Updated · Originally published
Updated April 2026
Microsoft Dynamics SL served a lot of organizations well for a long time. But with Microsoft ending mainstream support in 2026, organizations still running SL are now facing a migration decision whether they planned for one or not. Most are moving to Dynamics 365 Business Central or Dynamics 365 Finance.
That migration is also the right moment to fix something that has probably been a low-grade frustration for years: timesheets and expense reports.
No ERP handles time and expense management well on its own. Dynamics is no exception. The question is what you put alongside it, and whether that solution is built to move with you as your ERP evolves.
Why Automate Timesheets and Expense Reporting in the First Place
Ask anyone in your organization whether they enjoy doing their timesheets and expense reports. The answer is predictable. Employees resent the administrative overhead. Managers dislike reviewing and approving submissions, and they like chasing down missing ones even less. Finance teams spend hours on reconciliation that should take minutes.
None of this is unavoidable. It is what happens when time and expense processes are manual, disconnected, or running on tools that were not designed for the job. Automation through a purpose-built third-party solution, integrated directly with your Dynamics environment, changes the equation for everyone involved.
Here is what to look for when evaluating your options.
Key Features to Look for in a Dynamics Time and Expense Solution
Compliance Enforcement at the Point of Entry
Managers should not have to manually verify that every submitted timesheet and expense report complies with company policy or regulatory requirements. A well-built system handles approvals and denials automatically based on your rules, and flags issues with enough context for employees to understand and correct them before resubmitting. This eliminates the back-and-forth that makes approval queues a recurring headache.
Receipt Management That Does the Work
Optical character recognition (OCR) lets employees snap a photo of a receipt and have the system populate the relevant fields automatically. No manual entry, no lost paper receipts, no receipts arriving in accounting via email three weeks after a trip. Approvers get digital receipts stored alongside the expense report, not chased down separately.
Credit card feed imports extend this further. Connect company cards or P-Cards to the system and card transactions flow directly into expense reports, with vendor name, amount, date, and other details pre-filled. The report largely completes itself.
Mobile Access That Matches the Desktop Experience
Employees working in the field, traveling, or simply away from a desk should not have to wait until they are back at a workstation to submit timesheets or expenses. A mobile app that delivers the same functionality as the desktop version, with notifications and alerts for submissions and approvals, keeps the process moving regardless of where employees are working.
Direct Integration Without Data Manipulation
Some solutions connect to Dynamics through a connector that requires data to be exported, reformatted, and imported. That introduces errors, delays, and a manual step that undermines the point of automation. Look for a solution with direct integration that pulls data from your Dynamics environment without requiring manipulation on either end.
, including Business Central and Finance, with the same depth of integration that SL customers relied on. If you are mid-migration or planning one, we can work alongside your implementation partner to make sure time and expense is handled correctly from day one.
Project Tracking at the Activity Level
Tracking time and expenses by project sounds straightforward until you are managing several projects simultaneously and trying to establish accurate ROI for each one. Granular project-level tracking, down to the activity or task level, provides the data you need to understand where money is being spent and where it could be saved. Automation makes this manageable: input the project, collect data throughout, run reports at close.
Geolocation and Geo-Fencing for Field Operations
For organizations in retail, field services, staffing, home healthcare, or any industry with distributed workforces, geo-fencing adds a meaningful layer of accuracy to timekeeping. You can set a GPS perimeter around a worksite so employees can only clock in or out within those boundaries. Geolocation also provides context for where timesheets and expense reports are being submitted, which matters for compliance and project billing.
The Migration Moment Is the Right Moment
Moving off Dynamics SL is not just an IT project. It is an opportunity to evaluate every system that touches your ERP, including how you handle timesheets and expense reports. Organizations that treat time and expense as an afterthought during an ERP migration tend to carry their old problems into the new environment and spend months fixing them after go-live.
Getting it right during the migration means selecting a solution that integrates with your target Dynamics platform, enforces your policies automatically, and gives employees and finance teams a process that actually works without workarounds.