Dynamics 365 Business Central Integration Development — API, Power Automate, Power Apps & Power BI
Dynamics 365 Business Central Integration Development is time-and-materials integration engineering for organizations already running Business Central whose implementation partner does not do this kind of work: REST and OData API integrations between Business Central and your line-of-business and SaaS systems, Power Automate flows and Power Apps built on the Business Central connector, Power BI reporting on Business Central data, and — where a custom API or event is genuinely needed — the AL extension scoped and coordinated with your Business Central partner of record. What this is not: Business Central implementation, licensing, upgrades, or functional ERP consulting. Those stay with your BC partner, deliberately. Billed at $175 per hour against a written effort estimate you approve; a typical engagement is planned at about four weeks.
What this engagement is
Business Central customers usually have a good implementation partner — strong on finance, inventory, posting setup, and the twice-yearly update — who does not build integrations. Meanwhile the shipping system, the e-commerce platform, the field-service app, payroll, the CRM, and the reporting team all need Business Central data, and until someone builds the connection the answer is a CSV export and a person re-keying it. This service is the integration bench that sits beside your BC partner: we build the connections, they keep the ERP. That division is stated on this page and honored in practice, because a customer with two partners arguing over the same configuration is worse off than a customer with one. The surface we build on is mature and documented. Business Central online exposes a versioned REST API (API v2.0, OData v4, JSON) for customers, vendors, items, sales and purchase documents, journals, ledger entries, and more; custom entities can be exposed as additional API pages and queries from AL; and every integration authenticates through Microsoft Entra ID with OAuth 2.0 under an app registration you control — basic authentication with web-service access keys is no longer available for Business Central online. Business events can notify external systems when something happens in BC. The Business Central connector for Power Automate and Power Apps covers list, get, create, update, and delete on the same entities plus business-event triggers, and BC ships approval-flow templates on Power Automate for purchase and sales documents, customers, vendors, and items. For reporting, the Power BI connector reads API pages and web services, and Microsoft publishes its own Power BI apps for Business Central — finance, sales, purchasing, inventory, projects, and more — built on star-schema semantic models you can extend rather than rebuild. Where the other Dynamics application is Dynamics 365 Sales, Business Central's built-in Dataverse integration couples customers, contacts, items, and sales documents without custom code. What we build with it falls into four kinds of work. System-to-system integration: Azure Functions, Logic Apps, or Service Bus for unattended, high-volume, or ordered exchanges, or Power Automate where the volume and error-handling needs are modest — always designed for idempotent re-runs and paced within Microsoft's published per-user request limits. Power Platform on the BC connector: approval flows from BC's own templates, notification flows on business events, and Power Apps for warehouse, shop-floor, or field capture that write back to Business Central under the user's own permissions. Power BI: Microsoft's BC apps extended with your measures, custom semantic models over API pages, or — for large ledgers — a staged extraction into Azure SQL or Fabric so reports do not hammer the API. And AL, narrowly: when the standard API lacks a field or entity, we write the specification for an API page, query, or business event in a per-tenant extension and coordinate it with your partner — they build it, or, where they agree, we build the API-surface-only extension ourselves. Posting routines, business logic, report layouts, and their existing customizations stay theirs, without exception. Much of this is the same discipline we apply to Microsoft Graph integrations — Entra-registered identities, least-privilege permissions, and documented ownership — pointed at a different API. The boundaries, stated plainly. We do not implement Business Central, advise on or assign its licensing, run its upgrades, or open its support tickets with Microsoft — Business Central online support is routed through your partner, and that is where it should stay. We do not migrate ERPs into or out of Business Central. If your integration grows into a product other BC customers could use, that becomes an AppSource app, and our AppSource publishing service takes it through Partner Center and certification.
Success criteria
What you receive
How the work unfolds
Inventory the systems Business Central must talk to, the data each exchange carries, volumes and timing, and where the standard API stops. Confirm licensing on the Power Platform side, agree the coordination model with your BC partner, and deliver the effort estimate for your approval.
Create the Entra ID app registrations and Business Central permission sets, prepare the sandbox, set up secret storage, and agree change windows with your partner — especially where AL is in scope or where the integration touches areas their extensions also touch.
