How to Drill Down to Transactions in Excel for BC in 6 Steps (2026)

To drill down to transactions in Excel for Business Central, connect Excel to Business Central through an add-in, build a summary report on G/L Entry (table 17) or the ledger tables, put your cursor on a total and use the drill-down: with Exsion Reporting, Show Details opens Business Central filtered to the exact account and date range behind the cell, and a double-click in a pivot lists the underlying rows on a new sheet. Every figure in the workbook stays traceable to its postings, which is what an auditor asks for and what a CFO expects when a number looks off. The six steps below cover setup, the two drill paths, and how to keep the trail intact when you refresh or share the file.

Quick guide: how to drill down to transactions in Excel for BC in 6 steps

1. Set up your Excel-to-Business Central connection: install an Excel add-in that reads directly from Business Central through the API.

2. Select the tables and fields for your report: choose which Business Central tables you need for the summary.

3. Build your summary report in Excel: create aggregated views with pivots, sums, counts or the live financial functions.

4. Check the filters behind a cell: see exactly which accounts, dates and dimensions produce a figure.

5. Navigate to transaction-level detail: open the postings behind a total in Business Central or on a new sheet.

6. Refresh and share your reports: keep drill-down reports current with one click, and archive snapshots for the audit file.

Which drill-down path should you use?

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Method | What you see | Best for | Limit

Show Details on a cell | Business Central opens filtered to the exact account and date range behind the cell | Audit questions, checking a posting in its source system | Needs a Business Central login with the same permissions

Double-click in a pivot | The underlying rows appear on a new Excel sheet | Sorting, filtering and annotating the entries in Excel | Subset should be under about 1 million rows

Filter grid in the workbook | The table, companies, fields, filters and joins that produced the figure | Explaining a report to a colleague or reviewer | Read-only for unlicensed colleagues

Formulas to Values snapshot | A static copy with the numbers as reviewed | Audit workpapers and archiving | No further drill-down in the copy

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How do you perform drill-down analysis to transaction level in Business Central?

1. Set up your Excel-to-Business Central connection

The first step is a live link between Excel and your Business Central environment. You need an Excel add-in for Business Central that reads directly from Business Central through the API, without exports, a data warehouse, an Azure SQL replica, a VM or a gateway. Exsion Reporting installs from AppSource through Extension Management in about five minutes, and the 30-day trial licence key arrives by email within about a minute.

Once installed, open Excel and look for the Exsion ribbon tab. From there, create a connection by entering your Business Central environment and authenticating with your Microsoft credentials.

This connection inherits your existing Business Central user permissions. If you can see a customer record in Business Central, you can pull that same data into Excel. If you cannot, the add-in will not show it either, and the same rule applies to every drill-down.

2. Select the tables and fields for your report

With the connection in place, choose which Business Central tables to include. For financial drill-down reports you typically start with G/L Entry (table 17), then add related tables such as Cust. Ledger Entry (table 21) or Vendor Ledger Entry (table 25). Extension tables and flowfields are available as well.

Select only the fields you need. For a P&L report you might include G/L Account No., Posting Date, Amount and Document No. Limiting your field selection keeps the data refresh fast; 700,000 G/L Entry rows load in under five seconds, and Excel stays responsive while it runs.

Consider adding tables that link to your main data. Joining G/L Entry to Item Ledger Entry (table 32) or Value Entry (table 5802), for example, lets you see both the accounting entry and the inventory movement that created it. Add the table and Exsion proposes the key; inner, outer, inner top 1 and not exists joins are available, as described in how to join Business Central tables in Excel.

3. Build your summary report in Excel

Now structure the report to show aggregated figures. Use Excel's standard SUM, COUNT or AVERAGE functions on the Business Central data, build a PivotTable, or use the 16 live financial functions (account balance, account name, customer balance, dimension name and others) that take Business Central's own filter syntax, such as 01-01-26..31-03-26 for a quarter or 4000..4999|6100 for a set of accounts.

Group the data by the dimensions that matter to your analysis: account category, cost centre, project code or time period. A typical management report shows monthly columns with row groupings by account or department. For very large sets, output directly to the PivotTable data model; 25 million Business Central rows have been loaded into one pivot that way.

Keep the summary layout clean. Each cell should represent a single aggregated value that you can later drill into. Avoid merged cells or complex nested formulas that might interfere with the drill-down navigation, and keep live formulas below roughly 40,000 to 50,000 calculations per workbook, where they start to slow down.

4. Check the filters behind a cell

This step connects your summary cells to their underlying transactions, and it is where the audit trail starts. Position your cursor on any cell containing an aggregated value. The Exsion task pane displays the filters applied to that specific cell: exactly which accounts, date ranges, companies and dimension values contribute to the number.

The query definition itself is written into the workbook as a readable grid (table, companies, fields, filters, joins, flowfield calculations). A reviewer does not need to trust a hidden macro; the grid is the documentation, and any licensed colleague can edit it while unlicensed colleagues can read it, move pivots and drill.

For custom drill-down paths, define which fields should appear in your transaction list. Document No., Posting Date, Description and Amount for each individual entry behind a summary figure is a sensible default for audit support.

