Microsoft Dynamics 365 provides a wide range of ERP features for managing finance, supply chains, inventory, manufacturing, procurement, and other core business operations. However, many organizations use only a portion of the Dynamics 365 features available within their ERP environment.
Employees may continue building reports in spreadsheets, routing approvals through email, reconciling accounts manually, or managing maintenance and supply planning in separate systems. In some cases, Dynamics 365 already includes functionality that can simplify these processes.
Microsoft also continues to expand Dynamics 365 with automation, analytics, and AI capabilities. This makes it important for businesses to regularly evaluate whether they are getting the full value from their ERP investment.
This guide explores 12 overlooked Dynamics 365 ERP features available through Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management. It also explains how organizations can extend their ERP environment using Dynamics 365 Customer Insights and Microsoft Power Platform.
What are Dynamics 365 ERP features?
Dynamics 365 ERP features are tools and capabilities that help organizations manage finance, supply chains, manufacturing, reporting, automation, and other core business operations.
For larger or operationally complex organizations, these applications commonly include:
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 Human Resources
Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management are sometimes collectively referred to as Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, Dynamics 365 F&O, D365 F&O, or D365 F&SCM. Microsoft now markets Finance and Supply Chain Management as separate but connected applications.
Organizations evaluating Microsoft ERP options can learn more about Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management and how the applications support financial, manufacturing, and operational requirements.
Dynamics 365 ERP features at a glance
| Dynamics 365 feature | Primary business benefit | Relevant application |
| Financial dimensions | More detailed financial analysis | Dynamics 365 Finance |
| Advanced bank reconciliation | Faster transaction matching | Dynamics 365 Finance |
| Electronic Reporting | Configurable electronic documents and reports | Dynamics 365 Finance |
| Cash-flow forecasting | Improved liquidity planning | Dynamics 365 Finance |
| Workflow approvals | Consistent financial and operational controls | Finance and Supply Chain Management |
| Saved views and personalization | More productive user experiences | Finance and Supply Chain Management |
| Task Recorder | Process documentation and user training | Finance and Supply Chain Management |
| Business events | Automated notifications and system responses | Finance and Supply Chain Management |
| Planning Optimization | Faster material and supply planning | Supply Chain Management |
| Landed cost management | More accurate import and product costs | Supply Chain Management |
| Vendor collaboration | More efficient supplier communication | Supply Chain Management |
| Asset Management | Better maintenance planning and cost tracking | Supply Chain Management |
Availability depends on the Dynamics 365 applications, licenses, configuration, and features enabled within your environment.
1. Financial dimensions
Organizations often expand their chart of accounts to report on departments, business units, locations, products, or cost centers. Over time, this can produce an unnecessarily complicated account structure.
Financial dimensions in Dynamics 365 Finance allow businesses to categorize and analyze transactions without creating a separate general ledger account for every reporting combination.
Common financial dimensions include:
- Department
- Cost center
- Business unit
- Location
- Region
- Product line
- Project
- Customer group
For example, a company can use one expense account while applying dimensions to analyze the expense by department, location, and business unit. This provides detailed reporting without multiplying the number of general ledger accounts.
Financial dimensions can also support financial reporting, budgeting, allocations, and financial controls. However, they require careful planning. Too many dimensions, inconsistent values, or poorly designed account structures can make data entry and reporting more complicated.
Before configuring financial dimensions, organizations should define which information decision-makers need and how that information will be used.
2. Advanced bank reconciliation
Bank reconciliation can consume significant time when finance teams manually compare bank statements with transactions recorded in the ERP system.
Advanced bank reconciliation in Dynamics 365 Finance allows organizations to import electronic bank statements and automatically match transactions based on configurable reconciliation rules.
Microsoft supports common formats such as ISO 20022, BAI2, and MT940. Organizations can also extend the import process to support other formats.
