Who should own reporting: finance or IT?
Reporting stalls when nobody owns it. A practical split of responsibilities between finance and IT that actually works in Business Central — and the warning sign that yours is currently unowned.
Ask why reporting hasn't improved and you'll usually get a version of the same answer: finance thinks IT owns it, IT thinks finance owns it, and so nothing moves. Meanwhile someone rebuilds the same pack by hand every month.
Diagram splitting reporting responsibilities: finance owns the definitions, layouts and figures that must reconcile; IT owns connections, permissions, refresh and performance; both agree one source of truth.Who owns reporting?FINANCE owns the WHATReport definitionsLayouts and groupingsFigures that must reconcileIT owns the HOWConnections and accessRefresh and schedulingPerformance and securityBoth agree ONE source of truth - in writing
Why the gap appears
Reporting sits precisely between the two functions, and neither can finish the job alone.
IT owns the system, the data, the access and the performance. Finance owns the definitions — what "margin" means here, which accounts roll up where, what the board actually needs to see. Hand it entirely to IT and you get technically correct reports that answer the wrong question. Hand it entirely to finance and you get a spreadsheet estate nobody can support.
A split that works
The cleanest division we see in practice:
| Finance owns the WHAT | IT owns the HOW |
|---|---|
| Report definitions and calculations | Connections, credentials and access |
| Layouts, groupings and presentation | Refresh, scheduling and automation |
| Which figures must reconcile | Performance, security and backup |
| Sign-off that a report is correct | Change control and environments |
And one shared responsibility that belongs to both: agreeing the source of truth, in writing. Most reporting disputes are actually undocumented definition disputes.
The warning sign it's unowned
There's a reliable tell. If your month-end pack is rebuilt by hand each month, nobody owns it. Owned reports get maintained; unowned reports get redone. The rebuilding is the symptom.
A second tell: nobody can say who would fix a broken report. If the answer is "we'd ask around", it's unowned regardless of what any org chart says.
Making it stick
- Name an owner per report, not per system. Ownership at system level is too coarse to be actionable.
- Write definitions down. One page per key figure: what's included, what's excluded, which accounts.
- Agree a change route. How does someone request a change, and who approves it?
- Review annually. Reports outlive their purpose; someone should be allowed to retire them.
Where an outside pair of hands helps
Occasionally the honest answer is that neither side has capacity, and the reporting sits unowned because everyone's busy — not because nobody cares. That's a legitimate reason to bring in help, provided the outcome is documented reports your team can maintain, rather than a dependency you've just relocated.
Frequently asked
Should finance be allowed to build their own reports?Yes, within a governed framework. Self-service is the goal; the guardrails are agreed definitions and a supported toolset.What if IT has no BC experience?Then buy that expertise in for the setup and have it transfer knowledge. What you shouldn't do is leave reporting unowned while you decide.Who owns data quality?Whoever creates the data — usually operations, not finance. Finance discovers the errors; they rarely cause them.How many reports should we have?Fewer than you do. Most report estates have a long tail nobody runs, which costs maintenance and confuses new starters.
