11 Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Cookbook Field Guide

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
Field Guide
Your companion to a successful implementation. Tips to
get ahead as you venture into the cloud
Erik Hougaard
This book is for sale at http://leanpub.com/dynamics
This version was published on 2019-12-04
This is a Leanpub book. Leanpub empowers authors and publishers with the Lean Publishing
process. Lean Publishing is the act of publishing an in-progress ebook using lightweight tools and
many iterations to get reader feedback, pivot until you have the right book and build traction once
you do.
© 2019 Erik Hougaard

Tweet This Book!
Please help Erik Hougaard by spreading the word about this book on Twitter!
The suggested hashtag for this book is #msdyn365bc.
Find out what other people are saying about the book by clicking on this link to search for this
hashtag on Twitter:
#msdyn365bc
Contents
Overview of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
About Erik Hougaard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Modules in Business Central . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
History of Business Central . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Relationship to Dynamics NAV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Relationship to other Dynamics Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Intelligent Cloud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Signing up for Business Central . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Trial Version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Microsoft Partner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
AAD Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
CSP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Business Central License Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Office 365 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Azure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Business Central in different countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Deploying Business Central On-Premises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

The difference between Business Central On-Premises and in the cloud . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Why would I select the on-premises version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
On-Premises Installation, Best Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Intelligent Cloud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Local Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Getting Started With Business Central . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Setting Up Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Navigating the System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Shortcut Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Production vs. Sandbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Phones and Tablets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Migrating from other systems to Business Central . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
CONTENTS
Excel Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Configuration Packages, aka RapidStart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Custom Report Layouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Setting up the intelligent cloud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
The First Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Assisted Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Setup Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Chart Of Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Accounting Periods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Budgets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
How to Number Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Posting Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Tax/VAT Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Opening Balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Bank Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Exchange Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Setting up Approvals and Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Intercompany Posting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Customers and Vendors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Sales and Purchase Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Inventory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Daily Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Master Data Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Journals, Journals and more Journals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Payments to Vendors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Keeping track of your business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Inventory Cost Adjustment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Updating Exchange Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Use the Job Queue to automate operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Schedule Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Deferral Posting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Handling expenses and reimbursements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
What about backups? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Periodic Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

Financial Reporting with Account Schedules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Count Inventory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Reminders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Month End Close . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Year End . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Closing Inventory Periods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
CONTENTS
Calculate and Post Tax Settlement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
Advanced Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Project Management (Jobs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Jobs and Time Sheets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
Jobs monitoring, invoicing and WIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
How to Customize Business Central the right way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

Profiles and role centers - Give your users the right experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Personalizations, the first level of customizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
Extensions, using the page designer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Report Layouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Extending Business Central with Apps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
Create your own extension with Visual Studio Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
Integrating Business Central with the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

Email Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
Expose Web Services to the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
Consuming web services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
Integration with PowerBI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
Integration with PowerApps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
Final Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310

More Business Central Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
Change Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
Overview of the Book
This book is an attempt to give an introduction and familiarize users with Microsoft Dynamics 365
Business Central. It’s a very long product name, something that haunts all the Dynamics products.
Throughout this book, Business Central is the short form for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business
Central.
Introduction to Business Central A quick walkthrough of the Dynamics suite of products, where
Business Central fits in, and a brief history lesson. What is the difference between NAV and Business
Central?
Signing up for Business Central Cloud How to sign up for Business Central, how to get the right
combination of software, services and partners. A good beginning is an essential part of a great
implementation.
Deploying Business Central On-Premises Running Business Central on-premises is also an option,
but there are fundamental differences that might influence your deployment strategy. This chapter
prepares you for the differences between the cloud and on-premises versions and helps you makes
the right decisions.
Getting started with Business Central Now you have Business Central, how to get started, how to
navigate the system, how to set up users and get used to the system. Learn about keyboard shortcuts
and how to access the system from anywhere.
The First Company Setting up the first Company can be a complicated process. This chapter will
guide the user through the important parts and how to get your company data in there. Getting that
first invoice to be correct.
Daily Operations with Business Central Different examples of how to operate Business Central
daily. What journals to use when and how to automate daily operations.
Periodic Operations with Business Central How to do periodic operations like year-end and other
situations that do not happen every day. A set of examples of how periodic operations work.
Customizing Business Central Business Central is very customizable, but it can be a bit confusing
what to do, this chapter explains the different ways and when to use what. Be able to edit report
layouts yourself and change the UI to fit your needs.
Integration with Business Central No system stands alone, and Business Central can connect to
the world in many different ways. The world has moved on from exchanging files to web services
and connected applications.
Introduction
Welcome to the Field Guide for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, from this point on, just
called Business Central.
Business Central used to be Dynamics NAV and before that Navision. NAV has always been a
partner-driven application. Customers buy the software at a partner, and the partner helps with
implementation. A great model that has worked for over a million users across the globe.
Now you can get Business Central as a modern cloud offering, so there is nothing to install. You
no longer need an IT guy to install it and then a consultant to help you set it up. You can do that
yourself. Most customers still choose to get the consultant help to make sure you’re doing it right
and to ensure a great start.
This book is written to help customers who venture into Business Central, with or without external
help. Written to help understand the system and ensure a great experience starting with Business
Central. The book is not written to be read from cover to cover. Instead, it’s meant to be a Field Guide.
A companion book to help you through the implementation. And later, when you need information
on a specific topic or if you need a bit of inspiration. The documentation from Microsoft is pretty
good, and I’ll provide links for deep dive and background information.
The book will be published on a continuous schedule on LeanPub, and you buy access to download
the book again and again after purchase(*). I will make regular updates whenever something changes
and when Microsoft introduces new versions and functionality.
Business Central covers a vast area of functionality, and the book includes the areas and issues I
encounter in my daily work with Business Central customers. I’ll add new chapters and details
based on my experience and reader feedback.
I’m using an English language layer on my Business Central throughout this book. If your Business
Central is not in English, switch temporarily to English in My Settings to more comfortable being
able to follow the instructions.
Throughout the book, I’ll show links to background information on https://docs.microsoft.com.
If you cannot find the answer you need in the book, feel free to email me at erik@hougaard.com.
You can also reach to me on Twitter @eHougaard. I’m always open to suggestions for the next topic.
(*) Only applies if the book is purchased as an eBook from leanpub.com
Introduction 3
About Erik Hougaard