Implement the system-to-system integrations against the sandbox: mapping, idempotency, retry under throttling, error handling, and logging. Where a custom API is needed, the specification goes to your partner or the API-surface extension is built and deployed to sandbox.
Configure approval and notification flows, build the scoped Power Apps, and stand up Power BI — Microsoft's BC apps extended, custom models, or staged extraction — reconciling every report to Business Central before anyone relies on it.
Run UAT with your process owners, deploy to production in the agreed windows, and deliver the runbook — including the regression checklist for Business Central's next update wave, so the integrations survive the release cadence without surprises.
Prerequisites
Who does what
IT Partner
- Lead discovery, confirm feasibility against the Business Central API and connector, and deliver the written estimate with prerequisites before build.
- Design and build the integrations, flows, apps, and reporting under Entra-registered identities with least-privilege Business Central permission sets.
- Write AL specifications and, where agreed, build API-surface-only per-tenant extensions; coordinate deployment windows with your BC partner.
- Test in sandbox, support UAT, and remediate in-scope defects during the agreed validation window.
- Reconcile Power BI outputs to Business Central with your business owners.
- Deliver the runbook and update-wave regression checklist, and walk your administrators through it.
Your team
- Assign business owners per integration and a Business Central administration contact, and introduce us to your BC partner.
- Provide access to Business Central, Entra ID, the Power Platform environment, Azure, and the systems on the other end, or working sessions with the people who hold it.
- Confirm and provide licensing: Power Automate or Power Apps premium where needed, Power BI, and Azure consumption.
- Decide mapping and system-of-record questions, and approve change windows with your BC partner.
- Complete UAT with timely feedback and business sign-off on reconciled reports.
- Own the integrations after handover — secret rotation, monitoring, and the regression check at each Business Central update — with the runbook we leave behind, and keep your BC partner as the owner of the ERP itself.
What's not included
Limitations & technical notes
Frequently asked questions
What is the Dynamics 365 Business Central Integration Development service?
Time-and-materials integration engineering for organizations already running Business Central: API and OData integrations to your other business systems, Power Automate flows and Power Apps built on the Business Central connector, Power BI reporting on Business Central data, and narrowly scoped AL extension work — custom API pages, queries, or business events — coordinated with your Business Central partner. It is explicitly not Business Central implementation, licensing, or upgrades; your BC partner keeps those. Billed at $175 per hour against a written estimate you approve.
We already have a Business Central partner. Why would we use you?
Because many excellent Business Central partners are ERP specialists rather than integration developers — strong on finance, inventory, and the update cycle, and honest that connecting BC to your shipping system or building a Power App for the warehouse is not what they do. We fill exactly that gap, and we stay in our lane: your partner remains the owner of the ERP, its configuration, its licensing, and its support relationship with Microsoft. Where AL is needed we coordinate with them in writing, and where they prefer to build it themselves from our specification, that is a good outcome.
What does the Business Central API actually expose?
Business Central online publishes a versioned REST API (v2.0, OData v4, JSON) covering customers, vendors, items, sales orders, quotes, invoices, credit memos, purchase documents, journals, general ledger entries, dimensions, and more. Where you need something the standard API does not carry — a custom field, a custom table, an event — it can be exposed through API pages, queries, or business events in an AL extension, which is the narrowly scoped AL work on this page. Pages and queries can also be published as OData web services. Every call authenticates through Microsoft Entra ID with OAuth 2.0 under an app registration you own; web-service access keys are no longer an option for Business Central online.
What can Power Automate do with Business Central?
Quite a lot before any code is written. The Business Central connector supports listing, reading, creating, updating, and deleting records across the standard entities and any custom API pages, plus triggers on record changes and business events. Business Central ships approval-flow templates on Power Automate for purchase and sales documents, customers, vendors, and items, so approvals routed through Teams with the record blocked until approved are configuration rather than development. We use those first and build custom flows only for what they do not cover. The connector is premium, which we address in licensing during discovery.
Can we build a Power App on top of Business Central?