Matching rules can evaluate information such as:
- Transaction dates
- Payment references
- Amounts
- Bank transaction codes
- Customer or vendor information
- Document numbers
Automating the initial matching process allows finance employees to concentrate on exceptions instead of reviewing every transaction manually.
Modern bank reconciliation capabilities can also support processes such as applying customer or vendor payments and posting certain bank transactions directly to the general ledger.
Effective implementation requires accurate bank formats, carefully ordered matching rules, and clear procedures for handling unmatched transactions. Learn more in Microsoft’s advanced bank reconciliation documentation.
3. Electronic Reporting
Electronic Reporting, commonly called ER, is a configurable Dynamics 365 tool for creating and maintaining electronic reports, payment files, and business documents.
Organizations can use Electronic Reporting to exchange information with:
- Banks
- Government agencies
- Tax authorities
- Vendors
- Customers
- Other business systems
Potential use cases include:
- Electronic invoices
- Regulatory reports
- Bank payment files
- Tax documents
- Customer invoices
- Vendor documents
- Country-specific electronic formats
A major advantage of Electronic Reporting is its configuration-based approach. In many scenarios, organizations can adapt formats and data mappings without changing the underlying application source code.
This can be especially valuable for global organizations that must maintain different banking, invoicing, and regulatory formats across multiple countries or regions.
Electronic Reporting is still a specialized tool. Configurations should be governed, tested, documented, and maintained by employees or consultants who understand both the business document and the underlying Dynamics 365 data.
Microsoft describes Electronic Reporting as a configurable tool for maintaining regulatory electronic reporting and payment formats.
4. Cash-flow forecasting
Cash-flow forecasting is one of the most valuable Dynamics 365 Finance features for organizations that need a current view of liquidity.
Dynamics 365 Finance can use information from accounts receivable, accounts payable, budgeting, purchasing, sales orders, and other sources to estimate future cash inflows and outflows.
Finance teams can use cash-flow forecasting to evaluate:
- Expected customer payments
- Upcoming vendor obligations
- Short-term liquidity
- Cash requirements for planned purchases
- The effect of late customer payments
- Expected cash positions across legal entities
- Potential cash shortages or surpluses
Because the forecast is connected to ERP transactions, it can provide a more current foundation than a forecast maintained separately in spreadsheets.
The quality of the results still depends on reliable transaction data, realistic payment terms, correct cash-flow configuration, and appropriate forecasting assumptions. Organizations should treat the system forecast as decision support rather than a replacement for financial review.
Microsoft continues to position cash-flow forecasting, customer payment predictions, and connected financial analytics among the core capabilities of Dynamics 365 Finance.
5. Workflow automation and approvals
Email-based approvals make it difficult to determine who approved a transaction, when the approval happened, and where a request is currently delayed.
Dynamics 365 workflows can establish structured approval processes for financial and operational transactions.
Common examples include:
- Purchase requisitions
- Purchase orders
- Vendor invoices
- General journals
- Expense reports
- Customer credit limits
- Budget requests
- Vendor onboarding
- Inventory journals
Approval rules can route transactions according to value, department, legal entity, category, budget responsibility, or other conditions.
For example, a purchase order below a defined amount might require approval from a department manager, while a larger purchase could also require review from finance or executive leadership.
Well-designed workflows can improve internal controls, reduce manual follow-up, and create a consistent approval history. However, adding too many approval levels can slow operations. Workflow design should reflect genuine financial, operational, and compliance requirements.
Are You Getting the Full Value from Dynamics 365?
Your Dynamics 365 environment may include valuable features that are not fully configured or adopted. Calsoft can review your current setup, identify underused capabilities, and recommend practical ways to improve productivity, visibility, and business processes.
Discover Underused D365 Features6. Saved views and personalization
Not every employee needs to see the same fields, filters, columns, and records.