Hi, my name is Erik, and I have been working with Navision-NAV-Business Central for the last
almost 30 years.
I started with IBM-Navigator (as it was called in 1990 in Denmark) programming integration
between Navigator and an IBM Point of sale system. The language inside Business Central is a
variant of Pascal, and I had spent my childhood programming games in Turbo Pascal. So I jumped
at it when an opportunity came along for turning that into a job. I have been programming ever
since.
I live in Vancouver, Canada, with my amazing wife Signe and our two kids. When not programming,
I spend time with the family either playing music or exploring the impressive nature of British
Columbia, often on skis.
Usually, I communicate through my blog at https://www.hougaard.com. You can also find me at
Dynamics conferences presenting Business Central content while telling bad jokes.
In 2014 Microsoft awarded me an MVP award for my contributions to the Dynamics community.
I spend a lot of time helping to contribute with Business Central content and also contributing to
open source tools.
My day job is at a Business Central partner in North America, called E Foqus Canada. Here I spend
most of my time creating Business Central customizations for customers and creating products that
go into AppSource.
You can reach me by email at erik@hougaard.com, or you can find me on Twitter at @eHougaard
https://twitter.com/eHougaard.
Introduction 4
Modules in Business Central

Business Central is module based. All of the modules are completely integrated, and double entry
is never needed.
As the core we have:
• Financial Management handles the G/L, budgeting, financial reporting, AR, AP, cash manage-
ment and everything else that is the core of any ERP system. Handling of sales tax and VAT is
built into the heart of the system. Fixed Assets are also handled by the Financial Management
module but can work detached if needed. Support for Bank Accounts are also part of the
module.
Just outside the center:
• Sales handles customer, ordering and invoicing.

• Purchase handles vendors and purchasing.
• Inventory handles Items and stock levels.
These four are the core system. Outside that comes another set of modules:
• Jobs handles Jobs and Resources. Job budgets and job costing. Integration with sales and
purchase and G/L integration for handles Work-In-Progress accounting.
• Service is used for handling a service department that deals with warranties and regular service
of sold goods.
• Warehousing is the module for handling warehouses, multiple locations, receiving, picking
and simple assembly.
• Manufacturing is the module the support a full manufacturing company, with routing,
capacity, forecasting and production planning.
• Human Resource is a foundation module for keeping track of your human resources.
Integrated with the G/L for expense management.
• Relationship Management is a CRM’ ish module that handles customer and Contacts
(Potential customers) with interaction tracking.
Only the Manufacturing and the Service Management modules require the Premium User license.
Everything else can be accessed with an Essential User license.
User Permissions are part of the modules, making it easy assign users permissions to the modules
they need.
You can add extra modules on top of all this. Either from AppSource or from a Partner or perhaps
even as custom development.
Introduction 5
When you post something in a module, everything, including the G/L is also posted at the same
time. There are no “batch” processes to update modules.
ProTip
Running Business Central without G/L? In some cases, you might want to run without the
G/L you can do that, but Business Central will still keep a G/L, you can’t get rid of that, but
you can ignore it.
Introduction 6
History of Business Central

Business Central is a new system with a long and proud history under different names. You can trace
it back to 1985, running as a single user accounting system on a DOS-based PC. Many different names
and version numbers have been used. This is an attempt to list all essential versions in chronological
order.
In general, most of what you can find online regarding Dynamics NAV will also apply to Business
Central. Most guides targeting NAV2015 and newer should be valid for Business Central, of course,
the newer, the better. In many cases, it’s better to Google for Dynamics NAV right now than Business
Central due to the enormous amounts of information on NAV out there.
The beginning of Business Central was in Denmark, three guys, straight out of university, started a
small software company creating an accounting package. That grew quickly, and the collaboration
with IBM hurried the system into multi-user territories. The need for customizing the system gave
birth to the AL language in 1990 and the type of customizations we know today.
Versions
Version timeline
The following is the complete list of all major releases since 1987 in descending order: (Thank you
to several sources on the internet for keeping screenshots of the old versions, some I could only find
in Danish).
Business Central 2019 Wave 2 - Version 15
The first version without the Windows Client and without C/Side development. Microsoft is now
maintaining the entire application in the new development environment. Lots of improvements to
the web client.
Introduction 7
Business Central April’19 - Version 14
Business Central april’19 Release
Last version that includes C/Side (the classic development environment introduced in 1995) and the
Role Tailored Client (RTC). The future is Visual Studio Code and the different incarnations of the
web client.
Business Central Fall’18 - Version 13
First released that’s synchronized for both on-premises and cloud. Now it’s the same code powering
both platforms.
Business Central Spring’18 - Version 12
The first version named Business Central. For a short while, it was labelled NAV2018R2 in
presentations from Microsoft. It was never released on-premises, only on the cloud.
Dynamics NAV 2018 - Version 11
Introductions of Extension V2 and development outside C/Side.
Introduction of integration with Cortana Intelligence and the Power Platform (PowerBI, Flow and
PowerApps)
Introduction 8
Dynamics NAV 2016 - Role Tailored Client
• Native integration with Dynamics CRM

• Support for Azure SQL
• Extension V1
• Finance functionality with inspiration from Dynamics GP, Deferral, Positive Pay.
• Workflows and Document Management.
• Tablet client for iPad, Android and WindowsRT.

