How to automate expense management in Dynamics 365 Business Central

Key takeaways

• Business Central codes spend to a G/L account plus dimensions: two global dimensions and up to eight shortcut dimensions.
• Microsoft's new Expense Management module treats company card spend as a payment method on an expense report. Its documentation describes no card-feed import into expenses.
• Bank feeds through Envestnet Yodlee reach the Payment Reconciliation Journal, in the US and Canada, online version only.
• Vergo proposes account and dimension values from your history and posts coded journal lines with receipts through the v2.0 API.

Where should you go next?

• Vergo's Dynamics 365 Business Central integration
• What expense management software integrates with Dynamics 365 Business Central?
• Get started with Vergo

How do you automate expense management in Business Central, step by step?

1. Connect Business Central. Vergo connects directly through Business Central's public v2.0 API. Nothing is needed from your team.
2. Connect the cards you already have. Connecting your existing cards involves no card applications, no re-issuing and no banking change.
3. Capture receipts by text. Employees handle everything by text message — no app to download, no portal login — and Vergo chases missing receipts itself instead of waiting for a report.
4. Code account and dimensions. Vergo proposes the G/L account and each dimension value (department, project, area, whatever your dimensions are) for every line, with the reason.
5. Post to Business Central. Approved spend posts as journal lines, or as purchase invoices where you want vendor history, with the receipt attached.

What does Business Central need on each card transaction?

• G/L account: the expense account for what was bought.
• Global dimensions: the two dimensions set on every entry, often department and project.
• Shortcut dimensions: up to eight more that appear on journal lines for fast entry.
• Attachment: the receipt, so the auditor can open it from the entry.

Business Central's Text-to-Account Mapping can send recurring bank statement text, such as fuel or bank fees, straight to a G/L account. It works on the statement text, not on the receipt, so it cannot set a project dimension for a purchase it has not seen before.

Where does Business Central stop and automation start?

Microsoft is adding expense reports to Business Central, with an Expense Agent that reads receipts and costs 50 Copilot Credits per receipt. Company card spend is recorded on the report through its payment method. What still needs a person is the card-to-report step and the dimension choice on anything new. Vergo reads the receipt itself, line by line, and predicts the coding from what was actually bought — the G/L account and the dimension values — not just the vendor name on the header.

A practical example

A wholesale distributor's sales rep pays for a client dinner and a trade-show booth on the company card. Vergo texts for both receipts, proposes the entertainment account with the sales department and the customer's region dimension for the dinner, and the marketing account with the trade-show campaign dimension for the booth. The controller confirms both from the reasons shown, and two journal lines post to Business Central with receipts attached.

How Vergo handles this

Vergo proposes the coding by inference from your own accounting structure and history — no rule library to build, no keyword lists to maintain, and new vendors are coded on first sight. Approval workflows are optional and fit how you already control spend: route by GL account or by amount — or skip approval flows entirely and let policy flags catch only what breaks a rule. Transactions are ready to code the moment they happen — no waiting for clearing — and once they clear, they sync into Business Central.