Saved views and personalization allow Dynamics 365 users to adapt pages to their responsibilities. Depending on their permissions, users can:
- Add, remove, or rearrange fields
- Reorder grid columns
- Apply filters
- Save frequently used views
- Hide unnecessary information
- Create role-specific page layouts
- Switch between views for different tasks
A purchasing manager, for example, might create one view for overdue purchase orders and another for orders awaiting confirmation. A finance user might save a filtered view for high-value transactions requiring review.
Administrators can also publish views to specific security roles, helping departments work from consistent layouts and filters.
These capabilities can improve adoption because employees spend less time navigating irrelevant information. Personalization should still be governed so that critical fields and controls are not hidden unintentionally.
7. Task Recorder
Task Recorder is one of the most genuinely overlooked D365 features.
It records a user’s actions in Dynamics 365 and turns the process into a structured series of steps. These recordings can support:
- Employee training
- Standard operating procedures
- Business process documentation
- User acceptance testing
- Regression testing
- Implementation workshops
- Support and troubleshooting
- Process validation
Instead of documenting a process manually with screenshots and written instructions, a subject matter expert can complete the process while Task Recorder captures the steps.
This can help organizations maintain more consistent documentation and reduce reliance on a small number of experienced employees.
Task recordings should be reviewed whenever configurations, processes, or user interfaces change. Outdated recordings can create confusion, particularly after significant system changes.
Microsoft provides additional guidance through its Task Recorder resources.
8. Business events and automated notifications
Business events allow external systems and services to respond when specific business processes occur in Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management.
A business event could initiate an action when:
- A purchase order is confirmed
- A workflow is approved or rejected
- A sales order changes status
- A vendor is created
- An invoice is posted
- A business process reaches a defined stage
The event can then trigger a response through Power Automate, Azure services, or another connected application.
For example, a business could notify a purchasing manager when a critical order changes status, alert a warehouse team about an operational exception, or send information to an external system after a transaction is completed.
Business events reduce the need for connected applications to repeatedly check Dynamics 365 for changes. They can support more responsive integrations and automated processes when implemented with appropriate monitoring and error handling.
Microsoft explains that business events allow external systems to receive notifications from finance and operations applications and respond with corresponding business actions.
9. Planning Optimization
One of the most useful Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management features for manufacturers and distributors is Planning Optimization. It helps businesses balance customer demand with inventory, raw materials, production capacity, supplier lead times, and planned orders.
Planning Optimization improves master planning by helping businesses determine:
- Which materials should be purchased
- Which products should be manufactured
- When production should begin
- Whether inventory should be transferred
- How much safety stock is required
- Whether capacity is available
- Which planned orders require action
This capability is particularly valuable for companies managing high transaction volumes, multiple locations, complex bills of materials, or frequently changing supply and demand.
However, its recommendations are only as reliable as the underlying data. Lead times, calendars, order settings, coverage groups, safety stock levels, resource capacity, and product information must accurately reflect the organization’s operations.
For a deeper look at this functionality, read how Dynamics 365 MRP helps solve supply chain challenges.
10. Landed cost management
A product’s purchase price does not represent its complete cost.
Imported goods may also include:
- Freight
- Customs duties
- Insurance
- Brokerage fees
- Port charges
- Handling expenses
- Domestic transportation
- Other voyage costs
The landed cost capabilities in Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management help organizations track goods in transit and allocate related costs across products and purchase orders.
Businesses can use landed cost management to:
- Create and manage voyages
- Track goods while in transit
- Estimate freight and import costs
- Allocate costs across items
- Reconcile estimated and actual costs
- Calculate more accurate inventory values
- Improve product margin analysis
This functionality is particularly relevant to manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, automotive suppliers, importers, and organizations with international supply chains.
Accurate landed cost information helps businesses understand whether a product remains profitable after transportation and import expenses are included.
11. Vendor collaboration
Procurement teams often exchange purchase orders, confirmations, delivery information, and requests for quotation through email. This can create delays and make it difficult to maintain consistent records.
Vendor collaboration capabilities in Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management can give approved suppliers controlled access to relevant procurement information.