Yes — the same connector serves Power Apps, so a warehouse count app, a shop-floor capture screen, or a field app that reads and writes Business Central data under the user's own permissions is a well-trodden path. The design questions are the usual ones: which entities, offline needs, who owns the app, and whether the users' licensing covers a standalone Power App. We answer those in the estimate rather than during rollout.
How do we get Business Central data into Power BI?
Three routes, chosen by size and need. Microsoft publishes Power BI apps for Business Central — finance, sales, purchasing, inventory, projects, and others — on star-schema semantic models; for most organizations the right move is to install and extend those rather than start from scratch. Custom semantic models over API pages fit specific reporting needs. And for large ledgers or multi-company estates, we stage data into Azure SQL or Microsoft Fabric on a schedule so refreshes do not run into Business Central's request limits. Whichever route, the report reconciles to Business Central before anyone relies on it.
What is 'AL extension scoping' — and will you write AL code?
When the standard API does not carry a field or entity your integration needs, the fix is a small per-tenant extension written in AL that exposes an API page, query, or business event. We always write the specification. Whether we also write the code depends on your Business Central partner: if they prefer to build it, they do, from our spec; if they agree we should, we build an extension limited to that API surface and deploy it in an agreed window. Either way, we do not touch posting routines, business logic, layouts, or their existing extensions — that is their code base, and two partners editing it is how ERPs break.
Does Business Central integrate with Dynamics 365 Sales?
Yes, out of the box: Business Central online includes a Dataverse integration that couples customers with accounts, contacts, items with products, and sales quotes and orders, synchronizing in one or both directions. Setting it up is configuration, and because it touches both applications we coordinate it with your BC partner where they own that setup. Where you need more than the standard mappings — custom tables, different matching rules — that becomes integration work under this service.
What are the API limits, and do they affect our integration?
Business Central online limits API traffic per user or service principal — at this writing Microsoft's published figures are 6,000 OData requests per five-minute window and a small number of concurrent requests — and returns throttling responses when they are exceeded. For most integrations that is ample; for bulk loads and reporting it shapes the design: batching, paging, resumable jobs, and staged extraction instead of live queries. We design to the limits from the start rather than discovering them in production.
Business Central updates twice a year. Will our integrations break?
They are built not to. Integrations use the versioned API, which Microsoft keeps stable across releases, and per-tenant extensions follow Microsoft's compatibility rules. What we do not promise is that nothing ever needs attention: the runbook includes a regression checklist to run against each major update in a sandbox before production takes it, and Business Central's preview environments exist for exactly that. Who runs the check — you, us under a separate arrangement, or your BC partner — is agreed at handover.
What licensing do we need on the Microsoft side?
The Business Central connector is a premium connector. Business Central licenses carry limited Power Platform use rights within the Business Central context, but standalone Power Apps and flows that touch other premium connectors typically need Power Automate or Power Apps premium licensing. Power BI consumers need Power BI licensing, and Azure components are consumption-billed. We do not sell Business Central licensing under this service and do not advise on it — that is your BC partner's — but the discovery estimate states the Power Platform and Azure delta in writing before you commit.
We are on QuickBooks and want to move to Business Central. Is that this service?
No. Moving an organization onto Business Central is an ERP implementation — chart of accounts, opening balances, inventory and posting setup, training — and belongs with a Business Central implementation partner. We do not do it and will not pretend to. This page is for organizations already running Business Central; if you are on QuickBooks Online today and need it connected to Microsoft 365, our QuickBooks Online integration page covers that.
Can you help us publish our integration on AppSource?
If what we build turns out to be useful to other Business Central customers, packaging it as an AppSource app is a separate step: Partner Center enrollment, offer configuration, and Microsoft's certification. Our AppSource publishing service does exactly that — we have been through it as a publisher ourselves — and it picks up where this integration work leaves off.
How is the service priced, and how long does it take?
Time and materials at $175 per hour. Discovery produces a written effort estimate per integration, you approve it, and we do not exceed it without your written approval. A typical engagement — a couple of integrations plus reporting — is planned at about four weeks; a single flow or a single API integration is smaller. Timelines that depend on your BC partner's agreement or deployment windows are stated as assumptions in the estimate.