Preparing Your Production Finance Function for Business Central Wave 2 2026

Business Central's Wave 2 2026 update lands in October - and if your production finance stack runs on Just-TV, Just-ROYALTIES or Just-TALENT, it arrives automatically, whether or not anyone's reviewed it first. Microsoft's update cycle gives you a scheduling window, not a choice about whether the update happens.

Generic SME finance advice doesn't quite cover it, though. Production accounting runs on cost reports, not just a P&L; your supplier base is dominated by freelancers and crew rather than a handful of regular vendors; and royalty and talent statements have to reconcile against contracts, not just invoices. Here's what Wave 2 2026 means for that specific setup.

What's actually confirmed

Business Central 29, the release behind Wave 2 2026, arrives in October 2026. Worth flagging: Microsoft has confirmed that from September 2026, it's retiring the traditional Release Plan format in favour of a single, continuously-updated "AI at Work" roadmap. That means the detailed, feature-by-feature list we'd normally check ahead of a wave isn't published in the usual place yet,  so treat anything below as the direction of travel, not a locked feature list, until Microsoft's own roadmap confirms it.

What this could mean for production accounting workflows

AI agents extending into higher-volume, lower-value transactions. Wave 1 2026 introduced Payables, Sales Order and Expense agents working on a human-in-the-loop basis, plus an Agent Designer for building custom ones. Production accounting is exactly the kind of high-volume, repetitive-coding environment this is built for,  hundreds of freelancer invoices and PO-matched crew costs a week. Whether Wave 2 extends agent capability specifically into cost coding hasn't been confirmed, but it's the logical next step from where Wave 1 left off, and worth testing against your own PO and cost-code structures once the preview lands.

E-invoicing and e-document expansion. Microsoft has been steadily broadening the e-documents framework release over release,  shipment documents, PEPPOL connectors, clearance models. With e-invoicing mandates expanding across the EU and UK regulators signalling the same direction, further investment here is likely. For production finance, the practical question is what this means for supplier and freelancer payments specifically: most crew and freelance suppliers aren't set up for e-invoicing today, so it's worth confirming with us whether any e-document changes affect your existing payment run and remittance processes before October, rather than after.

Reporting. Nothing production-specific has been confirmed for Wave 2. Recent waves have focused on native Power BI apps for cashflow, purchasing and project profitability,  worth watching if you rely on those for cost reporting, but not something to plan around yet.

What to check in your Just-TV, Just-ROYALTIES and Just-TALENT setup

Before the update reaches production, run through:

• Extension compatibility - confirm your Just-TV, Just-ROYALTIES and Just-TALENT versions, and any third-party apps sitting alongside them, are validated against the Wave 2 preview. This sits with your ISV partner, not just your IT team.
• Cost coding structures - chart of accounts, cost report templates and cross-charging or recharge configurations are the things most likely to be affected by any AI-agent or coding changes.
• Royalty calculation rules - statement templates and calculation logic in Just-ROYALTIES, tested against a real title's data, not demo data.
• Talent and agency records - payment terms, agency splits and contact configurations in Just-TALENT.
• Freelancer and supplier payment setup - particularly if you operate co-productions or pay overseas crew, where e-invoicing changes are most likely to land first.

Pre-October checklist for production finance managers

1. Confirm your update window and put it in the diary now. The update period runs for several months after general availability, but "later" has a deadline attached.
2. Audit every extension and third-party app in production, including Just-TV, Just-ROYALTIES and Just-TALENT versions.
3. Copy a real production's cost reports, a live royalty run and a talent statement into a sandbox and test them against the Wave 2 preview.
4. Check freelancer and supplier payment processes for anything e-invoicing might touch.
5. Brief your production finance team on what's changing and when, not just IT.
6. Book a Wave 2 readiness check with CTM before the update period begins.

Wave 2 2026 isn't confirmed in detail yet, but the pattern is consistent: more AI-assisted processing of routine transactions, continued e-invoicing expansion, and native reporting improvements. For a production finance function running on cost codes, freelancer volumes and royalty contracts, that's worth planning for now rather than reacting to in October.

Want your production finance stack ready for whatever Wave 2 brings? Speak to the team at Creative Total Media,  we'll review your Just-TV, Just-ROYALTIES and Just-TALENT configuration, flag anything that needs attention before October, and make sure you're positioned to take advantage of what's coming.