Ten things Copilot in Business Central already does for you
Before paying for agents, it is worth knowing what Copilot already does in Business Central as part of the licence. Ten built-in assistive features, what each does, and where to switch them on. Most businesses use two or three of them.
Copilot's assistive features come with Business Central; the task agents are charged on consumption (see the real cost of AI agents). Many businesses pay attention to the agents and never switch on the features they already have. Availability varies by version, country and language, and the list grows with each update, so check the Copilot & agent capabilities page in your own environment.
Copilot chat for "how do I". Ask how to do something in Business Central and get an answer grounded in Microsoft's documentation, with links to the right page.
Copilot chat to find things. Ask for records in plain language ("show me open sales orders for Contoso this month") and it takes you there.
Analysis assist. On a list in analysis mode (analysis mode), describe the analysis you want ("sales by customer by month") and Copilot sets up the grouping and totals.
Bank reconciliation matching. Copilot proposes matches for bank statement lines the rules couldn't match, and suggests G/L accounts for charges and interest (bank rec).
Marketing text for items. Drafts product descriptions from the item's attributes, for the web shop or catalogue, for you to edit.
Sales line suggestions. Suggests lines for a sales document based on the customer's history or similar documents.
Sales lines from a file. Reads an attached file, such as a customer's order spreadsheet or PDF, and proposes the lines.
E-document line matching. Helps match incoming e-invoice lines to purchase order lines and suggests mappings (e-invoicing).
Outlook add-in suggestions. From a customer email in Outlook, helps create a quote with lines pulled from the email (Outlook add-in).
Partner and ISV Copilot features. Extensions can add their own Copilot capabilities, which appear on the same capabilities page and can be switched on or off by the administrator (building Copilot features).
Switching them on
Search for Copilot & agent capabilities (Alt+Q). Each capability shows its status and can be activated or deactivated. Some depend on data movement settings across geographies, which the administrator controls on the same page. Try each in a sandbox, show it to the team who'd use it, and switch on the ones that help.
Everything Copilot suggests is a draft for a person to review. That's the deal: it saves the typing, you keep the judgement.
Email this post as a PDF
A branded PDF of this post, sent to your inbox to keep, print or share. Copy in colleagues if you like.
We only use these addresses to send this PDF. Nobody is added to a mailing list. Mike at Business Boxed receives a copy. See our privacy notice.
