An AI agent for the keying around Dynamics 365
Someone still keys the order that came as a PDF into Dynamics 365, matches the supplier invoice and updates the customer card that has last year's contact on it. An AI agent can do that keying, and your people release and post.
Emailed orders, customer, vendor and item records, purchase orders and receipts, and sales and aged debt figures in Business Central.
Sales orders prepared for release, purchase invoices prepared for posting, contact details on customer cards, and the draft monthly report.
What Dynamics 365 is and who runs it
Dynamics 365 is Microsoft's family of business applications. It includes Sales and Customer Service for customer records, Field Service, Finance and Supply Chain Management, and Business Central, the accounts and operations system for smaller firms. This page is about the work around Business Central.
Business Central belongs to the finance manager, the purchase ledger clerk and the sales office, who key and post in it every day. A Microsoft reseller or an in-house administrator usually looks after set-up, permission sets and the extensions added over the years.
What an AI agent can take on around Business Central
Emailed orders keyed as sales orders
The agent reads each order that arrives by email or PDF, matches the customer and the item numbers to your Business Central records and prepares the sales order. A price or item it cannot match is listed, and your sales office releases the order.
Supplier invoices matched and prepared
Each supplier invoice is checked against its purchase order and receipt in Business Central and prepared as a purchase invoice with its codes. Quantity and price differences are set out for the purchase ledger clerk, who posts and pays.
Customer and vendor cards kept current
The agent adds the new contact to the customer card in Business Central, corrects an address or an email from the message that gave it and lists the cards with fields missing. Credit limits, payment terms and bank details wait for a person.
Figures drawn for the monthly report
The agent draws sales, open orders and aged debt from Business Central and drafts the monthly report with last month beside it. Explaining a variance, and anything sent to the board, stays with your finance manager.
Roles that work in Dynamics 365
Order processing
Keys emailed and PDF orders as sales orders and lists what it could not match for your sales office.
Purchase invoice processing
Matches supplier invoices to purchase orders and receipts, and prepares them for the person who posts.
Data entry and CRM upkeep
Keeps customer and vendor cards complete, and leaves credit limits, payment terms and bank details to a person.
Management reporting
Drafts the monthly figures from your Business Central records for your finance manager to check.
How the connection is set up
Microsoft publishes an API for Business Central, with records such as customers, vendors, items, sales orders and purchase invoices. Software working on its own signs in through OAuth 2.0 as an app registered in your Microsoft Entra tenant, with no person's password. That is the route Microsoft publishes, agreed with you first.
Inside Business Central your administrator adds the app on the Microsoft Entra applications page and assigns it permission sets. Microsoft does not allow an app the SUPER permission set. The agent gets only the permission sets its jobs use.
Questions owners ask
We only have Business Central. Is that Dynamics 365?
Yes. Business Central is one of the Dynamics 365 products, with an API of its own, separate from the one the Sales and Customer Service apps use. Whether you run it online or on your own servers matters too, because Microsoft switches its API on by default only online.
Will the agent post invoices or release orders?
No. It prepares the sales order or the purchase invoice and sets out anything that does not match. Releasing an order to the warehouse and posting an invoice to the ledger stay with your sales office and your purchase ledger clerk.
Does it need one of our user licences and passwords?
It does not need anyone's password. Microsoft's route for software working on its own is an app registered in your Microsoft Entra tenant and given its own permission sets in Business Central. Whether that needs a licence is checked against Microsoft's licensing guide at the start.
Microsoft already offers a Sales Order Agent. Is that enough?
Inside Business Central, Microsoft's agents may be enough: the Sales Order Agent and Payables Agent each watch a mailbox and prepare quotes, orders or invoice drafts for a user to review, on Copilot Credits. A managed role, held by an Agent Resource, AI in a staff member's place, also reaches the systems around Business Central.