In the current release wave, we are introducing the following regulatory reporting enhancements:

Performance improvements for Audit File Financial (XAF) – Netherlands

Dutch customers can generate the mandatory XAF export significantly faster, even for large data volumes.

This enhancement uses optimized data storage and the latest XAF 4.0 format to reduce processing time and system load when producing audit files. It ensures compliance with the Dutch Tax Administration’s newest digital audit requirements by supporting XAF 4.0, which replaces the legacy XAF 3.2 standard.

This performance enhancement is achieved through two key improvements:

Leveraging the new General ledger dimension set balance calculation: The Audit File Financial report now takes advantage of the Performance enhancement for general ledger dimension set balance calculation feature in Dynamics 365 Finance. When this feature is enabled, the system precalculates and continuously updates ledger balances for defined financial dimension sets in the background (through a process automation job that runs every few minutes).

Reports that use financial dimension sets (like the XAF report) can then pull data from these preaggregated balances instead of computing everything from scratch. This means the Audit File generation runs much more efficiently, data is stored in optimized tables using less space, and the trial balance figures are readily available for reporting. As a result, the XAF output can be produced quickly, even if the transactional data volume is very large, since calculations have been done ahead of time.
Adopting the latest Audit File implementation best practices: The feature updates the XAF generation to use the latest standard methods and format. It introduces a new Electronic Reporting (ER) model mapping configuration for XAF 4.0 optimized for that format. By using the ER framework, the solution follows Microsoft’s best practices for regulatory reporting, which improves maintainability and performance.

Together, these improvements mean that a Dutch legal entity can generate its XML Audit File Financial quickly and reliably. After setting up the feature (ensuring that financial dimension sets are defined and balance tracking is enabled for them) and importing the latest XAF 4.0 ER configurations, you run the Audit File Financial process as before. The report completes faster and the resulting XML complies with XAF 4.0 requirements (with fields like the RGS codes for each account as per the latest specification).

By following the standard setup (such as associating main accounts with RGS codes in a consolidation account group per the documentation) and enabling this feature, organizations ensure that Audit File generation is not only compliant but also optimized for performance. This is especially beneficial at month-end or year-end, when time is critical–the audit file can be produced with minimal delay, allowing finance departments to confidently meet Dutch statutory obligations with improved efficiency and accuracy.