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What's new in Business Central 2024 release wave 2 (v25)
Update 25 (2024 release wave 2) is the release that set up everything that followed: the first agent preview, the foundations of subscription billing, and sustainability reporting wired into financials. If you are upgrading from an older version, this is where several features you will rely on first appeared.
A note on versions: unlike v26–v28, BC 25 has no single “What’s new in 25.0” page — its features are documented in the 2024 release wave 2 plan. This post summarises that wave.
Subscription billing arrives
Business Central gained native subscription billing with revenue and expense recognition.
Why it matters: any business with recurring revenue — SaaS, rental, maintenance contracts, retainers — previously needed an ISV add-on or custom code to bill and recognise revenue correctly. Bringing it into the standard product removes a whole category of third-party dependency and the licensing that came with it. For clients on that model, this alone can justify the upgrade.
Multiple VAT numbers and legislative groundwork
You can now use multiple VAT numbers for a customer, the E-Documents framework was localised for Germany (XRechnung) and Spain, and you can add attachments when sending electronic documents.
Why it matters: multiple VAT registrations is a real blocker for companies trading across EU borders — without it, you end up with duplicate customer records and reconciliation headaches. And the e-document localisations are the start of the standardised, configure-don’t-build approach to e-invoicing that later releases extended.
The first Sales Order Agent (early access)
Update 25 introduced the Sales Order Agent as an early-access program (US first) — the first AI agent in Business Central, built to automate capturing sales requests.
Why it matters: this is mostly a signal of direction, but an important one. It told the market that BC was getting autonomous agents, not just chat. If you saw the agent demos and wondered when they became real, this is the release where it started.
Reporting and sustainability
- Embedded Power BI reports out of the box, plus advanced settings in the Power BI connector.
- Ad hoc analysis on fixed assets, projects and services — extending the in-client analysis mode to more areas.
- Report sustainability entries with financial reports, record greenhouse-gas emissions from purchase invoices, and sustainability scorecards and goals.
Why it matters: embedded Power BI out of the box means clients get real dashboards without a separate BI project to stand them up. And folding sustainability entries into financial reporting is what makes ESG numbers auditable rather than a side spreadsheet.
Admin and platform
For administrators: manage environment updates more flexibly (reschedule major updates within the update window), control partner access per environment, customer-managed encryption keys, and migrate to the cloud from Dynamics SL.
Why it matters: flexible update scheduling is the feature every admin wanted — it lets you align BC’s twice-yearly major updates with your own testing calendar instead of Microsoft’s. Per-environment partner access and customer-managed keys are the kind of governance controls that get BC through a security review.
Our take
If you are still on BC 24 or earlier, update 25 is a meaningful jump: subscription billing and multiple VAT numbers remove real custom-code dependencies, and flexible update scheduling changes how you manage every release after it. We treat this version as the baseline for the modern BC feature set.
Upgrading from an older Business Central or NAV version and want to know which of these features lets you drop custom code? Tell us your story for an honest, free assessment.