How to Get Live BC Management Data Into Excel in 6 Steps (2026)

To get live Business Central management data into Excel, install an Excel add-in that queries Business Central through the API, connect with your normal Business Central login, pick the tables and fields you need, lay out the report in Excel, and refresh with one click every month. With Exsion Reporting the whole setup takes about 15 minutes, the first refresh of 700,000 G/L Entry rows takes under five seconds, and the report can be reused every close without another export.

That is the short version. The rest of this guide walks through the six steps in detail, explains why the export-and-paste routine makes month-end slower than it needs to be, and lists the Business Central tables most management reports draw from.

Quick guide: how to get live Business Central data into Excel in 6 steps

1. Install the Exsion Excel add-in. Add the reporting extension from AppSource in under five minutes.

2. Connect to your Business Central environment. Sign in with your existing Business Central credentials.

3. Select the tables and fields you need. Choose the specific data points for your management report.

4. Build your report layout in Excel. Design the structure with the Excel formatting you already know.

5. Refresh your data with one click. Pull the latest figures from Business Central in seconds.

6. Share and reuse your templates. Save the report for recurring month-end use.

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Step | What you do | Typical time

1. Install the add-in | Install Exsion Reporting from AppSource through Extension Management | About 5 minutes

2. Connect | Sign in with your Business Central credentials in the Exsion tab | 1 to 2 minutes

3. Select tables and fields | Pick G/L Entry (17), ledger and budget tables, filter at the source | 5 to 10 minutes

4. Build the layout | Pivots, formulas, conditional formatting, charts | Depends on the report

5. Refresh | One click, 700,000 G/L Entry rows in under 5 seconds | Seconds

6. Share and reuse | Save as a template, open and refresh next month | Minutes per close

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How do you pull live management information from Business Central into Excel?

1. Install the Exsion Excel add-in

Start by installing Exsion Reporting from Microsoft AppSource through Extension Management in Business Central. You need administrator rights in Business Central to complete this step. The installation takes about five minutes and does not require IT support for most organizations; there is no data warehouse, no Azure SQL replica, no VM and no gateway to set up.

Once installed, the add-in appears in your Excel ribbon. From there you can reach every Business Central table, including extension tables and flowfields, without leaving your spreadsheet. The 30-day trial is the full product, and the trial licence key arrives by email within about a minute.

2. Connect to your Business Central environment

Open Excel and go to the Exsion tab. Click Connect and sign in with your standard Business Central credentials. The add-in inherits your Business Central user permissions, so you only see the data you are authorized to access, and there is no second security model to maintain.

This connection remains active across sessions. You will not need to re-authenticate each time you open your report file.

3. Select the tables and fields you need

Management reports typically draw from several tables: general ledger entries, customer ledgers, item ledgers and budget entries. With Exsion you combine data from all of these in a single Excel management report, and the query definition is written into the workbook as a readable grid (table, companies, fields, filters, joins).

Select only the fields relevant to your report. For a profit-and-loss report you might pull posting date, G/L account number, amount and dimension values from G/L Entry (table 17). Filter at the source using Business Central's own filter syntax, for example 01-01-26..31-03-26 on Posting Date or 4000..4999|6100 on the account, which reduces the volume of data transferred to your spreadsheet.

4. Build your report layout in Excel

Design the management report with standard Excel features. Create pivot tables, add conditional formatting and build charts. Because the data connection is live, these visualizations update automatically when you refresh.

Finance teams often build reusable one-click templates for their most common reports. A well-structured template means next month's close starts with the formatting already in place. For very large sets, output directly to the PivotTable data model; Exsion has loaded 25 million Business Central rows into one pivot that way.

5. Refresh your data with one click

When you need current figures, click Refresh in the Exsion ribbon. The add-in queries Business Central directly and updates your report with the numbers as they stand at that moment. There is no need to export, download or copy figures manually.

This refresh happens in seconds, not minutes: 700,000 G/L Entry rows load in under five seconds, and Excel stays responsive while it runs. For organizations running multiple companies in Business Central, tick the companies in the grid and the result gets a company column, so you pull data across all entities in a single operation. Groups that also need eliminations and currency translation use Exsion Corporate for consolidated group reporting.