• Office 365 Integration.
• Word layout for reports. Use Word to edit and maintain the layout on reports.
Dynamics NAV 2013R2 - Version 7.1
• Introduction of the Help Server. A web based, customizable, help engine serving F1. Addons
can add their own help to the Help Server.
• Better Bank Integrations.
• Simplified pages and features. For better small business support.
Introduction 9
Databases are now in Unicode, 16bit representation of characters, expanding the possible range of
different letters from quite limited to almost unlimited. The need for selecting a language before
creating a database is gone, and all the problems when supporting a company crossing multiple
regions. The side effect is that the database conversion from 2009 to 2013 is very time consuming
since every bit in the database must be transformed from 8-bit to 16-bit.
Dynamics NAV 2009/SP1/R2 - Version 6
The first version with a three-tier platform. Introducing the Service Tier where all the business logic
is running if users are using the new Role Tailored Client.
Dynamics NAV 2009R2 - Role Tailored Client
It’s still possible to use the, now renamed, Classic Client side-by-side on the same database.
Reports, when running on the Role Tailored Client, are now using SQL Server Reporting Service
(SSRS)
Dynamics NAV - Version 5
NAV version 5 was an incremental version, adding better support for working with Outlook 2007.
Introduction 10
Dynamics NAV - Version 4 (sp3)
The first version that will run on Windows Vista/7/10.
Navision - Version 4
A new menu, located on the left side. Designed like the folder structure from Outlook.
Navision 4.0 - New menu

Introduction 11
Navision Attain 3
Navision Attain 3.0
Attain 3 was the first real suite version. With manufacturing built into the base packages.
Navision Financials 2.6(5)
The last release of Financials before the name change. Generally considered a great version that is
still in use several places today.
Navision Financials 2.0
Introduction of the General Business and Product Posting Groups posting setup principle.
Navision Financials 1.2/1.3
Version 1.2 and 1.3 (North America) was, in reality, the first usable version of Financials.
Introduction 12
Navision Financials 1.0 (Windows)
Released in 1995, Financials was the first graphical version of Navision. Both the server and the
client are running on Windows. The AL language is upgraded with an object-oriented syntax and
is now called C/AL. The C/ moniker was derived from C/S (Client/Server), and lots of add-ons will
be using the same name (C/Side, C/Front, C/OCX, C/ODBC and more).
The user interface is designed with inspiration from Microsoft Office.
Navision Financials, main menu (in Danish)
The 1.0 version did not include a report generator and was quite unstable.
Navision 3.5 (Character based)
The first version of Navision running as a Windows client. A character-based Windows client,
running text mode on Windows NT. Also, support for ODBC and external programming access.
Support for different Unix flavours.
Released in 1990. This version marks the introduction of the AL language. The application was
completely rewritten, and this version is the foundation of all future versions. The codebase from
this version is still widely visible in all proceeding versions.
Introduction 13
The first screen of Navision 3.0 (Also in Danish)
Navision 1.0 (Character based) - 1987 DOS/OS2
First multi-user version. It is developed together with IBM targeting the new PS/2 computers and
token ring network.
PC-Plus
Released in 1985, this was where it all started, a simple well designed single user accounting
application running on a DOS PC
Introduction 14
The main menu in PC-Plus clearly showing GL AR AP and Inventory as modules

Introduction 15
Relationship to Dynamics NAV

Business Central is NAV, but NAV is not Business Central, confused?
Business Central is the successor of NAV. The first version of Business Central on-premises could
have been named NAV 2019 if Microsoft had continued their previous naming convention. But
Microsoft felt that it was a new offering, now that it’s a cloud product.
There was actually a cloud version before the first Business Central, version 12. It was released in
parallel with NAV. For a brief moment, Microsoft had it on presentations as NAV 2019R2, but they
decided not to release it for on-premises, only on the cloud. In the cloud, it was called:
Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operation, Business Edition
And another, completely different product was called:
Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operation, Enterprise Edition
The latter is what used to be Dynamics AX and before that Axapta. This lead to a lot of
confusion, with people attending webinars for the opposite product, Google searching became
almost impossible.
With the release of version 13, in October 2018, we got the new name:
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
The name change cleared up a lot of confusing and now it’s just Business Central or BC when
people are talking about it, while the other one now is F’n’O.
So why is NAV not Business Central? NAV was never a true SaaS offered cloud service. The beauty
of Business Central is that it’s the exact same piece of software running the on-premises version
and the cloud version. If your organization have Dynamics NAV knowledge, that transfers directly
to Business Central, and your organization now have cloud knowledge.
The important message is that Business Central might be a newer product. But it has the long
history from NAV, making it a cloud-based application with 30 years of accumulated business
functionality built-in.
NAV Add-ons
The Dynamics NAV ecosystem has produced thousands of add-ons, ranging from small smart reports
to complete industry solutions. Many of these products and solutions are coming to Business Central.
Some directly in AppSource, others distributed directly from the vendors. If you need a specialized
industry solution, take a look at the NAV market, chances are that someone has already built-in.
Introduction 16
Relationship to other Dynamics Products

There are quite a few pieces of software with the name Dynamics, some with the 365 monikers,
some without.
As mentioned, Dynamics NAV is the predecessor for Business Central. The 365 tag is only used for
software available on the cloud, also known as SaaS (Software as a Service).
Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operation is the distant cousin, also known as AX or Navision
Axapta, that is the other ERP system that came from Denmark.
Dynamics GP is the old Great Plains software. An ERP system with great functionality, but lacking
the customization possibilities and not cloud-ready. GP can replicate its database to a Business
Central cloud account, see the chapter on the Intelligent Cloud. There are different options for
transferring data from GP to BC. Several people in the GP channel currently are blogging a lot
about the transition from GP to Business Central.
Dynamics SL is the old Solomon ERP software. SL can also replicate to the Intelligent Cloud.
Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (and many variants) is the new name for Dynamics CRM.
Business Central has a native connector, and there are a lot of different ways to integrate the two.
Dynamics 365 Talent is for the HR department, to handling hiring, help build teams and managing
the onboarding process of new employees.
Dynamics 365 Marketing a dedicated module for Dynamics 365 CE with a focus on generating
leads.
PowerBI, Flow and the Power Platform

A group of applications are known as the Power Platform. These apps work great with all the
Dynamics Apps.
PowerBI is the best known of them. PowerBI is a reporting tool that is both used internally in
Business Central and can be used as a standalone tool. PowerBI is excellent for creating reports,
interactive dashboards with visualization of your data. PowerBI is both a cloud and a desktop
application.
PowerApps is an end-user tool that can be used to build specialized mobile apps that access data in
Business Central and trigger business logic.
Power Automate (Used to be Microsoft Flow) Power Automate is an IFTTT (if this, then that) tool.
You can set up triggers for almost any cloud-connected software, not just Microsoft based, including
Business Central. Then have that trigger do something in Business Central or the other way around.
A trigger in Business Central can do something in another software. Flow is often used as the glue
that glues otherwise incompatible software together.
Introduction 17
CDS - The Common Data Service

