Business Central 2025 Release Wave 1: What Changed and Why It Still Matters

Overview

This post summarises what landed in Business Central 2025 release wave 1, covering Copilot, sustainability, e-commerce and supply chain updates. Wave 1 has since been superseded by later releases, so we also point you to what replaced it.

Key Takeaways

• Wave 1 rolled out between April and September 2025, adding Copilot features, deeper sustainability tracking and manufacturing analytics.
• Copilot gained chat support for installed add-on apps, automatic record summaries and smarter purchase order line matching.
• Sustainability tracking expanded to cover Scope 3 emissions across purchasing, transfers and manufacturing, plus water and waste data.
• The Shopify connector gained metafield sync and clearer visibility into skipped export records.
• E-document handling improved with duplicate detection, two-step processing and PEPPOL support for reminders and finance charges.
• Wave 1 has already been superseded by 2025 release wave 2 and 2026 release wave 2, both of which build on these foundations.

What Was Business Central 2025 Release Wave 1?

Microsoft rolled out 2025 release wave 1 between April and September 2025. It added new Copilot capabilities, deeper sustainability tracking and manufacturing analytics improvements. Every feature covered here is now live in current Business Central environments.

If your business is still running an older version, upgrading brings all of this through automatically. Our Business Central overview explains how version upgrades work for cloud tenants.

Copilot and AI Enhancements

Copilot’s chat function grew to cover installed add-on apps, so users can ask questions about custom fields and processes without leaving the page they are on. That reduces the number of support tickets raised for functionality a partner has already documented.

A new summary FactBox appeared on card and document pages, surfacing the three most impactful insights for a record automatically. Copilot also gained the ability to suggest gas emissions in sustainability journals and to match purchase order lines against incoming e-documents more accurately, using item references and G/L mappings rather than a simple text match.

Sustainability Management Updates

Wave 1 extended Scope 3 emissions tracking into the purchase process, transfers and manufacturing, not just at the point of sale. A new Default Sustainability Account field lets businesses set emission defaults once, at item, resource or work centre level, rather than entering them manually on every transaction.

Water and waste intensity tracking joined the existing carbon reporting tools, using the same Sustainability Ledger Entries businesses already rely on. For manufacturers working towards CSRD or similar compliance reporting, this closes a real gap that previously needed a separate system.

E-Commerce and Shopify Connector Improvements

Business Central’s Shopify connector picked up several practical fixes. Duplicate e-documents are now blocked automatically, based on matching vendor, document number and date, and a new Skipped Records page shows exactly why a record failed to sync, rather than leaving you guessing.

Metafield sync means custom Shopify data, such as loyalty details or segment information, can flow into Business Central without custom development. Food and technology businesses selling through Shopify integration get more of that data without waiting on a developer.

Supply Chain and Manufacturing Enhancements

Manufacturing reporting saw a genuine upgrade in this wave. New Power BI KPIs, Excel-based report layouts and documented deprecation dates for legacy RDLC reports give planners more current tools to work with, without a sudden cutoff.

On the shop floor, items and variants can now be blocked from production output directly, and warehouse put-aways can trigger automatically from posted production output. Businesses using Business Central for manufacturing get tighter control over what reaches the warehouse without a manual check at every step.

Reporting and Financial Analytics

Financial Reporting gained the ability to hide empty rows, save Excel templates inside Business Central, and schedule reports to run automatically. Report authors can now write introduction and closing paragraphs directly into a report, which matters for businesses producing board packs or investor updates.

Word layouts also gained access to report and request metadata, so document templates can reference details like company name or report date without custom code.

Development and Extensibility

Partners can now move tables and fields with their data across extensions during refactoring, a capability previously limited to Microsoft’s own first-party apps. That makes it easier for a partner to restructure an extension without a painful data migration.

Developers also gained the ability to mock outbound HTTP calls during testing, so integrations can be tested without hitting a live external service every time.

User Experience Improvements

The web client’s narrow mode was optimised for smaller screens, including a resizable FactBox pane that remembers your preference per page. It is a small change, but it matters for anyone working from a tablet on a warehouse floor or shop floor.

Is Wave 1 Still Relevant?

Wave 1 reached every Business Central tenant automatically once Microsoft rolled it out in 2025, so the features above are already part of your system if you are on a supported version. There is nothing left to opt into from this specific wave.

What matters now is what came after. Our 2025 release wave 2 breakdown and 2026 release wave 2 preview cover what has landed since, including changes that directly affect integrations, such as the removal of SOAP web services.

What This Means for Your Business

If you have not reviewed your Business Central setup since early 2025, there is a reasonable chance you are sitting on Copilot and sustainability features you are not using yet. A short configuration review often surfaces value that is already paid for.

Release waves land twice a year regardless of whether your business is ready to use them, so it is worth building a habit of reviewing what changed rather than discovering it by accident.

Get Help Reviewing Your Business Central Setup

Tecvia helps UK businesses keep pace with Business Central’s twice-yearly release waves, from Copilot adoption to sustainability reporting. Get in touch with Tecvia for a review of what you are already entitled to, or read more about our support model for ongoing releases.