Key Areas Covered During Discovery
The discovery process should examine how transactions originate, how they are approved, where data is stored, how accounting entries are generated, and how management receives financial information. The objective is to document the current operating model and identify the requirements that Business Central must support.
- Finance processes: Chart of accounts, journals, period close, reconciliations, budgeting, tax, and financial reporting.
- Procurement and payables: Requisitions, purchase orders, receiving, invoice matching, approvals, payments, and vendor management.
- Order and receivables processes: Sales orders, invoicing, collections, customer balances, and cash application.
- Data and integrations: Master data, historical transactions, banking systems, payroll, tax applications, e-commerce platforms, and other connected systems.
- Controls and reporting: User permissions, approval policies, audit requirements, management reporting, dimensions, and statutory reporting.
How the Discovery Process Works
Discovery normally begins with stakeholder interviews and process workshops. A Discovery Call can establish the business objectives, major pain points, decision-makers, system landscape, and scope before detailed workshops begin. The implementation team then maps current processes and compares them with Business Central capabilities.
Process owners should explain not only what happens, but also why each step exists. For example, an AP workshop should document invoice receipt, purchase-order matching, non-PO invoices, approval thresholds, posting rules, payment scheduling, and month-end treatment. This distinction helps the project team separate genuine business requirements from historical practices that may no longer be necessary.
Where vendor processes are part of the scope, Vendor Discovery can also help frame how suppliers, payment information, documentation, and vendor records participate in the broader finance workflow.
Accrual and Invoice Discovery
Accrual discovery deserves specific attention because expenses can exist before invoices are received. The discovery team should document recurring expenses, goods received but not invoiced, estimation methods, booking rules, reversal policies, and evidence required for audit support.
For organizations reviewing accounts payable processes, the discovery should connect invoice receipt, purchase orders, goods receipts, matching, approval, posting, and accrual treatment so that month-end expense recognition remains consistent with operational activity.
Technology-enabled processes can also be assessed during this phase. accruals may be supported through AI-native journal-entry workflows, ERP posting, and audit trails, while Notifications For Accruals can provide visibility across discovery, matching, approvals, booking, and reversals.
For invoice intake, Invoice Discovery can be considered as part of the target workflow, particularly where the implementation needs better visibility across invoice receipt, validation, approval, and posting. Pre Trained Models can support invoice processing across different formats and layouts while reducing setup and manual effort during implementation.
Requirements, Data, and Integration Assessment
Discovery converts workshop findings into prioritized requirements. Each requirement should identify the business owner, affected process, expected outcome, Business Central capability, required configuration, integration dependency, and acceptance criteria. This creates a practical bridge between business expectations and the implementation backlog.
Data discovery should cover customers, vendors, items, chart of accounts, dimensions, opening balances, historical transactions, tax information, and other master records. The team should also identify duplicate, incomplete, obsolete, or inconsistent records before migration planning begins.
Integration discovery examines external applications and determines which information should enter or leave Business Central, at what frequency, through which interface, and under whose ownership. A structured ERP Implementation Guide for 2025 can complement this planning by providing a broader view of deployment lifecycle, project planning, migration, and ERP integration activities.
For cloud deployments, Cloud ERP Implementation: Step-by-Step Guide & Best Practice provides useful context for evaluating deployment steps, integration considerations, and implementation practices around a cloud ERP environment.
Recurring Expense and Month-End Requirements
Discovery should identify recurring expenses that require recognition before supplier invoices arrive. Accruals Discovery For Recurring Expenses Without PO can support assessment of recurring non-PO expenses using historical information, forecasts, and external inputs.
The project team should document how estimated amounts are calculated, who reviews them, when they are posted, and how they are reversed or replaced by actual invoices. These decisions directly influence financial reporting and the accuracy of month-end closes.
Centralized accounting models may also be relevant where multiple entities or business units need consistent financial governance. Central Finance provides useful terminology for discussing centralized finance processes and their role in broader ERP and business workflows.
Best Practices for a Strong Discovery Phase
- Include process owners: Involve finance, procurement, sales, operations, IT, tax, and reporting stakeholders where their processes affect the ERP scope.
- Document exceptions: Capture unusual transactions, approval overrides, intercompany activity, tax scenarios, and period-end procedures rather than documenting only the standard path.
- Prioritize requirements: Distinguish regulatory needs, core operational requirements, reporting priorities, integrations, and future enhancements.
- Validate the target process: Confirm that proposed Business Central workflows align with business controls, responsibilities, and reporting expectations.
- Connect requirements to outcomes: Relate configuration decisions to financial reporting quality, operational efficiency, cash flow visibility, and management decision-making.
Summary
Business Central Implementation Discovery provides the foundation for a well-defined ERP implementation by translating business processes into documented requirements, data decisions, integration needs, controls, and target workflows. A disciplined discovery process gives the implementation team a shared understanding of scope and helps stakeholders make informed configuration and process decisions.