CDS is a database that spans all the business offerings from Microsoft, incl. Office 365, Dynamics
and the Power platform.
CDS Overview
CDS has a bunch of standard tables like Customer, Item, Employee to make it quite easy to work
with across different apps.
Business Central (Currently with version 15) does not support CDS directly. If you want your
Business Central data in CDS, you must use the integration with Dynamics 365 for Sales to replicate
your BC data to CDS.
Introduction 18
Intelligent Cloud
The Intelligent Cloud is Microsoft’s name for a cloud replication of your on-premises data. It can
also be looked upon as a remote backup, but a backup that you can use for a series of different
operation, not available for normal on-premises installations.
Customers running their workloads on-premises can get access to the same Intelligent Cloud
scenarios that customers using Business Central online have. Each on-premises solution that
connects to the Intelligent Cloud through Business Central will be able to replicate data from on-
premises to the cloud tenant. In this way, users can access the Intelligent Cloud scenarios of Machine
Learning, Power BI, Flow, and others to drive suggested actions.
After configuring the Intelligent Cloud, you’ll have two instances of Business Central, on-premises
and online (cloud).
In your Business Central online company, the Intelligent Cloud Insights page shows four key points
of interest for most businesses:
• Cash availability
• Sales profitability
• Net income
• Inventory value
Next, to the KPI charts, you get insights into potential areas of concern, including overdue payments.
Choose each insight to drill into the data.
Intelligent Cloud insights

The page also connects to Power BI for even more insights.
Viewing Intelligent Cloud Insights On-Premises

When your Dynamics 365 reselling partner has acquired the right license for your on-premises
solution to connect to the cloud through Business Central, your administrator can set up the
connection. Once that is done, you can view the same insights from the cloud in your on-premises
application. Depending on the on-premises solution, the Intelligent Cloud Insights page can be
embedded in the Home page or be a separate page as in Business Central online and on-premises.
Signing up for Business Central
There are two ways to sign up for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central in the Cloud. You can
start with a trial version, or you can go to a CSP capable Microsoft Partner and buy a subscription.
You can start at businesscentral.dynamics.com
To be able to use Business Central, you’ll need an AAD account. AAD stands for Azure Active
Directory. AAD is shared with many other Microsoft services such as Office 365 and Azure.
There are three different way you can license Business Central:
1. Cloud
2. Cloud License moved to on-premises (Also know as dual-use)
3. On-premises license
There is a difference between the dual-use license and the on-premises license. An on-premises is
typically an existing Dynamics NAV license that has been upgraded to Business Central. An On-
premises license follows the old NAV principle when it comes to access to custom objects.
You can buy an on-premises license. This is still a subscription license but purely for on-premises
usage.
Signing up for Business Central 20
Trial Version
The easiest way to get started with Business Central is to visit https://trials.dynamics.com.
Click on Business Central, and fill out your email and phone number.
trials.dynamics.com sign-up
Your trial version can be converted to a paid subscription later by a CSP Partner.
A new tenant is provisioned very quickly
Inside a trial, you’ll meet CRONUS. CRONUS is the name of a demo company in Business Central.
Active the 30 day trial
Just to make it a bit more confusion, Microsoft uses the word Trial in two different ways. When you
start with the Trial, you’re actually getting an Evaluation version and then you can activate a 30
days trial inside the non-CRONUS company.
Welcome to your trial

Microsoft Partner
There are two types of Microsoft Partners you can encounter when dealing with Business Central.
• Partners that come from the Dynamics NAV channel

• Partners that come from the Microsoft infrastructure channel
Currently, partners from the Dynamics NAV channel are the recommended way to go. By selecting
them, you’ll get access to resources who have many many years of experience with Business Central
(Because NAV, see the chapter on History).
Disclaimer, the author of this book spent ∼30 years in the NAV channel and is very biased on the
subject.
You can have multiple partners delivering Microsoft services. So even if you already have a vendor
for other Microsoft Cloud products, you can still select a capable Business Central Partner.
Microsoft Silver and Gold Partner
Microsoft has different ways of acknowledging partners with varying labels like Silver and Gold.
These labels are mostly referring to the revenue size of the partner, not their competencies.
Even though Business Central is a cloud offering, having local support is still preferable.
When it comes to choosing a partner from the NAV channel, you should also consider industry
knowledge. Many partners have specialized in specific industries, perhaps even created supporting
add-ons and products. In many cases, it might be better and cheaper to go with pre-built industry
solutions instead of rolling your own customizations.
There is no vendor lock-in, you can switch to a different CSP without losing data or experience any
downtime due to the switch.
ProTip
Remember to make sure you have control of the source code for your extensions. If you move
to a new partner, that partner cannot touch or modify the extension the previous partner
installed (unless the extension is tagged with showMyCode, ask your developer!).
AAD Account
Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) is Microsoft’s cloud-based identity and access management
service. Azure AD helps your employees sign in and access resources such as Dynamics, Office 365
and many other Microsoft services.
AAD Overview
AAD is not the same as the Active Directory (AD) you might have in your current network. AAD
lives in the Microsoft cloud. Each AAD tenant is a single organization, and you can connect your
AD to an AAD tenant and sync them together. That is what typically happens when a customer
migrates from Exchange on-premises to Office 365.
ProTip
If you need to create a new AAD account (also known as a tenant), not just a new user, go
here https://signup.microsoft.com/ and select Create a work or school account
Create Microsoft Account
AAD administration
To administer your AAD, go to https://admin.microsoft.com/Adminportal/Home. Here you can
control your users and all offerings from Microsoft. One of the essential operations is to assign
licenses to users.
CSP
CSP is the technical term for a Microsoft Partner who can sell Microsoft Cloud services.
CSP stands for Cloud Solution Provider. You can only buy Business Central from a CSP, not directly
from Microsoft.
Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider
There are two different types of CSPs, Direct and Indirect. From a customer perspective, there is
no difference between the two. It has mostly to do with volume and how the partner deals with
Microsoft.
Some partners offer a self-service portal where it’s possible to purchase more licenses easily.
One thing does matter. Your CSP partner has Delegate Administrators, a user type that can access
your system. If you want consultants or developers to be able to help you, you must use the Business
Central partner as your CSP. Or you can grant the Business Central partner access to your AAD
tenant as a vendor.
Your CSP can do the following:
• Help in your system without having to buy a license for consultants

