Business Central

Business Central payment times reporting for Australia: what changed in February 2026

Microsoft added built-in support for Australia’s Payment Times Reporting requirements in February 2026. Here is what large businesses should check before assuming the compliance gap is closed.

Australian search demand around Business Central remains strongest where product change meets concrete risk. Payment Times Reporting is a good example because it combines Microsoft localisation updates, finance-process ownership, supplier compliance, and a genuinely local reporting obligation.

This topic matters now because Microsoft's older Business Central documentation still described Payment Times Reporting as a largely manual exercise or one that required a partner add-in. In the 2025 release wave 2 plan, Microsoft then introduced a built-in feature for the Australian localisation with general availability dated February 2026.

If your finance or ERP team has not revisited this area since 2025, the practical question is no longer whether Business Central holds the data. It is whether your Australian entity design, supplier classification, and reporting process are ready to use the new built-in capability properly.

What Microsoft changed, in exact terms

• Microsoft's release plan for Dynamics 365 Business Central 2025 release wave 2 says the Australian Payment Times Reporting feature reached general availability in February 2026.
• Microsoft describes the feature as helping large Australian businesses with annual turnover above AUD 100 million comply with local reporting requirements for how they pay small business suppliers.
• The release plan says the new Payment Practices page can generate a report in the required format and group results by vendor size or payment terms.
• Microsoft also lists built-in outputs such as average agreed payment period, average actual payment term, and the proportion of invoices paid after the agreed payment period.

Why this is a meaningful change for Australian teams

• Microsoft's earlier Business Central documentation on Payment Times Reporting said the required data existed in the product, but there was no dedicated report and more automated reporting would normally require a partner-built add-in.
• That older guidance pushed many finance teams toward Excel extraction, vendor posting-group workarounds, and partner customisation for a compliance process that sits outside normal month-end rhythm.
• The February 2026 feature changes the conversation from “Can Business Central support this at all?” to “Is our Australian reporting model configured well enough to trust the standard capability?”

What the Australian reporting obligation still requires

• Microsoft and the Payment Times Reporting Regulator both frame the core scope around large entities with annual turnover above AUD 100 million reporting how and when they pay eligible small business suppliers.
• The regulator also continues to treat small business suppliers as those under the relevant AUD 10 million turnover threshold used by the scheme.
• The process is still a six-month reporting discipline, which means finance teams need period controls, supplier classification hygiene, and repeatable review ownership rather than a one-off system setup.

What to validate before calling the gap closed

• Supplier identification: confirm how the business determines which suppliers qualify as small businesses and who owns that refresh cycle.
• Invoice-date quality: Microsoft's new reporting buckets depend on timing after invoice date, so weak payables data discipline will still weaken the output even if the report is now standard.
• Entity scope: check whether the Business Central company structure matches the legal reporting perimeter used by the Australian entity.
• Policy interpretation: make sure finance, legal, and ERP teams agree on how payment terms, exceptions, credit notes, and disputed invoices should be treated.
• Auditability: test whether users can trace reported numbers back to source entries and explain exceptions without spreadsheet reconstruction.

The report structure Microsoft now supports

• Microsoft says the generated report categorises invoice timing into the required ranges: less than 21 days, 21 to 30 days, 31 to 60 days, 61 to 90 days, 91 to 120 days, and more than 120 days.
• For finance leaders, this matters because it turns the compliance discussion into a control and data-governance question rather than only a development-budget question.
• For ERP buyers or existing customers, it also reduces one argument for unnecessary customisation in the Australian localisation.

Where the delivery risk still sits

• Do not assume new standard functionality removes the need for finance design. Supplier master ownership, payment-term governance, and exception handling still decide whether the output is trusted.
• Do not let a partner classify this as a “simple toggle” without showing the end-to-end process, sourced entries, and responsibility model for each reporting cycle.
• Do not treat compliance reporting as isolated from AP operations. Slow dispute handling, inconsistent invoice dating, or poor vendor master control can still make the generated report hard to defend.

A practical next step for Australian Business Central teams

• Step 1: confirm whether the organisation actually falls inside the scheme threshold and which entities are in scope.
• Step 2: run a design review across finance, AP, and ERP support using one completed reporting period and one live current period.
• Step 3: compare your current manual process with Microsoft's new Payment Practices flow and identify what remains outside standard product behaviour.
• Step 4: document control owners for supplier classification, period review, report generation, and sign-off before the next reporting deadline.
• Step 5: if you are mid-selection or upgrade, ask the partner to demonstrate the Australian localisation with real supplier and invoice scenarios rather than generic payables screens.

FAQ

• Is this just a generic release note item? No. It is an Australia-specific localisation change tied to a live compliance obligation and Microsoft says it reached general availability in February 2026.
• Does the new feature remove all manual work? No. The product now supports the report structure, but supplier qualification, finance policy, and review ownership still need operating discipline.
• Why revisit this if we already had a workaround? Because Microsoft's earlier documentation pointed customers toward manual extraction or partner automation, and the new built-in feature may reduce customisation and support overhead if the reporting design is refreshed properly.
• Is this relevant only to current Business Central customers? No. It also matters to Australian buyers comparing localisation maturity, delivery risk, and customisation load during selection.