Multi-Environment Consolidation - New feature in Business Central

Greetings, Readers,

Recently I read about this new feature by Microsoft in Business Central which enables Consolidation between multiple environments. This is one big update by Microsoft.

If you check the earlier version of Business Central, it requires you to export Database file from Subsidiary company and import it in the Consolidated company to run the consolidation. This was a time consuming and manual task that user needs to perform. Developers were customizing and automating this process through different methods.

In recent update Microsoft came up with method of using APIs to transfer data from Subsidiary company to Consolidate company. It requires user to do some basic setup and grant permission through login to environment of the Subsidiary company and your whole process of exporting file and importing to run the consolidation is out of the picture.

If you look at Business value this update saves a lot of time and money for the organizations using Consolidation functionality. Community and users know the pain of doing multi-environment consolidation and this update is a big relief.

I have tried the setup which is very simple and it takes just 5-10 minutes for each Subsidiary company, let's have a walkthrough.

Steps:

1. Basic Setups : All the basic setups that are required to run the Consolidation in previous versions are same. Below is the checklist for it. Not explaining this as it is same as earlier versions. I have given a link to Microsoft learn at the end of this blog to do these setups.

    - Setting up Chart of Accounts for Consolidation

    - Setting up Dimensions for Consolidation

    - Exchange rate setup

    - Creating Business Units

    - Accounting year creation and closing process (not specific to consolidation)

2. Consolidation setup : This setup you need to run in each Subsidiary company and Consolidated company once. Here you can specify the details like, Maximum number of tries, API record size, Maximum attempts in case of error, wait time between tries etc.

You can check the current environment's API endpoint, note it or copy it somewhere you will need it in next step.

If current company is Subsidiary company then turn on the "Enable company as subsidiary" Boolean.

As you enable the Boolean, it will open a dialogue box for Privacy statement and terms, this you need to Accept and close.

3. Business Unit setup: After this you need to go to Consolidated company where you have created Business units of subsidiaries. Open the Business Unit card and go to  Data Import fast tab.

Here you need to select Default Data Import method as API and provide API's endpoint which we copied from previous step.

This will open a new tab where you need to login with credentials of the Subsidiary Company.

If the login is success it will open list of companies available in the environment. You need to select the company for which you have created Business Unit and click Ok.

You can check that API endpoint and Company name is updated in the Data Import tab. 

That's all for the setup. Now let's try and run the consolidation.

4. Run Consolidation : Click on Consolidate action on Business Units page.

It will open report run page where you need to specify details for consolidation like period and document no. etc. Click on Ok.

Next you will see the list of Business Units and against it you can see the Data Import method and if API access is granted. If not granted you can use Grant access option. Select the Consolidate Boolean for the Business Units you want to consolidate and click on Finish.

This will run the consolidation process and if it is success it will give confirmation.

That's all you need to do, pretty easy right ?

It surely is a easy setup and I would definitely appreciate Business Central Product team for this.

Though one thing which I find pretty annoying is confirmation messages for each Business Unit, even through we have selected Business Units with Consolidate Boolean we need to click Yes on confirmation message for each Business Unit. I guess it is due to report code, I hope Product team will update the code. 

If you are new to consolidation check the Microsoft learn page for consolidation : Set up company consolidation - Business Central | Microsoft Learn

I hope this blog was useful and informative, let me know in comments if you come across any difficulties in the setup process.

Happy Reading !!