Christiania Shipping needed a practical way to combine complex data across multiple companies and dimensions. Exsion Reporting brings it all into Excel in a familiar, flexible format. Instead of running separate reports for each company, the team can refresh one report, apply filters by company, vessel, date, ship manager, or dimension, and quickly review financial information across the group. As part of its move to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, the finance team needed a reporting solution that goes beyond the out-of-the-box functionality to support the way the business actually operates: across companies, vessels, voyages, and ship management structures.
“The big challenge with Business Central is that each company has its own data,” says Estian Koch, Finance Manager at Christiania Shipping. “From a group reporting view, you want everything together so you can get accurate insights.
Without Exsion Reporting, the team would need to ask its Business Central implementation partner to build custom reports. Even then, the results would still need to be reviewed individually, not as a whole. “Exsion’s biggest benefit for us is having all our companies visible immediately,” Koch says. “Instead of running separate reports by company, we have each one’s data side-by-side to see everything in one view.”
“We were accustomed to exporting data into Excel,” Koch says. “Exsion was recommended as the best solution to get data out of Business Central across different companies into our reports.” He elaborates, “If you have data structured in a table, it is easy to view it in different formats and compare different dimensions against each other. Excel gives us more flexibility for analytics and analysis than trying to pull the report directly from Business Central.”
There is some learning involved, especially in understanding which Business Central tables hold the information needed for a report. However, the learning curve is manageable. “On most Business Central screens, there are shortcuts that pull up an information bar to show you where your data is located within the database. Once you understand where the information is coming from, pulling it into Excel with Exsion is fairly straightforward,” Koch says. “For someone in a controlling or financial reporting role, that basic knowledge is already part of the job.”
“Instead of having to switch between companies in Business Central, we have one Excel file that pulls fresh data from them all. We’ve created multiple views to support different reporting needs, including balance sheet review, P&L analysis, and funding-related checks. Then, we can filter the data according to our needs in that moment,” notes Koch.
“With Exsion, we can alter our existing reports, or even create new ones, without hiring a Business Central consultant. For example, I’ve built a management report that pulls data from the general ledger to show total expenses per ship. Each month we compare that against ship budgets to evaluate performance. We can filter and sort by dimensions, or even combine the data into one table.” Exsion Reporting is not only flexible, but also gives them access to the latest financial data. “Once the report is built, you change the settings, click refresh, and the result is available within seconds,” Koch says.
Christiania Shipping uses Business Central dimensions to support detailed financial analysis. “One dimension tracks by vessel. Another dimension tracks by voyage. We also use a separate dimension to keep track of the ship manager responsible for the vessel in question, and to compare costs between ship managers,” Koch says.
Exsion365 makes that information easier to access and analyze in Excel.
“We use Exsion to monitor and control our multi-company and multi-dimensional accounting,” he explains. “It helps us see what has been posted in different companies and for different ships, and whether the ship’s activity is posted to the correct company. That helps us spot errors quickly and ensure uniformity across our entire group.”
Christiania Shipping did not need a long training process to start using Exsion Reporting. “We had a 3-hour introduction to get us up and running,” Koch says. “After we started using it, in another 3-hour session, the Exsion365 team shared best practices and showed me how to use the more advanced functionality.”
A key multi-company report was also developed in a couple of hours with guidance from Exsion365. That practical support helped Christiania Shipping move from concept to usable reporting quickly. “The product is straightforward to use,” Koch says. “And when we had questions, the Exsion team was quick to respond.”
For Christiania Shipping, the strongest value of Exsion365 is clear: If you know where the numbers are, you can report on them, no matter how complex your company structure is. “If you are a Business Central user with multiple companies, Exsion is definitely worthwhile,” Koch says. “The biggest benefit is having all your companies visible immediately.” As the maritime group continues its voyage toward modern, cloud-based ERP across the organization, Exsion365 gives them a foundation, and a partner, that is familiar, flexible, and rises to the challenge of multi-company reporting