Depending on the configuration, vendors may be able to:
- Review purchase orders
- Accept or reject orders
- Suggest changes
- Respond to requests for quotation
- Update delivery information
- Review consignment inventory
- Maintain selected information
Vendor collaboration can reduce manual communication and help both parties work from more consistent information.
Successful adoption depends on vendor readiness, security, process design, and onboarding. It may not be appropriate for every supplier, but it can provide value for strategic or high-volume vendor relationships.
12. Asset Management
Manufacturers and asset-intensive businesses sometimes manage equipment maintenance through separate applications, calendars, or spreadsheets.
Asset Management in Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management connects maintenance activity with inventory, procurement, operations, and financial data.
The functionality can support:
- Preventive maintenance plans
- Maintenance schedules
- Work orders
- Technician assignments
- Asset counters
- Fault reporting
- Equipment history
- Spare-parts usage
- Downtime tracking
- Maintenance cost analysis
Maintenance can be scheduled according to time, usage, or other operating conditions. Employees can create work orders, assign workers, record consumed materials, and document completed work.
Connecting asset maintenance with ERP data helps organizations evaluate equipment costs, spare-parts consumption, maintenance frequency, and asset performance. It may also reduce unexpected downtime when preventive maintenance processes are properly established.
Extending Dynamics 365 with Customer Insights
Not every valuable Dynamics 365 capability is a native Finance or Supply Chain Management feature.
Dynamics 365 Customer Insights is a separate application that can connect ERP transaction data with customer information from CRM, e-commerce, loyalty, service, marketing, and other systems.
ERP data may include:
- Purchase history
- Transaction value
- Products purchased
- Order frequency
- Returns
- Customer locations
- Payment activity
Customer Insights can use unified customer profiles to support segmentation and predictive models. Depending on data availability and model requirements, these predictions can include:
- Customer lifetime value
- Transactional churn
- Subscription churn
- Product recommendations
- Sentiment analysis
A distributor could use ERP order history and customer data to identify valuable accounts whose purchasing activity has declined. The business could then create a segment for targeted outreach or account review.
Customer Insights requires appropriate licensing, data preparation, profile unification, permissions, and sufficient historical information. Microsoft’s predefined prediction models have specific data requirements, so organizations should assess data readiness before planning predictive use cases.
Read Microsoft’s current documentation on Customer Insights predictions for details.
Extending Dynamics 365 with Microsoft Power Platform
Microsoft Power Platform allows organizations to extend Dynamics 365 ERP with analytics, applications, workflows, websites, and AI-powered agents.
Power BI
Power BI can transform financial and operational data into interactive reports and dashboards.
Organizations can monitor:
- Revenue and profitability
- Budget versus actual performance
- Inventory turnover
- Supplier performance
- Production efficiency
- Forecast accuracy
- Order fulfillment
- On-time delivery
Power Apps
Power Apps can be used to create low-code business applications connected to ERP data and processes.
Examples include:
- Inventory-counting applications
- Quality-inspection forms
- Maintenance requests
- Mobile approval tools
- Purchase-request applications
- Warehouse exception reporting
Power Automate
Power Automate can automate processes between Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365, and other connected applications.
A workflow might:
- Route a request for approval
- Notify a manager about a delayed shipment
- Distribute a scheduled report
- Alert a buyer about an inventory shortage
- Create a follow-up task
- Transfer information between applications
Microsoft Copilot Studio
Microsoft Copilot Studio, previously known as Power Virtual Agents, allows organizations to create AI-powered agents.
Depending on security, integration, data access, and licensing, an agent could help employees find policies, answer questions about internal processes, or retrieve authorized operational information.
Power Pages
Power Pages allows organizations to create external-facing websites connected to business data and processes. Potential uses include customer, vendor, partner, and service-request portals.
These products extend Dynamics 365 ERP, but they are not automatically included with every Finance or Supply Chain Management license. Organizations should review licensing, governance, security, data access, testing, and ownership before deploying Power Platform solutions.
