibility into your financials, allowing you to monitor your cash flow, track expenses, and manage budgets with ease.

With advanced reporting and analytics capabilities, you can gain insights into your financial performance and make informed decisions to improve your profitability.

Improved Cash Flow Management: This finance application enables businesses to augment their cash flow by automating financial processes such as invoicing, payment collection, and accounts payable.

This helps to reduce the time and effort needed to manage financial transactions and ensure that your cash flow still is healthy and predictable.

Simplified Financial Reporting: Dynamics 365 Finance offers a range of pre-built financial reports that can help you quickly generate correct financial statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements.

It can save businesses significant time and effort and guarantees that they still are compliant with regulatory requirements.

Streamlined Financial Processes: D365 Finance can help businesses to streamline their financial processes by automating tasks such as bank reconciliation, financial close, and intercompany accounting.

This can reduce the risk of errors and make sure that financial processes are completed accurately and on time.

Scalability and Flexibility: Dynamics 365 Finance is a cloud-based solution that can be customized to meet the unique needs of your business.

Meaning, as your business grows and evolves, this solution grows too!

That is, you can add new features and functionality to your Dynamics 365 Finance system to support your changing needs.

Who can use Dynamics 365 Finance?

Designed and developed by Microsoft, Dynamics 365 Finance is for organizations of all sizes across various industries.

You can use it to manage financial operations, such as accounting, financial planning, and cash flow management.

Dynamics 365 Finance is suitable for finance professionals, accountants, and people who manage the financial aspects of your business.

Your finance decision-makers who need to have access to the right financial data to make informed business decisions can use this software in many ways.

List of the Global Leaders Using Dynamics 365 for Finance

Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance is used by many companies across various industries.

Here are a few examples of companies that use Dynamics 365 Finance:

1. Bel Fuse Inc. - An Electronic connector manufacturing company in the USA.

2. Coca-Cola Beverages Africa - The popular soft drink manufacturer and an American multinational beverage corporation founded in 1892.

3. Hitachi, Ltd. - A Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation that drives Social Innovation Business by creating a sustainable society with data and technology.

4. Fieldfisher LLP - A multinational law firm headquartered in London.

5. Dah Chong Hong Holdings Limited (DCH Ltd.) - A Hong Kong-based conglomerate engaged in motor vehicle sales and repair, air cargo equipment distribution, cosmetic, airport ground support equipment maintenance, food, logistics, and warehouse services.

6. HP Inc. - an American multinational information technology company.

7. Airbus Group - a European multinational aerospace corporation.

8. The Adecco Group - a Swiss multinational human resource consulting firm.

9. LEGO Group - a Danish multinational toy company.

10. The Hershey Company - an American multinational food company.

11. Trek Bicycle Corporation – USA’s bicycle and cycling product manufacturer.

12. Big Brothers Big Sisters of America - a nonprofit organization that gives mentorship programs for children.

13. GEA Group - a German multinational technology group that specializes in process engineering.

15. KIND - a healthy snack bar and granola company based in the United States.

16. Williams-Sonoma, Inc. - an American home goods retailer.

Note: This is not an exhaustive list and there are many other companies that use Dynamics 365 Finance.

The Wrap Up!

Dynamics 365 Finance is an ideal solution for businesses looking to get started at full throttle and make waves. This single solution provides you with a comprehensive suite of financial management features.

This finance cloud ERP solution enables you to gain a deeper understanding of their financial situation and make data-driven decisions that can help you achieve your business goals and objectives.

D365 finance gives you enhanced financial visibility, improved cash flow management, simplified financial reporting, streamlined financial processes, and scalability and flexibility.

With this solution, you can help your business operations to re-invent your finances and achieve what you want, and the way you want.

Get in touch with Dynamics 365 experts at Dynamics Square to get started with the implementation of Dynamics 365 Finance. Or if you’re a small business looking for an all-in-one ERP solution, consider implementing Dynamics 365 Business Central.