• Debug problems in the sandbox environment
• Copy your production environment to the sandbox environment
• See telemetry information
Business Central License Types

There are four different types of Business Central subscription licenses you can buy for your users:
1. Essential
2. Premium
3. Team Member
4. Device
License user types
There is one rule, you cannot mix and match Essential and Premium users. You’ll have to decide
if you are essential or premium. Team Member and Device licenses can be combined with both
Essential and Premium licenses.
Essential User
Essential is the default user type. An Essential user has access to most of the system. An Essential
User does not have access to Service Management and Manufacturing.
Premium User
A premium user has access to everything, including Service Management and Manufacturing.
Team Member
Team Member is the cheapest license. Cost as of writing this is $8, but the access is minimal. This
user-type is excellent for users who only need to look in the system.
A team Member user can do the following:
• Read anything within Business Central

• Update existing data and entries in Business Central
• Approve or reject tasks in all workflows assigned to a user
• Create, edit, delete a quote
• Create, edit, delete personal information
• Enter a timesheet for Jobs
• Use PowerApps for Dynamics 365
A Team Member license supports four particular usage scenarios:
• Approval User: Being able to approve or reject tasks in a workflow. Could be an executive
user that needs access to approve purchase orders.
• Enter timesheets: You can give all your production floor users a Team member licenses if
you’re using the Jobs module for production. (Hint: also works with the phone/tablet client)
• Create sales quotes: A large sales force can have access to just being able to create sales quotes.
• Handle personal information: All employees can update their personal information in the
HR module.
Device
With a Device subscription license, any number of users can access a licensed device with individual
logins without the need for separate User licenses. If different users share one login, their usage
cannot be tracked. Dynamics 365 Business Central device license is a limited license with a subset
of Business Central capabilities.
Multiple users can use a device that is licensed with a Device subscription to operate a point of sale
device, shop floor device, or a warehouse device.
ProTip
Check the licensing Guide for updated license information at: https://mbs.microsoft.com/
Files/public/365/Dynamics365BusinessCentralLicensingGuide.pdf
Office 365
Business Central uses the same users as Office 365. After Business Central licenses have been
assigned, the user can find Business Central in the Dynamics section of the Office menu:
Office Menu
Using Office 365 Email for Business Central

In the SMTP setup, inside Business Central, there is a helper function to apply all settings needed
for connecting Business Central to Office 365 Email.
SMTP Setup
Azure
Azure is the name for Microsoft’s generic cloud offerings. Business Central is not an “Azure product”
but a standalone cloud offering from Microsoft. Azure is the infrastructure that runs Business
Central.
Microsoft Azure
Business Central can use several Azure features, especially the Artificial Intelligence (AI) function-
alities used for image recognition and the different forecasting modules.
With Azure, you can also get virtual machines, databases and many other cloud services. To learn
more about Azure go to https://azure.microsoft.com
You do not need Azure to run Business Central. Everything needed is already included in the
monthly subscription. Azure is only if you want additional cloud services.
You control Azure from the Azure Portal. Go to https://portal.azure.com.
Business Central in different countries

Business Central is built as a worldwide product from Microsoft. Sometimes referred to as W1 (That
was an internal marking used 30 years ago). The W1 is the common denominator of functionality
across all versions.
Business Central is distributed as many different versions, each with one or more countries
supported. This is done to implement local regulatory requirements and enable features that will
only make sense in a single region.
Microsoft supports the following countries (and languages):
Country/Region Language Code

Australia en-AU
Austria de-AT
Belgium nl-BE, fr-BE
Canada en-CA, fr-CA
Czechia (on-premises only) cs-CZ
Denmark da-DK
Germany de-DE
Finland fi-FI
France fr-FR
Iceland is-IS
Italy it-IT
Mexico es-MX
Netherlands nl-NL
New Zealand en-NZ
Norway nb-NO
Russia (on-premises only) ru-RU
Spain es-ES
Sweden sv-SE
Switzerland fr-CH, de-CH, it-CH
United Kingdom en-GB
United States en-US
When you sign up for the cloud version of Business Central, you’ll receive the version associated
with the country of your AAD (Office 365). A Canadian Office 365 will get a Canadian Business
Central. Since Microsoft have multiple Azure data centers around the world, this choice also defines
the location of the tenant. German companies are required to keep their data in Germany, always
resulting in the German Azure data.
Microsoft does not support some countries, but localized versions do exist. They are created and
delivered by Microsoft partners:
Country/Region Language Code

Estonia et-EE
Hong Kong SAR zh-HK
Indonesia en-US
Japan ja-JP
Malaysia en-US
Poland pl-PL
Serbia rs-latn-RS
Singapore en-US
South Africa en-ZA
South Korea ko-KR
Taiwan zh-TW
Thailand en-US
United Arab Emirates en-US
ProTip
Check the updated list at: https://docs.microsoft.com/dynamics365/business-central/dev-
itpro/compliance/apptest-countries-and-translations
Deploying Business Central
On-Premises
One of the very cool things about Business Central is that it’s the same piece of software that runs
both in the cloud and on-premises.
A IBM Server for installing Business Central on premise
For some customers, running in the cloud is not an option. There might be regulatory reasons for
this, or there might be technical reasons like connectivity.
In the cloud, you’ll get both a production environment and multiple sandbox environments. On-
premises you’ll have to install everything you need.
Business Central also requires a SQL Server for the database. There is a free version of SQL Server
called Microsoft SQL Server Express. For many installations, this version is more than enough.
Upgrading is not a problem, so you can start with Express and move to a paid version when needed.
These are the main differences between the free SQL Server Express and the paid version, called
SQL Server Standard:
Deploying Business Central On-Premises 34
Feature Express Standard

Maximum Database Size 10GB Unlimited
Maximum Number of CPU Cores 4 Cores 24 Cores
Maximum Memory Per Database .35GB 32GB
Maximum Memory Buffer (Per Instance) 1.2GB 128GB
Maximum Memory Columnstore Segment (Per Instance) .35GB 32GB
Two Node High Availability No Yes
Replication to Azure No Yes
Backup to Azure No Yes
Performance Tuning Limited Extensive
Diagnostics tools Limited Extensive
Upgrading from an on-premises NAV to Business Central might also start with Business Central
on-premises and the use of the Intelligent Cloud for replication to the cloud.
The difference between Business Central On-Premises

and in the cloud
First, let’s start by defining what on-premises means: on-premises is everything that’s not SaaS
(Software as a Service), everything that’s not Microsoft Cloud.
So on-premises is:
• Running on private hardware (in your basement)