Learn more about Microsoft Power Platform consulting and implementation from Calsoft Systems.
How to identify underused Dynamics 365 features
The most valuable features depend on the organization’s operations, industry, existing configuration, and business objectives.
Start by identifying work that employees still perform outside Dynamics 365.
Look for:
- Reports repeatedly rebuilt in spreadsheets
- Approvals managed through email
- Information entered into multiple systems
- Manual notifications and reminders
- Separate maintenance records
- Inconsistent financial or operational data
- Limited supply chain visibility
- Manual bank reconciliation
- Forecasts disconnected from current transactions
- Third-party applications that duplicate D365 functionality
- Features configured but rarely used
- Users relying on workarounds because they lack training
These situations may point to a configuration gap, integration opportunity, process problem, or user-adoption issue.
A feature assessment should also consider whether customizations created several years ago are still necessary. Microsoft regularly adds new functionality to Dynamics 365, and a standard capability may now replace a costly customization or manual workaround.
What to consider before enabling additional Dynamics 365 features
More functionality does not automatically produce better results. Before introducing another feature, organizations should evaluate:
Business value
What measurable problem will the feature solve? Define the desired outcome before beginning configuration.
Licensing
Some features, modules, AI capabilities, and connected applications require additional licenses or capacity.
Data readiness
Forecasting, planning, reporting, and AI depend on reliable, complete, and properly structured data.
Security and compliance
New workflows, integrations, applications, and reports may change who can access sensitive business information.
Process design
Technology should support a clearly defined process. Automating an inefficient process may only make the inefficiency happen faster.
User adoption
Employees need role-based training, documentation, and support. A valuable feature will not deliver results if people do not understand when or how to use it.
Maintenance
Configurations, workflows, reports, integrations, and AI models require monitoring and ongoing ownership.
Frequently asked questions
The main Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP features include financial management, accounts payable, accounts receivable, budgeting, cash management, procurement, inventory management, warehouse management, production control, master planning, asset management, reporting, workflow automation, and integration capabilities.
Specific functionality depends on whether an organization uses Dynamics 365 Finance, Supply Chain Management, Commerce, Project Operations, Human Resources, or another Dynamics 365 application.
Dynamics 365, or D365, is Microsoft’s broader suite of ERP and CRM applications. D365 F&O is the commonly used legacy name for Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations. D365 F&SCM refers to Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management, which Microsoft now markets as separate but connected applications. However, many organizations still use D365 F&O when referring to the broader ERP environment.
Dynamics 365 integrates with Power BI and Power Automate, but licensing and usage rights vary. Organizations should confirm which capabilities are included with their licenses and whether additional Power Platform licensing or capacity is required.
Dynamics 365 Customer Insights is a separate Dynamics 365 application that can connect ERP transactions with customer data from CRM, e-commerce, marketing, and other sources. It is not a standard feature included with every Dynamics 365 Finance or Supply Chain Management license and may require separate licensing and implementation.
Many features can be configured within an existing Dynamics 365 environment, but availability depends on the installed applications, software version, licensing, system architecture, and current configuration.
Businesses should test new functionality in a non-production environment and evaluate its effect on integrations, customizations, security roles, reporting, and business processes.
Get more value from Microsoft Dynamics 365
The value of Dynamics 365 depends on how well its capabilities support your organization’s processes, users, and goals. Features that are poorly configured, underused, or unfamiliar to employees can leave significant value on the table.
Calsoft Systems helps organizations implement and optimize Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP. Our consultants can evaluate your current environment, identify overlooked features, and recommend practical improvements through configuration, automation, integration, or user training.
Our experience includes supporting complex ERP transformations, such as helping Sanrio move from a legacy system to Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations.
A review of your Dynamics 365 environment can reveal underused features and opportunities to improve configuration, automation, and user adoption. Contact Calsoft to discuss where your ERP system could deliver more value.
