Over the past decade, Microsoft Dynamics 365 has become a major player in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) spaces. And each year, Community Summit North America—an independent conference for Microsoft AI and business application users—gathers together finance and accounting, IT, operations, and systems administration professionals to explore and discuss the past, present, and future of Dynamics 365 and ERP.
In 2025, the five-day gathering boasted more than 5,500 attendees, who participated in over 600 educational sessions, networked with around 280 Microsoft partners, and learned from 500 experts. Flywire, our parent company, was there, and over the course of this article, we’ll share some insights they gathered regarding the intersection of ERP, AI, and accounts receivable (A/R).
Don’t have time for a five-day conference? Get a summary from Griffin Ortale, Senior Account Executive at Flywire:
Beyond the Summit: Key Takeaways from Dynamics Community 2025
Takeaway #1: ERPs can’t do everything, even if you want them to
As the conference progressed, Flywire engaged in numerous discussions with those who had either recently upgraded their ERP platforms or were looking to do so soon, and a common theme kept emerging: the limitations of their chosen solution. Admittedly, a solid ERP offering will deliver several advantages—centralizing workflows, consolidating data into a common framework, delivering comprehensive insight into enterprise-wide operations. But they can’t do everything.
For instance, while most solutions will offer modules dedicated to general accounting and payment efforts, they often lack the nuance or precision of third-party tools. Even if a platform might streamline the creation of invoices, it likely won’t offer the same level of invoice-to-cash automation delivered by a solution like our Accounts Receivable Automation software.
Some enhanced functions our platform delivers beyond the typical ERP offering include:
- Automated invoice processing: generate payment requests quickly and easily, accommodating disputes, deductions, discounts, credits, and more without direct human intervention
- Customer payment portals: empower users to control their personal payment cycle as they review statements, initiate transactions, update subscriptions, and set up Autopay from an easy-to-use interface
- Simplified dunning: leverage our Smart Chasing feature to build and customize automated messaging cadences that control the frequency, tone, and language of follow-up notices
- Streamlined payments processing: match and apply incoming transactions from across the globe to the appropriate accounts, invoices, and balances through the power of our CashMatch AI
- Subscription management: support tiered plans alongside trial periods, prorations, upgrades, and addons from a central console
Targeted tools like ours make it easier for ERP users to draw maximum value out of the—often sizable—software investment they’ve made for their back office. These solutions build off the existing data pools and workflows delivered by the broader ERP platform to deliver more focused, timely management of day-to-day operations, yielding faster returns, fewer errors, and greater consistency.
Takeaway #2: The invoice-to-cash process is still largely manual
From Flywire’s conversations, we were also surprised to learn how many attendees were still relying on disconnected workflows for at least part of their invoice-to-cash (I2C) cycle. Some attendees described coordinating across Dynamics 365, email, Excel files, CRM records, and even sticky notes to handle their accounts receivable.
Larger, more established businesses with complex A/R and global presences weren’t immune, often using manual processes that invited unnecessary errors and delays. And these discussions with Flywire commonly shifted to the advantages of what a Microsoft Dynamics automation strategy—particularly one powered by Invoiced by Flywire—could deliver.
Get more work done with less labor
Obviously, manual A/R processes tie up your workforce, requiring them to perform repetitive and sometimes mundane tasks to keep your operations running smoothly. The more sales—and by extension payments—you receive, the more labor is required to process them. So, when your business grows or experiences a spike in sales, you’ll need to quickly find, hire, and onboard new workers to keep up with this increased workflow, dragging out payment timelines until you staff up appropriately.
Alternately, you can automate these workflows and let the technology keep pace with the growth rather than your hiring managers.
Eliminate unintended errors that drag out payment cycles
People make mistakes, and each time your staff directly update or modify your A/R data, you’re creating an opportunity for a transposed number or misplaced decimal point to ruin your day. Instead, an automated solution can manage invoices—and their associated data and metadata—throughout the entire I2C workflow, reducing the likelihood of inaccurate totals, misplaced paperwork, duplicate invoices, misapplied payments, and other common headaches.
