SSRS, Excel and Word – creating your own operational reports in Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management

If every tiny change to an invoice or order confirmation means calling IT or your ERP partner, the reporting system is running you - not the other way round. In a fast-moving business world you need tools that save time instead of eating it.

Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management (F&SCM) lets you build operational reports and documents in several ways: classic SSRS layouts, Excel or Word templates, and the newer Business Documents. Most tweaks can be done without writing a single line of code. Below is a quick tour of each option.

SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services) is Microsoft’s long-standing engine for pixel-perfect reports. Out of the box you already get hundreds of layouts - think trial balances, journals, warehouse picks and puts, plus sales and purchase invoices - generated almost in real time without exporting data. You can even schedule actions, like emailing a customer their invoice right after posting.

During an implementation most companies tweak these reports: deciding which documents they need, what they should look like, and which data fields to show. The downside? You still need a developer when the structure changes, which can add cost and slow things down. SSRS is also less flashy than modern analytics tools. Still, it’s hard to beat for automation, security and multi-format exports.

Less common but very handy are Excel and Word templates tied to data entities (system data views). You create a document - say a contract or order confirmation - where the static text stays put while fields such as customer name, net value or delivery date fill themselves in. In Excel you can pull live data into a pre-formatted sheet with filters, sorts and color rules ready to go. If you know Office, you’re good; no Visual Studio required.

Business Documents build on Word too, but focus on user-friendly styling. You drop in your logo, company colors and fonts once and reuse the template for things like sales invoices. Business users can update the look and feel on their own. Logic and data options are leaner than in SSRS, yet for many customer-facing docs the trade-off is worth it.

ERP is supposed to make reporting easy; otherwise, why hold all that data in one place? With Dynamics 365 you can:

• keep documents visually consistent with your brand,
• tweak layouts in minutes instead of calling IT,
• let business teams build the reports they need themselves.

If an invoice still needs to pass through three people before it “looks right”, it’s time for a change.