6. Share and reuse your templates

Save the completed report as a template. Next month, open the file and refresh. The layout, formulas and formatting remain intact while the underlying numbers update to reflect the current period.

Share these templates with colleagues. Licensed colleagues can edit and refresh the query; unlicensed colleagues can read the report, move pivots and drill. Each user sees data filtered by their own Business Central permissions, which keeps access control intact across the finance team.

Why does month-end reporting take so long in Business Central?

The traditional approach exports data from Business Central to CSV or Excel, then copies those figures into formatted reports. Each export is a snapshot in time. By the time you have finished building the report, the source data may have changed.

That gap between extraction and delivery creates two problems. First, your reports do not reflect the most recent transactions. Second, any adjustment posted after the export forces you to start the process again.

A direct connection removes the lag. The Excel report pulls data at the moment you need it, and refreshing takes one click instead of a multi-step export workflow. Microsoft's own export to Excel is fine for a quick look at a list, but it is still a copy that goes stale.

What information can you pull from Business Central into Excel?

Business Central stores extensive financial and operational data across hundreds of tables. For financial reporting the most commonly used tables are:

• G/L Entry (table 17): all posted general ledger transactions with dates, amounts and dimensions

• Cust. Ledger Entry (table 21): invoices, payments and open balances by customer

• Vendor Ledger Entry (table 25): purchase invoices, payments and amounts due

• G/L Budget Entry (table 96): planned figures for variance analysis

• Item Ledger Entry (table 32): inventory movements and, with Value Entry (table 5802), valuations

With the right tool you can join these tables in Excel without writing SQL. Add a table and Exsion proposes the key; inner, outer, inner top 1 and not exists joins are available, so you focus on analysis rather than on data plumbing. Bank reconciliation is a good example: Bank Account Ledger Entry (table 271) next to the bank statement in one sheet, as described in bank reconciliation in Excel without manual work.

How does Exsion help you build real-time management reports?

Exsion connects Excel directly to your Business Central environment. The Exsion Reporting add-in runs entirely inside Excel, so there is no new interface to learn. Controllers who know pivot tables and formulas start building reports immediately after a brief training session.

The add-in supports drill-down to transactions. Show Details opens Business Central filtered to the exact account and date range behind a cell, and a double-click in a pivot shows the underlying rows. If a number looks unexpected, you investigate without rebuilding anything. Alongside table queries, 16 live financial functions (account balance, account name, customer balance, dimension name and more) put single figures straight into a cell.

For organizations managing multiple legal entities, Exsion Corporate consolidates data across companies with intercompany eliminations and multi-currency translation. Finance leaders get a single view of group performance while keeping the ability to analyze individual subsidiaries; the guide on consolidating multiple companies in Business Central covers that setup step by step.

Ready to stop rebuilding reports from scratch each month? Start the 30-day trial via the pricing page or schedule a demonstration to see how Exsion fits your reporting workflow.

Frequently asked questions

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How long does it take to set up a live connection between Business Central and Excel? | Initial setup takes about 15 minutes: installing the Exsion extension from AppSource, signing in and running your first refresh. Most finance teams build their first management report within a few hours of starting.

Does Exsion work with Business Central Online and On-Premises? | Yes, both deployment models are supported. Cloud environments connect with standard OAuth authentication through Microsoft's identity platform, and on-premises installations connect through secure web services.

Can I refresh data for multiple companies at once? | Yes. Tick the companies in the Exsion grid and the result includes a company column, which is useful for group reporting where you need figures from several subsidiaries in one view. For eliminations and currency translation, Exsion Corporate adds full consolidation.

What happens to my existing Excel reports when I start using Exsion? | They keep working as before. Exsion adds a live connection without disrupting existing workflows, and many users convert their static reports gradually, starting with the most time-consuming ones.

How does Exsion handle user permissions? | Exsion inherits your Business Central permission structure. If a user cannot view certain records in Business Central, they will not see them in Excel either, so templates can be shared across the team safely.

What training do I need to start using Exsion for management reporting? | Most controllers complete their training in a single day. Because the tool runs inside Excel, users apply the pivot and formula skills they already have.

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