Your team member is creating a new vendor record in Business Central. They type the vendor name, alt-tab to their browser, Google the company, find the website, copy the address, alt-tab back, paste it into Business Central, realize they forgot the phone number, alt-tab to the browser again, find the phone number, alt-tab back, paste it in…
Sound familiar? It’s exhausting just reading that, let alone doing it twenty times a day.
Here’s what drives me crazy: we’re in 2025, and companies are still wasting hours every week on data entry that could be automated. Your accounting team shouldn’t be playing copy-paste tennis between browser tabs. Your ERP system should be working for you, not creating more busywork.
Microsoft’s Business Central 2025 Release Wave 2 finally addresses this with something that’s not just another flashy AI feature—Copilot’s autofill can now search the web for vendor and customer information automatically. It’s available right now, and it actually works.
What Actually Changed (And Why You Should Care)
You’ve probably used autofill features before. They suggest values based on what’s already in your system—recent entries, common selections, frequently used options. That’s helpful, but it’s limited. What happens when you’re adding a completely new vendor that doesn’t exist in your Business Central database yet?
Before this update, you were stuck with manual entry.
Now, Copilot reaches out to Bing to find the information you need. Type in a vendor name, indicate the state, and click the sparkle icon (or use Alt+I). Within seconds, Copilot searches the web and returns suggestions for address, city, zip code, phone number, email, and website—all grounded in actual web sources.
Your team creates complete, accurate records without browser tab switching, without copying and pasting, and without the typos that come from manual entry.
We had one client whose purchasing team was spending 10-15 minutes per new vendor record. After implementing this feature, they’re down to about two minutes. When you’re adding dozens of vendors per month, that time adds up to real money saved.
Why This Actually Works: Transparency
Here’s what makes this different from AI features that sound good but make you nervous: you can verify everything.
When Copilot suggests information, each field includes a tooltip showing exactly where the data came from—with a direct link to the source website. You’re not blindly accepting AI suggestions. You’re making informed decisions with AI assistance.
This transparency matters for data integrity. It’s the difference between automation that creates confidence and automation that keeps you up at night worrying about errors.
Once you’ve verified the suggestions, accepting them is simple—one click on the “keep all” button. Business Central validates each field to maintain data integrity.
But it doesn’t stop at web-sourced data. Need help with other fields? Ask Copilot again. It might suggest your most commonly used responsibility center, recent values you’ve entered for similar records, or other intelligent defaults based on your usage patterns. The system learns your business context.
Beyond Contact Information
Vendor contact details are the obvious use case, but the enhanced autofill works for other field types where web search makes sense:
- **Tax registration numbers:** Finding official registration information from government databases
- **Product codes:** Locating manufacturer part numbers and specifications
- **Industry-specific identifiers:** Any publicly available reference data relevant to your business
Copilot determines when web search is appropriate for a given field type. Not everything needs web lookup—some fields are better served by your internal Business Central data patterns.
Getting Started
Before your team can use web-enhanced autofill, administrators need to enable Bing search integration. Navigate to the “Copilot and agent capabilities” page in Business Central and look for the “Enable Bing search” option.
This page also shows which features use Bing search and provides links to additional documentation. This centralized control ensures you understand exactly how AI capabilities are being used in your system.
For teams that live in their ERP, keyboard shortcuts make autofill even faster:
- **Alt+I:** Activate Copilot autofill for the current field group
- **Alt+Up:** Toggle information tooltips to see data sources
- **Tab navigation:** Move efficiently between suggested values
These shortcuts let experienced users create complete records in seconds rather than minutes without touching the mouse.
The Real Cost of Manual Data Entry
Let me be blunt about what this is costing your business. If your team creates five vendor records per week, and each record takes fifteen minutes instead of two, that’s over an hour wasted weekly. Multiply that across purchasing, sales, customer service, and other departments creating records regularly.
An hour per week is fifty-two hours per year per person. At loaded labor costs, that’s thousands of dollars annually in pure waste. And that’s conservative—many organizations create way more than five new records weekly.
- But the real value isn’t just time saved. It’s what your team does with that time instead:
- Building vendor relationships that improve pricing and terms
- Following up on customer opportunities that increase revenue
- Analyzing data patterns that inform strategic decisions
- Focusing on exceptions that actually need human judgment
This is what practical AI should do—eliminate the tedious work that prevents people from applying their judgment where it matters most.
How to Actually Implement This Successfully
Don’t just enable the feature and hope people use it. Here’s what we’ve learned from helping clients implement these kinds of capabilities:
**Start with high-volume users.** Identify teams that create the most new records—usually purchasing, sales, or customer service. Train them first and gather feedback about what works.
**Build confidence gradually.** Begin with record types where verification is straightforward—new vendors or customers with easily validated web presences. As your team becomes comfortable, expand to more complex use cases.
**Monitor data quality.** Even with AI assistance, data quality depends on human verification. Establish clear expectations about when team members should verify suggestions before accepting them.
**Customize for your business.** Work with your implementation partner to understand how autofill suggestions can be influenced for custom fields and custom pages. The feature includes developer capabilities for tailoring to your specific processes.
Developer Customization
For organizations with custom Business Central implementations, Microsoft has provided guidance on how developers can influence Copilot autofill behavior for custom fields and pages. This ensures the enhanced autofill extends to your unique business requirements, not just standard Business Central fields.
This extensibility matters for businesses that have invested in customizing Business Central. The AI assistance grows with your system rather than being limited to out-of-the-box functionality.
Availability
The enhanced autofill feature is available in public preview across all Business Central countries, languages, and environment types. Microsoft has initially assessed quality for English language usage, with additional language support rolling out later in Release Wave 2.
Organizations can start using the feature immediately, regardless of geographic location or deployment model.
This Is Just the Beginning
Microsoft has indicated that autofill represents “Copilot’s new superpower in Business Central.” They’re actively seeking feedback to expand the feature to more fields with increasingly intelligent suggestions.
The capability you implement today will become more powerful over time as Microsoft refines the AI models and expands supported scenarios. Your investment in learning the feature now will pay dividends as it matures.
Ready to Stop Wasting Time?
Microsoft’s enhanced autofill in Business Central 2025 Release Wave 2 is what practical AI should look like—transparent, verifiable, time-saving, and focused on real business problems. When your team can create complete, accurate records in seconds rather than minutes, you’re fundamentally changing how people experience working in your ERP.
The businesses that will benefit most are those willing to embrace intelligent automation while maintaining appropriate verification. With proper setup and training, enhanced autofill can transform one of the most tedious aspects of ERP usage.
At CAL Business Solutions, we help organizations maximize their Business Central investment through expert implementation and practical training. Our team understands both the technical capabilities and the business context needed to turn new features into operational advantages.
Ready to see how web-enhanced autofill and other Business Central 2025 Release Wave 2 features can transform your team’s productivity? Contact us today to learn more about leveraging Business Central’s enhanced Copilot capabilities.
By CAL Business Solutions, Connecticut Microsoft Dynamics GP / 365 BC & Acumatica Partner, www.calszone.com
