I’d like to share the story of one of our manufacturing clients who faced significant challenges following their D365 FO rollout. Their implementation went live but quickly ran into issues including incorrect financial postings, unreliable reporting, poor cost tracking, and growing user frustration. In this overview, I’ll walk you through the problems they encountered, the 90-day recovery plan we executed, and the successful outcomes we achieved.
Phase 1: Stabilize & Assess (Days 1–30)
- Stakeholder Alignment
- Conducted kickoff with finance, operations, IT, and leadership
- Defined recovery goals and success metrics
- Communicated a freeze on non-critical changes
- Rapid System Audit
- Review posting profiles, dimensions, journal setups
- Identification of misconfigured modules (GL, AP, AR, inventory)
- Audit reports and data sources for inconsistencies
- Data & Process Diagnostics
- Audited cost management configuration
- Use Financial Period Close workspace for tracking
- Review costing versions and inventory valuation methods
- Immediate Fixes
- Corrected critical posting setups
- Revised configuration using financial dimensions and financial tags
- Adjusted incorrect journal entries
- Recalculated inventory and cost values
- Regenerated several reports
Phase 2: Remediate & Rebuild (Days 31–60)
- Reconfigure Posting Profiles
- Validate main account setups and dimension combinations
- Fix inventory posting profiles and item group mappings
- Reporting Overhaul
- Rebuild financial reports using Management Reporter or Power BI
- Validate filters, date ranges, and data entities
- Create dashboards for finance and operations teams
- Cost Management Repair
- Review and correct costing versions, BOMs, and production orders
- Enable cost control workspace and configure KPIs
- Reconcile inventory valuation with GL
- User Training & Support
- Conduct targeted training sessions
- Create quick reference guides and process documentation
- Establish a support channel for issue tracking
Phase 3: Optimize & Automate (Days 61–90)
- Power Platform Integration
- Deploy OOTB workflows & Power Automate flows for journal approvals, alerts, and validations
- Automate recurring tasks (e.g., invoice matching, report distribution)
- AI Agent Enablement
- Integrate Copilot for Finance for anomaly detection and forecasting
- Use AI for cost variance alerts and predictive insights
- Governance & Monitoring
- Set up KPIs and dashboards for ongoing health checks
- Implement change control and release management processes
- Schedule monthly review meetings with stakeholders
- Final Review & Handover
- Conduct a final audit and performance review
- Present outcomes and lessons learned
- Deliver a “Rescue Playbook” for future reference
Success Metrics
| Area | Metric |
| Financial Accuracy | % of corrected postings |
| Reporting Reliability | # of validated reports |
| Cost Visibility | Inventory valuation accuracy |
| User Confidence | Survey or feedback score |
| Automation Impact | # of Power Automate flows deployed |
| AI Insights | # of predictive alerts generated |