CostX Custom Reports for NAV Integration | West-Edge

CostX Custom Reports: From Estimate to ERP in One Click

Construction and modular manufacturing businesses live and die by how reliably their numbers move from estimating to ERP. Every manual step between a RIB CostX workbook and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (formerly Dynamics NAV / Navision) or another ERP is a chance for delay, rework, or error.

At West-Edge Cost Consulting and Analytics, we design CostX custom reports that close this gap. From a single CostX workbook, your team can generate:

• A polished, branded PDF for clients
• A NAV / ERP-ready Excel file for upload

Both documents tell the same cost story, just in formats tailored to different audiences.

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The Problem: Estimating and ERP Don’t Naturally Speak the Same Language

CostX is built for estimators. ERP systems like Dynamics NAV and Business Central are built for finance and operations. In the middle sits a translation problem.

Out of the box, CostX can produce good-looking reports, but they’re not always structured in the way an ERP expects. Estimators often find themselves:

• Hiding internal columns so clients don’t see every rate and assumption
• Re‑ordering lines to match rigid ERP import templates
• Fixing small rounding differences caused by overrides or factors
• Maintaining separate "client" and "ERP upload" versions of the same estimate

None of that adds value to the project. It’s non‑billable time, manual copy‑paste work, and a constant risk that one spreadsheet gets out of sync with another.

What’s really happening is that CostX and ERP systems are using the same data in different ways, but the connection between them hasn’t been formalised. That’s exactly where custom reporting and PascalScript CostX automation come in.

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How West-Edge Uses PascalScript CostX to Fix This

CostX ships with a powerful custom reporting engine. Under the hood, that engine supports scripting, which lets us add logic to your reports instead of to your workbooks. We lean on that—hard.

Our service combines three main ingredients: PascalScript automation, subdetail and branding layouts, and ERP-aligned exports.

1. PascalScript Automation

We design PascalScript CostX logic that runs inside your custom report whenever an estimator clicks Print or Export.

The script inspects each workbook line and decides what it actually represents in the report: an Item, a Resource/Group, or a Text heading. That classification controls how the line appears, how it’s grouped, and whether it should be exported to ERP at all.

On top of that, we implement rules for:

• Stable ordering and grouping – ensuring items appear consistently by cost code, phase, or WBS so comparisons between versions stay clean.
• Rate factors and overrides – detecting when a workbook line has been overridden or adjusted, and keeping totals consistent with ERP expectations.
• Rounding tolerances – using small numerical thresholds so minor differences don’t cause NAV imports to fail or trigger endless “why is this one cent out?” investigations.

All of this happens in the report layer. Your estimators keep using their workbooks as they do today—no new template monster to maintain—while the report takes care of classification, sequencing, and safe rate handling in the background.

2. Subdetail Sheets and Brand-Safe Layouts

Logic alone isn’t enough; people still need to read the outputs. We use CostX’s FastReport designer to build layouts that are both readable and on-brand.

The report can present:

• Multi-level BOQ and subdetail views (for example: Trade → Item → Resource)
• Clear indentation and section headings that mirror how your workbook is structured
• Optional visibility of quantities, units, unit rates, and totals depending on the audience

At the same time, we bake in brand-safe templates: cover pages with your logo, consistent headers and footers, and sign-off blocks that match your approval process. The estimator doesn’t have to restyle anything in Word or Excel—the PDF that comes out of CostX is already client-ready.

3. NAV Integration Estimating – ERP-Ready Excel Exports

The final piece is making sure the Excel export is not just tidy, but genuinely ERP-ready.

We map the report’s data fields to the columns and headings expected by your ERP—whether that’s classic Dynamics NAV, modern Business Central, or another construction-focused ERP. Line types and codes are structured so import jobs can tell the difference between items, resource groups, and purely descriptive text.

Because the same PascalScript drives both the PDF and the Excel, the totals match exactly—even when overrides, factors, or complex build-ups are involved. That’s NAV integration estimating built into your reporting layer, rather than bolted on later with manual spreadsheet surgery.

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Conceptual Diagram: One Workbook, Two Outputs, One Source of Truth

flowchart LR
    A[CostX Workbook
(Quantities, rates, factors)] --> B[West-Edge CostX Custom Report
(PascalScript logic & layouts)]
    B --> C[Branded PDF
(Client-ready BOQ & summaries)]
    B --> D[NAV / ERP-Ready Excel
(Aligned to import template)]
    D --> E[Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central / ERP
(Budgets, jobs, procurement)]

The diagram shows what happens when the estimator hits Export: the CostX workbook flows through the West-Edge report, which applies PascalScript logic and layout rules, then branches into two outputs—one human-facing (PDF) and one machine-facing (Excel for ERP).

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Why This Matters for Construction Firms and ERP Integrators

For construction firms, builders, and modular manufacturers, the immediate benefit is very simple: less time spent fixing reports and more time spent analysing costs.

Instead of rebuilding the same estimate three times—for the client, for the internal review, and for the ERP—your team produces them all from one place. Internal detail stays available for audit and value engineering, while client documents remain focused and readable. No one is re-keying line items into NAV or Business Central at the end of a long day.

Industry research on ERP in construction backs this up, highlighting reduced rework, lower costs, and higher productivity when data flows cleanly across systems instead of being manually shuffled between tools.

For ERP integrators and finance teams, the value is just as clear. A well-designed CostX custom report becomes a predictable data contract:

• You know which columns will arrive in the Excel export.
• You know how line types and codes will behave.
• You have a clear trace from workbook → report → ERP budget.

That makes integrations easier to design, test, and support. When the estimating team updates its methodology, you update the report and the contract remains intact.

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How We Deliver CostX Custom Reports

We follow a structured, but lightweight, delivery flow.

1. Discovery & Workbook Review We start by reviewing your existing CostX workbooks, cost codes, and ERP import templates (for example, your NAV or Business Central upload sheets). We identify how you structure trades, phases, contingencies, and what the ERP expects on the other side.

2. Script & Layout Build Next, we build the PascalScript logic and the FastReport layouts. This includes the classification rules, grouping and sequencing logic, subdetail bands, and branding elements. We test the report on real or representative projects so you can see how your current estimates behave.

3. Validation & Handover Finally, we run trial exports, verify that the Excel can be imported into your ERP, and adjust any edge cases. We then hand over the report pack plus a short playbook so your team knows how to use it—and how to extend it safely as your workflows evolve.

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Ready to Turn CostX Into an ERP-Friendly Engine?

If you are:

• Struggling with manual cleanup between CostX and Dynamics NAV or Business Central
• Tired of maintaining separate “internal” and “client” versions of the same estimate
• Looking to standardise how your business presents and uploads cost data

…then a tailored CostX custom report can turn your estimating environment into a reliable front-end for your ERP.

West-Edge Cost Consulting and Analytics specialises in making that connection work smoothly—so your CostX estimates become a single source of truth, from takeoff to ERP, without all the spreadsheet acrobatics in between.