D365 Business Central Insights: How to Own Your Business Central Reports

Welcome to the Western Computer LinkedIn newsletter. This bimonthly series provides tips and tricks for helping you and your internal teams work more efficiently in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Cloud. With more than 37 years in business, Western Computer has deployed 1,250+ solutions, including more than 350 in the cloud. In this LinkedIn newsletter series, we share the expertise we have accumulated to empower Dynamics 365 Business Central users and enable them to work as proficiently as possible. 

When building reports in Business Central Cloud, end-users should ideally do the work on their own—without asking for help from IT. To make this possible for your users, there are multiple tools to choose from. In Marcelo Borges ’ blog you can pick up a few tips on how to use various tools in creating customer-facing Business Central reports.  

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. However, most of the time, you won’t be able to add 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. With 2025 updates, users can set up conditional blocks. This includes hiding empty tables, rows, and fields. A word of caution: If trying to work in an XML schema, report set-up 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. It’s a plus if users understand how data is structured as it can look odd at times. 😖 

For The IT-Savvy: RDLC 

Technical users may feel comfortable with RDLC (Report Definition Language Client-Side), which you can use to create and display reports from Business Central and other Microsoft technologies. This requires Microsoft Report Builder (available for free) and provides more flexibility than the other report layout tools.  

The Third-Party Option: ForNAV Reports 

Another tool to consider is ForNAV, a paid subscription that provides a collection of Business Central reports. Users can adapt reports without coding for sales, purchase, service, and other documents. They can also add tables and fields to reports. This is a big plus, but the tool is somewhat technical 😓as it incorporates Java scripting. 

How to Choose the Right Tool  

So which Reports Layout tool should you use? The chart below gives you a side-by-side comparison: 

Also consider which tool you currently use 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.  

To Learn More 

Western Computer offers deep expertise across the Microsoft technology stack, particularly in Dynamics 365 Business Central Cloud. Our thought leaders can help you ensure your critical ERP application meets your business needs for today and beyond. For more information on where to find and how to use these Business Central tricks, check out the complete blog on the Western Computer website. And for help in designing, deploying or supporting Microsoft Dynamics 365 solutions, contact Western Computer today.  

About Western Computer 

Western Computer is a Microsoft partner that many companies across North America trust to design, deploy, and support Microsoft solutions. We offer deep expertise across the Microsoft technology stack, particularly in Dynamics 365 Business Central. Our thought leaders can help you ensure your critical ERP application meets your business needs for today and beyond. This includes building a roadmap that enables your organization to take advantage of technology that helps you grow and compete in your industry. We provide dedicated teams of senior-level experts to deliver and align project teams with the culture of our customers to meet your requirements for technical and industry expertise.