If you’re running procurement or finance on Dynamics 365 Business Central, you’ve probably seen this pattern: Business Central is great for managing vendors, POs and approvals, but vendor contracts tend to end up in SharePoint, email, or in an Excel document. That’s because Business Central wasn’t built as a full contract lifecycle management (CLM) system.
The good news is you can very easily make your contract management process more streamlined by using a Dynamics 365 based contract management add-on like our Klevr apps, with pre-built integration to Business Central. Klevr allows you to manage contracts, spend, and vendor data in Dynamics 365 and surface it into Business Central without having to build complex integrations from scratch.
1. Give contracts a real home in Dynamics 365
Problem: Out of the box, there’s no obvious “this is the contract for this vendor” record in Business Central.
Fix: Add a contract object that sits in your Dynamics 365 environment and links directly to the Vendor. It can hold the signed PDF, key dates, milestones, value, owner, and related transactions. Klevr Contracts centralises vendor agreements so finance and procurement don’t have to leave Dynamics 365 to find the source document or information they need.
2. Stop contract auto-renewal surprises
Problem: Renewal and notice dates live in people’s heads, which may allow contracts to roll over on unapproved terms.
Fix: Store start/end/renewal/notice on the contract and trigger reminders 30 or 90 days out to the right people (procurement, finance, legal etc). Klevr can automate those time based alerts so renewals become a managed process.
3. Make POs obey the contract (budget/spend control) in Business Central
Problem: Users raise POs that exceed the contract value or annual cap, which causes contract leakage.
Fix: Require the PO to reference a contract and validate the remaining budget/committed spend before approval. Klevr Budget Control enforces real-time spend governance inside Business Central, so overspend is blocked where it happens.
4. Tie supplier onboarding to contract creation in Business Central
Problem: Vendor onboarding is manual, so contracts get created late or not at all.
Fix: Use a self-service supplier portal that writes straight into Dynamics 365 and kicks off the contract workflow, including compliance documents. Klevr Portals can enable your suppliers to maintain their own profiles and upload documents, which then feeds into Business Central, so you end up with a contract record every time.
5. Keep all contract communications in one place
Problem: Contract details might be in Dynamics, but the real story, like emails about variations, notes from suppliers, internal approvals, phone call summaries, is scattered across Outlook, Teams, and people’s heads. When something is disputed or audited, it’s hard to see the full picture.
Fix: Track all interactions, emails, notes and activities against the contract record in Dynamics 365 so anyone in finance or procurement can open the contract and see the full history: who spoke to the supplier, what was agreed, what documents were added, and when. Because Klevr lives in the Microsoft stack, it can surface those activities alongside the contract, giving you a holistic view without digging through inboxes.
6. CLM basics like approvals, versioning, permissions controls
Problem: You can store a document in Business Central, but you don’t get full contract lifecycle controls.
Fix: A contract management Dynamics 365 add-on like Klevr Contracts is an easy way to add CLM functionality alongside Business Central:
- Approvals/workflow: route new or amended contracts for sign-off before they’re active
- Version history: keep the latest signed copy while retaining older versions
- Role-based access: sensitive contracts aren’t visible to everyone in AP
7. Report on contracts like real data
Problem: Contracts are often “just PDFs”, so reporting is a very manual process.
Fix: Capture contract metadata in Dynamics 365, including vendor, department, value, dates, owner and report on it in Power BI alongside actual spend and POs. Klevr centralises contract data next to financial transactions, which makes audits, expiries, and forecasted spend much easier to surface.
8. Choose a Microsoft native contract management solution
Problem: Standalone CLM tools often sit outside Business Central, so contracts, vendors and POs don’t stay in sync. Getting them to “talk” to Business Central can mean large, complex middleware deployment or integration projects.
Fix: Use a Business Central compatible, Microsoft-native extension like Klevr Contracts (with pre-built integration to Business Central), so that contracts live in the same data model as vendors, POs and AP. That way you get:
- familiar UI
- Microsoft security
- simpler upgrades
- contracts linked to POs/AP without custom integration
The Klevr apps suite is built for the Dynamics 365/Microsoft ecosystem, so you can close contract, onboarding and budget-control gaps inside the platform you already run, without adding another bolt-on, isolated system.
Contract Management in Business Central FAQs
Does Business Central have complete vendor contract management out of the box?
Not end-to-end. You can store documents and manage some recurring/vendor costs, but you don’t get a dedicated vendor contract record with approvals, versioning, permissions, date alerts, and PO-level spend validation. That’s the gap that Dynamics 365 Business Central add-ons like Klevr Contracts are designed to fill.
Why do people still use Excel for contract management when they already have Business Central?
Because Business Central by itself doesn’t capture things like notice periods, termination conditions, or contract caps in a way that’s enforced during purchasing. A Dynamics 365 Business Central native add-on like Klevr Contracts adds those fields and connects them to the procure-to-pay (P2P) process, so contracts actually control the POs and invoices.