Boro-Wide ReducesBusiness Central Reporting from Days to Minutes with Exsion365

Project Snapshot

When Boro-Wide implemented Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Exsion Reporting in Excel was introduced to provide faster access to ERP data for reporting and analysis. Teams discovered how easily they could build and refresh reports directly in Excel without relying on developers. Today, Exsion helps Boro-Wide generate ad hoc reports, reconcile billing for approximately 12,000 customers, respond to compliance requests in minutes instead of days, and prototype reports that are later turned into Power BI dashboards.

Bringing Exsion365 to a New Company

Arman Sharipov, CFO of Boro-Wide, was already familiar with Exsion Reporting in Excel from a previous role. “I had used the tool before and really liked it,” he says. “So when I joined Boro-Wide and found they were implementing Business Central, I brought it in. Then I showed people what I was doing and how easy it is, and they started using it themselves. It just naturally grew from there.” Now they have seven users across multiple departments.

Getting Critical Reports Easily from the Start

When organizations implement an ERP system, they often discover that the built-in reports do not answer every operational question. For Sharipov, that challenge was familiar.

“In most ERP systems, you’re limited to the reports that already exist,” he explains. “If you want to add a column or adjust something in a report, you usually have to request it from programmers. That can take weeks cost thousands of dollars and require several iterations to work out the kinks.”

This is most apparent during the implementation stage, as teams refine their processes. “At the beginning of an ERP implementation, new reporting needs come up all the time as you discover the limitations of built-in reports,” he says. “You might find something else you want to report on every day or every week.” For these reasons, he recommends starting with Exsion as early as possible in the Business Central implementation. “It is helpful even during the testing phase. When you do test runs for billing, as an example, you can verify the results right away, catching errors while they’re still in the sandbox environment.”

Flexible Reporting Without Waiting for Developers

One of the biggest advantages of Exsion365’s solution is the ability to build custom reports directly in Excel while pulling live data from Business Central. “You can pull any data you need and build almost any report,” Sharipov explains. “You don’t have to wait weeks or months for developers to create it for you; you can do it yourself in hours or even minutes. And it’s a live data connection, so once the report is built, you can refresh it anytime.”

Reconciliation and Commission Reporting with Large Data Sets

One of the first reports Sharipov built at Boro-Wide addresses a key operational need. “We serve over 12,000 customers. We must constantly reconcile the number of customers served with the number of customers billed,” he explains. “That’s a critical control for us. If we had relied on Business Central consultants to build the report for us, it probably would have taken a couple of months and cost maybe $5,000 to $10,000. With Exsion, I built the report myself in a couple of days.” The team then refined it during a few billing cycles before putting it into regular use.

Now Sharipov is working on another mission-critical report. “We pay our sales representatives a monthly commission based on new and renewed accounts. With so many customers, it’s a massive amount of data to process, and we need to calculate it quickly. As long as Excel can handle it, Exsion can too.”

Efficient Audit and Compliance Reporting

For a regulated industry like waste management, reporting requests from auditors and regulators are common. “When auditors ask for specific data, you can pull it immediately,” Sharipov says. “If we didn’t have Exsion, we would have to combine data from multiple reports with a lot of manual work. Instead, what would take hours or days now literally takes minutes.”

How Exsion Works with Power BI

Boro-Wide also uses Microsoft Power BI for dashboards and reporting visualizations. For Sharipov, Exsion Reporting in Excel and Power BI play complementary roles. “Power BI coding can be difficult and time-consuming, so I use Exsion as a place to experiment with the data and figure out what we want the report to look like,” he explains. “You can iterate quickly in Exsion. Once you understand the logic and the structure you want, then it becomes much easier to move that report into Power BI to create a dashboard or other visualization.”

Easy Adoption Across the Organization

Another advantage of Exsion is its familiar Excel-based interface. “I actually taught myself how to use it,” Sharipov says. “It’s intuitive enough that you can just start working with it and learn as you go.” As other employees saw the reports being built, they began using the tool as well.

Today, teams across Boro-Wide use Exsion Reporting in Excel for:

- Financial reporting Audit and compliance requests Billing reconciliation Sales commission calculations Ad hoc data analysis

“Whenever someone needs data quickly, they can just pull it themselves,” he says.

Support When You Need It

Getting started with Exsion is easier than ever. “Connecting it to Business Central is so simple. Any user can do it in a matter of minutes.”

What happens when you need help? “Because it integrates seamlessly, I haven’t needed much support at all. But when I do, the team at Exsion365 is quick to respond and resolve our issues. They’re so easy to work with; I have no complaints!”

For Boro-Wide, implementing Exsion Reporting for Dynamics 365 Business Central has transformed the way financial data is accessed and analyzed. One thing is for sure: No matter what reporting needs arise in the future, Exsion365 will have them covered.