Dynamics 365 Business Central Cloud Tips and Tricks: How to Own Your Business Central Reports

In this series of bi-monthly blogs, Western Computer shares our expertise with tips and tricks to help users work more efficiently in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Cloud. Based on our more than 30 years in business—with 1,250+ solution implementations, including more than 350 in the cloud—we share the expertise we have accumulated to enable users to work as proficiently as possible. You can also subscribe to these blogs in our LinkedIn newsletter.  

By Marcelo Borges 

When building reports in Business Central Cloud, end-users should ideally do the work on their own—without asking for help from your IT team. To make things easier for your users, there are multiple tools to choose from. So it’s important to understand how each tool works and the limitations of what you can do when creating and modifying reports without going to software developers for help. 

As you plan which tools to use, Microsoft is phasing out Custom Report Layouts, which is a legacy feature. Going forward, you can use Report Layouts for setting up user-defined reports. With Report Selections, you can select reports for each functional area of your business. Another feature to check out is Report Layout Selection. Here, you can select layouts for each report, and you can also refer to the legacy Custom Report Layouts. 

In this blog, you can pick up a few tips for how to use various tools in creating a report, which is defined as any printed object in Business Central Cloud. The focus here is on customer-facing documents used as reports to communicate key information. In comparison to financial reports, customer-facing reports typically require layout changes and minor data changes. 

Report Layouts vs. Application Layout Code 

Application layout (AL) code provides data tokens in a logical order, placing them in different data sets within a report. With Report Layouts, you manually place data tokens into a report. Limitations can occur due to the available dataset and not the layout itself. With Reports Layouts, most of the time, you won’t be able to add new fields, create calculated fields and groups, show serial numbers, or show all contacts on a customer list. 

The Friendliest Tool: Word  

Users typically find Word as the friendliest tool for Business Central Cloud reports because they are so familiar with Word. They can work in the application without downloading any additional tools. With 2025 updates to Business Central, users can set up conditional blocks. This includes hiding tables, rows, and fields if any are empty. A word of caution: If trying to work in an XML schema, the set-up of the reports might get a little too technical. 

For The Nerdy: Excel  

If any users have strong Excel skills, they can create pivot tables, pivot charts, and slicers that are easy to preview, adjust, and replace when needed. It’s a plus if users understand how data is structured as it can look odd at times 😖 

For The IT-Savvy: RDLC 

Your technical users may feel comfortable with RDLC (Report Definition Language Client-Side). You can use this file format to create and display reports from Business Central and other Microsoft technologies. RDLC requires downloading Microsoft Report Builder (available for free) and provides more flexibility than the other report layout tools. Your software developers will also prefer RDLC as a native Microsoft tool. 

The Third-Party Option: ForNAV Reports 

Another tool to consider is ForNAV, a paid subscription that provides a collection of Business Central Cloud reports. Users can adapt these reports without coding for sales, purchase, service, and other report documents. ForNAV is similar to Microsoft Report Builder and allows users to add tables and fields to reports without programming knowledge. This is a big plus, but the tool is somewhat technical 😓as it incorporates Java scripting. 

How to Choose the Right Tool  

The chart below gives you a side-by-side comparison of the Reports Layout tools: 

In addition to the factors presented above, consider which tool is currently used by default in your Business Central environment. Not all out-of-the-box reports are delivered in all the tools, and some N/A reports are localized only with the RDLC tool.  

Western Computer recommends sticking with the same tool as much as possible. This will make it easier to organize and create clean new layouts and to retire old layouts. You are also less likely to experience blocked functionality. 

As you establish your report protocols, be sure all items remain on the list for as long as they exist. It’s also a good idea to collaborate with your system administrator—they might be able to help with layouts.