Accelerate cash flow to promote growth
As automation cuts out the unnecessary delays and busy work from your payment cycle, you’ll soon be converting more of your unrealized revenue into actual cash in your accounts. And this more predictable, reliable funding stream makes it easier for you to plan for and execute process improvements, technology refreshes, market growth, and larger engagements.
Protect your business with consistent performance
There are few areas of your back office that will be as heavily regulated or scrutinized as your financials. And automation helps ensure that you’ll have consistent, reliable records in place that document your entire I2C cycle. With our platform, we include integrated reports and offer an Advanced Reporting add-on that lets you pull together hundreds of objects and field types into real-time dashboards and historical records.
Takeaway #3: Microsoft integrations are prioritized during A/R selection
ERP integration was obviously another key focus that came from Flywire’s conversations on driving increased value through Dynamics 365 automation. As we’ve just outlined, if you need to copy and paste critical data between your back office and your specialized A/R software, you’ll be undermining the potential return on both of these investments with unnecessary delays and errors.
Instead, whatever tool is being considered should offer broad integration support, making it easy to link systems across processes, departments, and geographies. This capability is potentially one of, if not the most foundational step in streamlining finance operations that you can take. We believe this so fervently that we’ve designed our Accounts Receivable Automation solution to deliver out-of-the-box integration with several major platforms and specialized solutions, including:
- Microsoft Dynamics 365
- Oracle NetSuite
- QuickBooks
- Sage Intacct
- Xero
- Avalara
- Lob
- Salesforce
- Twilio
- Zapier
Your staff can begin managing, manipulating, reporting, and storing A/R and ERP data without a steep learning curve. We even offer an ERP Connect tool to simplify the ongoing management of your Microsoft Dynamics 365 integration. And through our open application programming interface (API) access, your team can even surface our data streams and automation functions directly within your existing management consoles, creating a seamless, intuitive experience for all users.
Takeaway #4: AI integration is now the expectation
From the main stage to partner booths to the spotlight on Microsoft Copilot, artificial intelligence was everywhere at Community Summit. And while this lingering presence, at times, could feel a bit overwhelming and even overhyped, nearly every conversation over those five days at least acknowledged that AI is a present reality and reflects where the future of work is going.
For Flywire, many of its forward-looking discussions focused on the benefit, both to daily operations and future planning, that AI can deliver to A/R. Within our tool, we’ve already begun leveraging this technology to broaden and supercharge our automation capabilities, turning over complex tasks like cash application.
Customers don’t always pay you the amount recorded on their invoice. They might make a short payment, disputing a charge or claiming a credit or discount not logged on the outgoing statement. They could potentially pay for several deliveries all at once or split a single invoice into multiple transactions.
Fortunately, our Remittance Advice AI feature can extract relevant details from any incoming remittances (e.g., spreadsheets, PDFs), flagging any anomalies for further review. And our CashMatch AI algorithm can watch over all your incoming payments, leveraging remittance data and your existing A/R and ERP records to make sure every dollar shows up where it’s supposed to.
Invoiced by Flywire is the future of invoice automation solutions:
Whatever enterprise accounting software you’ve chosen to manage your financials, our Accounts Receivable Automation offering can infuse your billing and payment efforts with previously unrealized value and performance. More than just an invoice automation solution, we deliver a comprehensive management platform to accelerate your entire I2C process, filling in the A/R gaps left by even the most comprehensive ERP solution.
We minimize the human element, empowering your staff to focus on more strategic, relationship-building tasks, while our solution delivers seamless billing and payment workflows that accelerate cash flows to the speed of technology. Our broad platform support, including Microsoft Dynamics Integration, makes it easy to manage A/R and related financial data from across your enterprise.
We’re committed to leveraging AI where it makes sense, as we explore optimization measures beyond our CashMatch AI and Remittance Advice AI features. We’ve even streamlined the processing of global payments across 140 currencies thanks to the capabilities of Flywire software.
Schedule a demo, and experience the future of A/R today.