• Hosted in Vmware, Xen, HyperV or another virtualization platform
• Running on a virtual machine running in Azure, AWS or another cloud vendor
So in many cases, you might need an on-premises installation even if you’re running in the cloud,
just not the Microsoft SaaS cloud.
There are some key differences between Cloud and On-Premises:
What Cloud On-Premises

Users AAD AD
DotNet Not Allowed Allowed
File Access Not Allowed Allowed
Office Integration Easy Plug’n’Play Complicated
SQL Access Not Allowed Allowed
SQL License Not Required Required
C/Side Development Not available Only if you install the old version 14
Role Tailored Client Not available Only if you install the old version 14
I consider the cloud version the default, only selecting the on-premises version if there are specific
reasons to take that version.
Why would I select the on-premises version

With the general push to the cloud, more requirements for connectivity combined with a constant
increase in software complexity, on-premises deployed software becomes harder and harder to
maintain. By now, I believe the compass has turned about, and on-premises is no longer the default.
So what parameters could trigger the need for deploying on-premises, keeping an installation out of
the cloud?
Area Reason
SQL Integration In SQL heavy environments, integration is often done directly at the SQL level. The
SQL database is not directly accessible in the cloud making SQL integration
impossible
DotNet Integration Due to security issues, Microsoft does not allow the use of DotNet in the cloud. If
you need DotNet for integration or data processing, on-premises is the easy solution
Connectivity Rural areas with limited internet access is a prime candidate for an on-premises
installation
Regulatory demands Some countries and regions might require data to be located in specific locations
that are not covered by a Microsoft Datacenter
Offline Deployment Deployment on ships, in the Arctic, high security areas
Development Differences
On-premises Business Central requires an additional license for doing development. Every object
(the components Business Central is built from) requires a license to run. Depending on size, this
can be a significant license cost. There are no additional license costs in the cloud. If you run on-
premises with a cloud issued license (often called dual-use), you have access to the same objects as
on the cloud.
Another difference between the cloud and on-premises is the ability to host foreign code inside
Business Central. The Microsoft cloud does not permit foreign code. But it’s allowed on-premises.
It’s easy to do integration inside Business Central, using SQL, DotNet or other technologies. But
that integration cannot be migrated to the Business Central cloud. Many developers have turned to
Azure Functions, the ability to host code “server-less” in Azure.
When you’re hosting code in Azure Functions, you can use the extensive web service support in
Business Central to integrate the code seamless into business processes.
On-Premises Installation, Best Practice

Installing Business Central is not a trivial matter. It should only be done by people who have
experience with installing server-based software and knows how to operate a Windows Server.
Server Structure
There are three main components of a Business Central installation:
1. SQL Server (Database)

2. Service Tier (Application Server)
3. Internet Information Server (IIS Web Server)
All the web-based clients (all but the RTC) access the IIS and the RTC access the Service Tier.
Web Service access is direct to the Service Tier.
The usual best practice is to place the Service Tier and IIS on the same machine and dedicate a full
computer to the SQL Server. This practice is also the way Microsoft configure their cloud servers.
SQL Server Installation

SQL Server should be installed following the best practice advice.
Business Central users will never need to access the SQL server directly. Each Service Tier connects
to the SQL as one user.
Business Central Installation

Make sure you have the right installation media; you should always install the latest Cumulative
Update (CU). You can always download newer installation media from Microsoft, here’s the link for
CU6 of the Fall’18 Release:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=58163
Different versions available for download
Business Central comes localized in 19 different packages. The NA (North America) covers Canada,
Mexico and the US. Make sure you select the right package to get the correct localized functionality.
The difference between the install media is not only the language but also regulatory functionality
to comply with local accounting laws and standards.
There’s a special version called W1, the worldwide version and often used for countries not listed
or for doing global deployments covering multiple regions.
If you’re starting with a ZIP file, first unzip the entire ZIP into an installation folder. Name the folder
after the CU and keep it available even after installation is completed. Inside the ZIP there is a folder
called APPLICATION and another ZIP file. The ZIP in the ZIP is the actual install media, and the
APPLICATION folder is all changed objects since the last major release. Unzip the installation ZIP
also.
Locate SETUP.EXE and run that.
Setup Running
Here you have three choices:
1. Sign up for the cloud version trial.

2. Get the Windows 10 App (Client, will not work on a Windows Server)
3. Advanced installation options
You must select number 3, the Advanced installation options

