If you work in accounting, you probably have a spreadsheet open right now that exists purely because your ERP cannot do something it should be able to do.
Maybe it is for tracking employee expenses. Maybe it is for calculating a withholding tax amount before manually keying a journal entry. Maybe it is a workaround for a vendor billing arrangement your system does not handle natively.
You built it because you had to. And you have been maintaining it ever since.
Workarounds Have a Cost You Stop Noticing After a While
Research from the 2024 Business Solutions Survey found that finance teams spend an average of 25 hours per week on manual data entry and reconciliation. That is more than half a standard work week, before anything strategic gets done.
The problem with workarounds is not just the time they take. It is that they introduce risk. A formula error in a spreadsheet does not announce itself. A manual calculation handled differently by two people on the same team does not show up as an inconsistency until someone asks the wrong question at the wrong time.
Over 70 percent of companies still rely heavily on spreadsheets for budgeting, forecasting, and consolidation. That number has barely moved in years, not because finance teams want it that way, but because their systems have not given them a better option.
Business Central Wave 1 2026 Closes Several of Those Gaps at Once
Microsoft’s Business Central Wave 1 2026 release, also referred to as BC28, introduces five finance capabilities that reduce reliance on spreadsheets, manual calculations, and disconnected workflows.For accountants and controllers already on Business Central, several of these arrive automatically. Others need your admin to switch them on.
Here is what is coming, when it arrives, and what it means for your day-to-day.
1.Investment Boost for Fixed Assets (Available May 2026,Auto-Enabled)
If your business uses accelerated depreciation treatment for qualifying capital investments, you have likely been handling the calculations and journal adjustments manually or through a workaround outside of your standard fixed asset module.
Investment Boost support in BC28 brings this treatment into the fixed asset workflow natively. The relevant calculations happen inside Business Central rather than alongside it.
This feature is auto-enabled, meaning it will be available in your environment in May without your admin needing to do anything. If fixed asset accounting is part of your regular close process, it is worth understanding how this changes your existing workflow before it goes live.
What to ask your admin: how this interacts with your current fixed asset setup, and whether any existing manual steps in your close process can be retired once it is active.
2.Excise Tax Calculations (Available May 2026, Admin-Enabled)
Excise tax handling has historically been one of the messier manual processes in BC environments where it applies, whether for fuel, alcohol, tobacco, or other regulated goods. The typical approach involves calculating amounts outside the system and keying adjustments manually.
BC28 brings native excise tax calculation into the platform in May. Unlike most of the features in this wave, it is admin-enabled rather than auto-enabled, which means it will not appear in your environment until your admin activates it through Feature Management.
If excise taxes are relevant to your business, this one is worth flagging to your admin now rather than waiting until May arrives.
What to ask your admin: whether excise tax configuration is on their Wave 1 checklist, and what setup is required before you can start using it.
3.Self-Billed Invoices (Available June 2026,Auto-Enabled)
Self-billing arrangements, where your business generates an invoice on behalf of a vendor rather than receiving one from them, are common in certain industries and supplier relationships. In most BC environments today, these are handled through manual workarounds because the system does not support the transaction type natively.
BC28 adds self-billed invoicing as a standard capability, generally available in June and auto-enabled. If you have vendor relationships that operate this way, this replaces whatever manual process your team has been using.
What to ask your admin: which vendors are currently handled through a self-billing workaround, and what transition steps are needed to move those to the native process once June arrives.
4.Withholding Tax Calculations for Vendors (Available June 2026,Auto-Enabled)
Withholding tax on vendor payments is another area where BC has historically required teams to calculate manually and post adjustments separately. For businesses operating in jurisdictions where withholding applies, this has meant extra steps on every relevant payment run.
Native withholding tax calculation arrives in BC28 in June, auto-enabled. The system handles the calculation within the payment workflow rather than alongside it.
This is one of the features most likely to directly reduce the number of manual steps in your regular payment process. It is worth reviewing your current withholding tax workflow now so you know exactly what changes when June arrives.
What to ask your admin: which vendors are subject to withholding in your environment, and what configuration is needed to ensure the calculations are set up correctly before go-live.
5.Employee Expense Reports (Entering Preview May 2026)
Expense management is one of the most common finance functions handled entirely outside of Business Central. Most teams are using a disconnected tool, a shared spreadsheet, or a manual reimbursement process that requires someone to key entries into BC separately.
BC28 brings native employee expense report functionality into the platform. This feature enters public preview in May 2026, which means your team can begin evaluating and configuring it before it reaches full general availability in October 2026.
It is worth being clear about timing here. October falls outside the formal Wave 1 window, so this is not a feature you will be running at full production capacity this spring. But the May preview window is real and valuable. Teams that start evaluating in preview will be in a much better position to go live cleanly in October than those who wait.
What to ask your admin: how to access the preview in May, and whether it makes sense to run a pilot with a small group of employees before the full rollout in October.
The Broader Point
Five features. Multiple manual processes retired. Several spreadsheets that have been quietly costing your team time and introducing risk for years, replaced by native functionality inside the system you already use every day.
That is not a minor update. That is a meaningful reduction in the gap between what your ERP should be doing and what it has been making your team do manually.
If you are on Business Central, now is the time to go through your current close checklist and identify which manual steps map to these features. Not every item will be relevant to your business, but the ones that are will be worth configuring carefully before the GA dates arrive.
If you are not yet on Business Central and you recognized your own workarounds in this list, that recognition is worth paying attention to.
Ready to Reduce More Than Manual Work?
Business Central Wave 1 2026 introduces meaningful finance improvements, but many accounting teams are still working around limitations created by legacy systems and disconnected processes.
Our Legacy Modernization Workshop helps finance leaders evaluate where operational friction, spreadsheet dependency, and system limitations may still be slowing the business down.
No pitch. Just practical guidance on what modernization should look like for your organization.
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