Do you know the feeling of sending an invoice to the wrong address, discovering the same customer created twice or ending up with an outdated company name on a reminder? Poor data quality on customer and vendor master data hits you where it hurts: in incorrect invoices, duplicate records and delayed payments. The question is how you ensure good data quality in Business Central without spending hours on manual maintenance. Let us take a closer look at that here.
What incorrect master data costs you
When data on customers and vendors is wrong, the error spreads through the entire business. A wrong address means the invoice or reminder never arrives. A duplicated customer leads to double postings and a misleading picture of your revenue. And an outdated company name or company registration number can hold up a payment or a reminder process. Each individual error seems small, but taken together they steal time from the finance team and cast doubt on the numbers.
The root of the problem is often manual entry. When an employee types the name, address and postal code by hand, typos creep in, and the data is never updated when the customer moves or changes name.
Pull master data directly from the CVR register
The simplest route to good data quality is to pull data from the source instead of typing it. With automatic lookups in the CVR register (the Danish Central Business Register), you can update customer master data directly from the official register. A lookup on a company registration number retrieves, among other things:
- The name of the company, exactly as it is registered
- Address, postal code and city
- Company type and industry code
- Number of full-time employees (FTE)
Because the data comes directly from the CVR register, you avoid typos and ensure that both new and existing customers and vendors are registered correctly from the start.
Keep data up to date over time
Correct data at the point of creation is only the first step. Companies move, change names and reorganise, so the data has to be maintained on an ongoing basis. This is where a Last Checked date on both CPR (the Danish civil registration number) and CVR helps, so you can always see when a record was last checked against the register.
Even better, the check can run automatically at the right moments. When new sales documents or reminders are created, the system can verify whether the master data is still current before the document goes out. That way you catch outdated information before it reaches the customer.
The change journal as quality assurance
Automation is good, but you still need to stay in control. That is why it is an advantage to see the proposed changes before you apply them. In a change journal, the changed fields can be marked with colours, so it is clear what is happening: red for the current value and green for the new one. That way you make a conscious decision on each individual update instead of overwriting data blindly.
Update the entire list at once
If you need to clean up an entire register, batch updating lets you go through the full customer and vendor list in one operation. With a configurable commit interval, you can handle large volumes of data without overloading the system, because the updates are posted in suitable portions along the way.
VisionIdentity automates the lookups
We bring all of this functionality together in VisionIdentity, which automates CVR lookups and ongoing checks of your master data directly in Business Central. You get data pulled from the register, a Last Checked date on your records, a colour-coded change journal and batch updating of the entire list — all in one place.
If you want to dive into the details, you can read more about setting up VisionIdentity and see the full functionality in our documentation. And if you have other areas of the business where correct master data is essential, good data quality is closely tied to your work with GDPR in Business Central.
Clean up the register once, and let automation keep it up to date afterwards. That way you spend your time on your customers instead of on fixing errors. If you have any questions, you are always welcome to contact us.
