HR solution expands Business Central value proposition

When Dynamics Business Excellence (DBE) was looking to add human resources (HR) functionality to its Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central practice, they evaluated three of the top third-party industry solutions. After extensive review, the partner chose Factorial as the most comprehensive “better together” offering for the small and medium-sized business (SMB) space. “Factorial was the most modern, user-friendly HR solution that integrated seamlessly with Business Central,” said Mehdi Benali, Project Manager and Co-Owner of DBE. “Business Central is the heart of our business, but adding HR to our ERP services provides a more comprehensive solution for driving business transformation with customers and provides a new revenue opportunity to grow our business.”

Factorial has achieved rapid success in the HR sector, building a client base of more than 16,000 customers in less than 10 years for its all-in-one HR platform that automates and unifies time tracking, time off, expenses, and payroll management. Three and a half years ago, the company invested in developing its partner channel to drive additional market reach, with the Microsoft partner ecosystem as a key target. “The Microsoft partners ecosystem has exactly the type of partners we want to work with, especially those with Business Central practices because our offering is very complementary,” said Oriol Pesa, Head of Global Partners at Factorial. “We have added about 200 Business Central customers so far, and over the next year we expect that our partnership around Business Central will account for up to 15% of our new business.”

For Factorial partners like DBE, the impact to pipeline and revenue growth has also been significant. DBE built a reputation as an innovator, establishing its Business Central practice solely around Software-as-as-Service (SaaS) implementations to ensure that customers get the efficiency, agility, and scale offered by enterprise resource planning (ERP) on the Microsoft Cloud. “By extending ERP with an integrated HR solution, we are able to continue to differentiate our services. We have seen our pipeline and new customer adds grow since incorporating Factorial into our solution portfolio, while helping customers realize additional time and cost savings by implementing an end-to-end solution,” said Mehdi.

Goldmund saves time, resources with DBE and Factorial

One DBE customer that has benefited from the Microsoft-Factorial partnership is Goldmund, a Swiss manufacturer of luxury audio and home theater systems. DBE had deployed Business Central several years ago to serve as Goldmund’s core ERP solution, then added SwissSalary for cloud-based payroll as a next step. With these solutions in place, the manufacturer quickly realized its digital transformation was incomplete without HR integrated into the workflow. “Having Factorial as part of our solution portfolio made it very easy to address their requirements,” said Mehdi. “Once a payroll solution goes into production, it is very common for companies to see gaps in their HR functionality. We were able to quickly demo Factorial and its connection to both Business Central and SwissSalary, making it a very simple decision for Goldmund to add these capabilities to their operations.”

DBE deployed three Factorial modules on top of Business Central: Core HR, Time Off, and Time Tracking. For Core HR, setup was extremely quick—once you input the salary for each employee, Factorial automates the configuration, including providing a digital “safe deposit box” for each worker to securely access pay slips. Time Tracking was particularly useful for Goldmund, as Swiss law requires businesses to record time in and time out for each employee every day. With Factorial, Goldmund employees can now scan a QR code with their phone when they enter and leave, and data is automatically connected to the rest of the digital ecosystem, making it easier to fulfill compliance requirements with accurate, real-time information. Lastly, the Time Off module created a paperless, automated workflow for employees’ vacation and other out-of-office requests. Goldmund managers now receive a digital notification when a new request is created. When approved, the time off is deducted directly in the payroll application, giving employees an accurate view of their remaining days off for the year.

“The work that DBE has done with Goldmund—helping improve employee experiences, automate HR processes, and improve overall resource management—is really a textbook example of the value that Factorial brings to Business Central environments,” said Pesa. “We look forward to our partnership growing with DBE and Microsoft as customers continue to scale these solutions for greater impact.”

Banking on AI for further growth

AI is an area where Factorial clearly sees its HR value for Business Central customers growing. The company has developed its One Factorial agent, built with Microsoft Foundry, as an AI-powered tool with knowledge of your business data inside Factorial. The agent helps teams across HR, Finance, Management, and Operations reduce manual work, get instant answers to HR questions, and generate documents reports, and insights in seconds.

“We are focused on an AI-first approach to bringing solutions to market for SMB customers. Factorial One is not a chatbot, it doesn’t just retrieve data, but can also co-create and enter its own data,” said Pesa. “The next step is using Model Context Protocol (MCP) server to enable our agent to interact with other agents in the Microsoft stack, whether that is Microsoft 365 Copilot or third-party agents.”

As both a Microsoft and Factorial partner, DBE also is focused on the opportunity AI presents to the SMB market. The company already has 10% of its research and development team dedicated to AI agent development and expects that to grow as the technology evolves. “We see the transition to AI as the same type of revolution as the change from on-premises to cloud,” said Mehdi. “Demand is high, and we are already deploying the Microsoft Sales Order Agent and Microsoft Payables Agent within Business Central in multiple customers. We look forward to the continued evolution of AI-powered solutions that Microsoft and Factorial are introducing to the marketplace.”

“Factorial was the most modern, user-friendly HR solution that integrated seamlessly with Business Central. Business Central is the heart of our business, but adding HR to our ERP services provides a more comprehensive solution for driving business transformation with customers and provides a new revenue opportunity to grow our business.”

—Mehdi Benali, Project Manager and Co-Owner, Dynamics Business Excellence

“The Microsoft partners ecosystem has exactly the type of partners we want to work with ... We have added about 200 Business Central customers so far, and over the next year we expect that our partnership around Business Central will account for up to 15% of our new business.”

—Oriol Pesa, Head of Global Partners, Factorial

Factorial and DBE partner to grow Business Central value