5. Navigate to transaction-level detail

There are two ways in. With the cursor on a summary cell, use Show Details (labelled "Details weergeven" in the Dutch interface) in the Exsion ribbon. Business Central opens in the browser filtered to the exact account and date range behind that cell, so you are looking at the posted entries in the source system, with the same permissions and the same Business Central filter criteria you would type by hand.

In a PivotTable, double-click a value instead. Excel writes the underlying rows to a new sheet, complete with the detail fields you specified. This works for any subset under about a million rows and keeps everything inside the workbook.

Use Excel's built-in filters and sorting on this transaction list. You can quickly identify unusual entries, spot patterns or copy specific records into a review file. The drill-down output is standard Excel data, so all your familiar analysis techniques apply. The same approach underpins general ledger checks and bank reconciliation in Excel.

6. Refresh and share your reports

Reports lose value if they show outdated figures. Click Refresh Data ("Gegevens vernieuwen" in Dutch) to pull the latest information from Business Central into your existing report structure. This one-click refresh updates all summary figures and keeps the drill-down connections intact. You do not need to rebuild anything or re-export data.

To share reports with colleagues who do not have the add-in, unlicensed users can still open the workbook, read it, move pivots and drill. For the audit file, use Formulas to Values: it replaces all live Business Central connections with static numbers, creating a standard Excel file that documents exactly what you reviewed at that moment. Save a copy with the original formulas intact for your next refresh cycle.

What is the difference between drill-down and drill-through in reporting?

Drill-down moves you vertically through your data hierarchy while staying in the same report context. You might start with annual totals, then drill down to quarterly, then monthly, then daily figures. Each level reveals more granular detail within the same logical structure.

Drill-through takes you horizontally to a completely different report. Clicking a revenue figure might open a separate sales order report showing which specific orders generated that revenue. The destination report has its own layout and purpose.

For Business Central finance teams, drill-down to transaction level is usually the more useful capability. When your CFO asks why travel expenses increased, you want to see the actual posted entries, not a different summary report about travel.

Why should finance teams drill down in Excel instead of Business Central's built-in reports?

Business Central includes financial reporting capabilities, but they operate within the Business Central interface. This means switching between applications, learning Business Central-specific report builders, and losing the flexibility Excel offers.

Excel remains the environment where financial controllers do their analysis. You already know the shortcuts, formulas and formatting options. Adding data from Business Central should not require learning an entirely new tool; the Power BI or Excel comparison covers when a BI tool is worth the extra layer.

With an Excel-native approach, you combine Business Central data with information from other sources in one workbook. Your drill-down report might blend general ledger entries with budget figures from G/L Budget Entry (table 96), a planning system or headcount data from HR. That cross-source flexibility is not available in Business Central alone, and because Show Details always lands in Business Central, the trail back to the source never breaks.

How does Exsion help you drill down to transactions faster?

Exsion connects Excel directly to your Business Central data with no exports or intermediate steps. The Exsion Excel add-in gives you live access to every table and field in your Business Central database, and it inherits Business Central permissions rather than adding a second security model.

Building reports happens in the tool you already know. Define your data sources, apply filters, create aggregations and format results with standard Excel features. Exsion adds the Business Central connection layer while you keep full control of presentation.

Drill-down to transaction-level detail takes one click. Select a summary cell, press Show Details, and see every posted entry that contributes to that figure in Business Central itself; or double-click in a pivot and get the rows in Excel. No waiting for IT, no custom development, no switching between systems.

Multi-company reporting works the same way. Tick the companies in the grid and the result gets a company column, so you build group summaries across all your entities with drill-down into each company's transactions. Groups that need eliminations and currency translation add Exsion Corporate.

Ready to stop exporting data and start analysing it? Start the 30-day trial from the pricing page or contact Exsion for a demonstration of drill-down reporting in your own Business Central environment.

Frequently asked questions

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Can I drill down to transactions across multiple Business Central companies? | Yes. Exsion supports multi-company reporting, so you can build a group summary and then drill into transactions from any individual entity. The drill-down results show which company each transaction belongs to, so you keep full visibility across your organisation.

Do I need special permissions to use drill-down in Excel for Business Central? | No. Drill-down access follows your existing Business Central user permissions. If you can view a specific table or record in Business Central, you can drill down to it in Excel, and the add-in does not bypass any security settings.

How fast is the drill-down compared to running reports in Business Central? | Drill-down in Exsion typically returns transaction lists within seconds, even for large datasets. Speed depends on your Business Central environment and the number of records, but most finance teams find it faster than navigating Business Central's interface to find the same information.

Can I save my drill-down results for audit documentation? | Yes. Drill-down results appear as standard Excel data that you can save, print or copy into audit workpapers. The Formulas to Values feature converts the live connections to static data for archiving, and Show Details lets a reviewer reopen the exact filtered entries in Business Central.

What happens if the underlying Business Central data changes after I drill down? | Your drill-down results reflect the data at the moment you clicked. Transactions posted or modified afterwards appear only after you refresh the summary and drill down again, which for audit trails helps you document what you reviewed at a specific point in time.

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