Select type of installation
The “Demo” installation can also be considered a “standard” installation. It will install everything
you need to run Business Central with a demo database ready to go.
Or you can select Choose an installation option to select what components you want:
Select installation options
You can choose Client, Server or Developer. That are three preselected chooses, but you can also
under each select Customize or select Custom to make all the selections yourself.
Customize your installation
You can select the following components:
Name Function
AL Development Visual Studio Code development environment for extension
Development
Server Administration Tool GUI Based tool to maintain the server tier
Server The actual Service Tier
SQL Server Database Components A SQL Server Express Installation and demo database backup
Outlook Add-in Outlook toolbar
ADCS Automated Data Capture System for Warehouse item tracking
Web Server Components The IIS bits to serve the web clients
Help Server All the help material as a website
ClickOnce A self-updating installer for the Windows Client (RTC)
Dynamics NAV Client The Role Tailored Client
After you have made your selection, you’re taken to the next page where you must specify settings
for the selected components.
Configure the select components
You can have multiple Service Tiers installed. Each Service Tier must have a name and dedicated
TCP/IP ports assigned to it. Remember, a server can only have one service listening to a port at the
time.
The default port usage for Business Central is:
Port Purpose
7045 Administration Port
7046 Client Services, for the Windows Client and IIS
7047 SOAP Web Services
7048 OData Web Services
7049 Development Services (Visual Studio Code)
Typically, the first service tier, serving a production database, should run on the standard ports.
Quite often, the next service tier, serving a test database runs on 7145-7149, the third service tier on
7245-7249 and so on.
A way to distribute the server load is to install multiple service tiers. Some customer chooses to
serve webs services from a separate service tier. Be aware that Business Central does not have any
load balancing tools, and client connections are persistent.
ProTip
Read more here about the installation process and specific settings: https://docs.microsoft.
com/dynamics365/business-central/dev-itpro/deployment/install-using-setup
License File
A license file for Business Central has the file extension .FLF (Financials License File). A database
without a license file is a demo installation preventing the creating of real companies and with other
limitations.
You can specify a license file during install, or you can use PowerShell or C/Side to import a license
file into a database.
To import a license with PowerShell, open the Business Central Administration Shell and this
command:
Import-NAVServerLicense -LicenseData c:\data\mylicense.flf -ServerInstance BC140
Import-NAVServerLicense is the PowerShell script, and it takes two parameters, the license file and
the name of a server instance.
It’s good practice to restart the service tier after updating the license.
SQL Backup
Business Central does not have any built-in backup features when running on-premises (NAV used
to have that in earlier versions). So backup need to be done at the SQL server level. Be aware, that
backup, in general, is tied to both the SQL server version and the Business Central version. Meaning
that a Business Central version 14 backup from a SQL Server 2016 should be restored to a Business
Central version 14 and onto a SQL Server 2016.
ProTip
You can use Azure Blob Storage for your SQL Backups - Read this tutorial:
https://docs.microsoft.com/sql/relational-databases/tutorial-use-azure-blob-storage-
service-with-sql-server-2016?view=sql-server-2017
Intelligent Cloud
If you’re on-premises and running the Intelligent Cloud, you’ll need to keep an eye on your
replication status. Open the Intelligent Cloud Management and check the result of your last
replication.
Intelligent CLoud Management
ProTip
One essential thing is to keep in mind, is that the Intelligent Cloud can only replicate tables
that are the same both on-premises. So you must take care to keep you on-premises Business
Central updated in sync with the Microsoft Cloud, and you must also keep your extension
in sync.
Local Extensions
Currently, at this point, you cannot install extensions from AppSource in an on-premises Business
Central. If there’s a specific extension you need, you’ll have to contact the vendor and get a version
of the extension for on-premises installation.
Before starting Visual Studio Code, make sure you have enabled Development in the setup of your
Service-Tier.
Service Tier Development Configuration
With this turned on, you can do development against your local Business Central just like against a
Cloud sandbox.
If you set the Allowed Extension Target Level to OnPrem (called Internal in older versions), then
you’re allowed to do DotNet, files and other features not available in the cloud.
ProTip
Get The Source! If you get a partner to develop a customization, make sure you also get the
source code to any extension that partners are applying to your system. The source code is
not available in Business Central.
Getting Started With Business Central
In this chapter, we’ll look at how to navigate the system, how to get around the smartest way.
Microsoft gives all tenants two environments, production and a sandbox. Sandbox is a fancy
computer name for a place where you can play with your system.
Business Central is available on most computing platforms, computers, tablets and phones. We’ll
also cover how to access BC from all these platforms.
Getting Started With Business Central 47
Setting Up Users
In Business Central, you control access to the system. Who is allowed to log in and what are they
allowed to do and see.
Depending on your deployment, cloud or on-premises, there are two different ways of doing it.
On-premises installations integrate with your local Active Directory (AD). Cloud installations
integrate with Azure Active Directory, sometimes referred to as Office 365 Users.
On-Premises
To manage user on-premises go to users (Alt-Q). Click new. The trick here is to fill out the Windows
User Name by selecting a valid user from your Active Directory (AD). After selecting a user, most
fields are filled out correctly. Next step is to assign groups and permissions.
Screenshot from on-premises user
When working on-premises, there are several other ways to configure user authentication. Most of
them are merely to also add a password to a user instead of using the Windows user’s AD password.
Cloud
On the cloud, you must start in the Office 365 Global Admin center (https://admin.microsoft.com).
The first action is to assign a license to a specific user. Find the user and press edit. Then you can
assign licenses. There are three different licenses to choose from, but there is a catch:
• Essential (Called Finance and Operation)

• Premium
• Team Member
Licenses assigned to a user
ProTip
If you have premium users but cannot find the premium functions in the system, make sure
that users are members of the D365 BUS PREMIUM, and you have activated the Premium
user experience in Company Information.
You cannot have Essential and Premium users in the same system. Either you’re Essential or
Premium. Premium is Service Management and Production.
Team Member is a very light (and cheap) user that can mostly view data in Business Central.
ProTip
Don’t assign Trial licenses to your users. Be aware that Dynamics 365 Business Central
for IWs is the trial version.
Trial version users

Manage Plans and User Role Center
If you need to manage some of the finer details around what users have what plans, there is a
specialized role center that can see plans. The option on this role center is not available in Alt-Q so
you’ll have to switch to this role center to access it.
Refresh Groups and Plans inside Business Central

After you have assigned a license to the user, you can go into Business Central, open the Users (Alt-
Q) and click Refresh all User Groups to update the user table with the newly assigned licenses.
This process will auto-create users that have just been assigned a license.
If you remove a license from a user, they will stay in the user table to preserve data integrity, because
the user might be tagged on data in the system, but they can no longer log in.
Refresh all plans and groups
After the group update, you’re ready for the next step, assign groups and permissions.
Groups and Permissions

What users and see and what user can do are controlled with Permission Sets in Business Central.
A Permission Set is a collection of specific rules for the actual components that Business Central is
built from.
You can specify how the database should be accessed, what users can run what report, who can post,
and so on.
Configuring that from the bottom up can be a lot of work, but thankfully, Microsoft has created
several starting permission sets that cover most typical scenarios, and those sets can also act as the
beginning for custom permission sets.
There is an extraordinary permission set called SUPER. As the name implies, members of this group
are super, and they can do anything. There must always be at least one user with SUPER.
ProTip
Be aware, that you can assign SUPER to a user with a Team Member license. This user
is still just a team member. IF you find yourself in the situation where you can assigned a
Team Member SUPER and thereby locked yourself out (because you’re not super), use this
trick to fix the situation:
1. In office assign Essential to that user (ex Team Member)

