How to automate expense management in Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations

Key takeaways

• In D365 Finance, financial dimension values become segments of the ledger account, so a wrong dimension is a wrong account.
• The native Expense management module imports card transactions through a credit card transactions data entity, manually or as a recurring data job.
• Vergo proposes the main account and dimension values from how your team coded similar spend, with the reason shown.
• Delivery is through the OData API as ledger journal lines or vendor invoices, after a one-time app registration by your admin.

Where should you go next?

• Vergo's Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations integration
• What expense management software integrates with Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations?
• Get started with Vergo

How do you automate expense management in D365 Finance & Operations, step by step?

1. Register the application. Your admin registers Vergo in your environment once; Vergo then reads main accounts, dimensions and vendors over OData.
2. Connect your existing cards. No data job to schedule and no card file to map: connecting your existing cards involves no card applications, no re-issuing and no banking change.
3. Collect 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 main account plus business unit, department, cost centre or project dimensions, per line.
5. Deliver to Finance. Approved spend becomes ledger journal lines, or vendor invoices where you want AP history.

What does D365 Finance need on each card transaction?

• Main account: the natural account, often defaulted from an expense category.
• Financial dimensions: custom or entity-backed values such as department, cost centre, business unit or project, which become segments of the ledger account.
• Legal entity: the company that owns the spend, which matters for intercompany expenses.

Where does D365 Expense management stop and automation start?

Microsoft's Expense management covers the lifecycle from submission to reimbursement, with policies, per diem rules and a Power Apps mobile app that reads receipts with OCR. Card data arrives through the data entity, and an employee still attaches each transaction to a report and picks a category. The category supplies a default main account; the dimensions come from defaults or from the employee. Vergo reads the receipt itself, line by line, and predicts the coding from what was actually bought — the main account and financial dimensions — not just the vendor name on the header.

A practical example

A manufacturer's maintenance lead buys a replacement motor and safety gloves at an industrial supplier with a plant card. Vergo reads the two receipt lines, proposes the repairs account with the plant and production-line dimensions for the motor, and the safety supplies account with the same plant for the gloves. The plant controller confirms, and two ledger journal lines reach Finance with the dimensions set.

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. After your admin registers the application in your environment, Vergo connects through the OData API and delivers coded spend as ledger journal lines or vendor invoices with their financial dimensions. 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.