2. Log in as this ex Team Member and assign Super to another Essential user (yourself)
or Internal Admin.
3. Log out and remove essential license from Team Member.
Permission Recorder
As it can be a very complicated task, even for consultants at Business Central partners, to figure out
what tables and objects and used for a particular task, Business Central offers a Permission recorder.
Start by creating an empty permission set, and click Start.
Starting the permission recorder
Then you will, step by step, perform the operation you want permissions created for. And after that,
you return to the permission set.
Stopping the permission recorder
Click Stop and Business Central will collect all data and objects used between the start and the stop
clicks.
Result of permission recorder
Now you have a permission set that reflects the operation you just did. Because we created a Sales
Order, we got Insert and Modify rights to Sales Header and Sales Line:
Insert and Modify rights on sales document
Partner Admin Users

If you want your Partner to help you, you have two choices. You can create a user in your AD
and buy/assign a license to them, or you can give them access to your system as admin users. This
requires that you give the partner delegated administration privileges to your Office 365.
Request Delegated Administration Privileges from customer
After that, the partner can assign the Admin Agent role to their employees, and they can then log
into your system:
Assign Admin Agent to partner employee

Navigating the System

To enter Business Central as a user, go to https://home.dynamics.com and click on either production
or your sandbox (if you have one)
Apps from home.dynamics.com
Clicking the box will take you straight to Business Central and present you with a role center.
If you ever meet this message:
Sorry, your session expired
After a period of inactivity, the server will release the resources currently allocated to you. This is
done to prevent locking other users and to prevent inactive browser tabs taking up server resources.
Just click Refresh, and you’re back in business.
The top bar

The first thing to notice is the right part of the top bar. The top looks different depending on what
specific version of Business you’re using, but the main functionality is the same.
Six important icons:
Search
Tell me what you want to do, search, also available by pressing Alt-Q. By far the most used icon
in the top var.
Feedback
Feedback, a way to get to the user forums or submit ideas directly to Microsoft.
Notification
Notifications will show all your notifications.
Settings
Settings, access to My settings and personalization.
Help
Help, access to documentation and other resources.

User
Sign out, click here to sign out.
My Settings
My Settings is your base setup. It defines what you’re currently working on.
My Settings
Settings in My Settings
Setting Description
Role Center Select the Role Center you’ll use. See chapter on role centers.
Company Select what company you’re working on
Work Date Work date is an easy way to specify that you’re working on a specific date to ease typing.
Region Select your region.
Language Select the language for the user interface. Languages available are determined by the
country your Business Central is set up for.
After changing anything but the work date, Business Central will reload to reflect the changes.
Search Function - Tell Me - Alt Q
The Search Bar
The Search Bar, also known as Tell Me, is your best friend in Business Central. It is both the fastest
and easiest way to get around the system and in some cases, the only way to get to a specific function.
The search function will look for the following:
• Actions on the current page

• Other Pages and Reports
• Documentation
• App Suggestions from AppSource
Throughout this book, the search bar will just be called Alt-Q.
Role Centers
The starting page in Business Central is called a Role Center. The idea is that you give each user a
profile (Profiles and Role Centers mostly the same) that matches the job description of the user.
The default profiles in Business Central
Profiles and Role Centers is purely a user interface selection. You don’t get any permissions with a
profile.
There is a special profile called SECURITY ADMINISTRATOR for management users and permis-
sions. The features in this profile are not available from Alt-Q.
Explore all business features in the role center
Business Central has many features, and discovery through the Tell me what to do search function
still requires some knowledge about search word and terms. If you want to explore your role, you
can use the Role Explorer. Click on the three bars icon (also known as the hamburger menu) on
your role center.
Click the “hamburger” icon to access the Role Explorer
Inside the Role Explorer, you’ll see all the options that are directly available to you from your role
center, listed by the different areas.
The Role Explorer menu
If you want to zoom out, click Explore All to get a complete overview of all the functionality that’s
available to you, within your permissions, including everything outside your role.
Explore All view from Role Explorer
ProTip
Roles and permissions are not linked together. Just because a user has a certain role, does
not prevent the user accessing functionality outside the role. Use permissions sets to limit
access to functionality.
Getting around Business Central

In Business Central, the user interface is composed of just a few types of pages. That means, that
opening and navigating a Customer Card is working the same way as a Vendor Card, a Fixed Asset
Card or an Item Card. Same goes for Lists and other page types.
Opening pages will place the pages on top of what’s already on the page. Pressing ESC will close
the topmost page.
Action Bar on Pages
The Action Bar
The Action Bar sits at the top of pages (and in top of lists inside pages). The Action Bar is where
you’ll find anything related to the current page.
On certain pages, Insert and Delete are on the Action Bar instead of in the top of the page.
ProTip
Pin action bar
Click the action bar pin to permanent have the action bar in two lines, makes it much
faster on pages with many actions.
Action Bar expanded to two lines
List Pages
A list page will list data (Big surprise). From a list page, you can navigate to the card of a specific
row.
List pages can be editable or read-only.
A list page can be presented in three ways, either as a list or as tiles (small or tall)
Switch List Page Layout
Searching for data
If you want to search for data, simply use the search function in the actions bar:
Search Function in action bar
This search function searches across all visible columns. If you want a more specific search, you’ll
need to use a Filter (See chapter on Filters).
Fact Boxes
Fact Boxes on the Customer Card
Many pages have Fact Boxes on the right. Fact boxes are quick access to related information, statistics
and other relevant information on the current entity.
ProTip
.
Collapse the Fact Box pane to get more screen real estate by clicking the circled I icon.
Focus Mode
Focus mode will zoom in on an element on the page to give a specific element your undivided
attention.
Focus mode icon on a sales order
Click on the icon to enter focus mode for sales lines:
Focus mode entered on a sales order
When you’re done, click the icon again to return to the regular sales order view.
Open page in new browser window
Sometimes it is nice to spread an application into more windows. Perhaps take advantage of multiple
monitors. Click the square with the arrow to detach the current page into a standalone window. This
way, it’s easy to have a purchase order sitting on one monitor while working on a sales invoice on
another monitor.
Open page in new browser window
When you’re done with the second window, it can be used as a normal window.
Bookmarks
You can add new menu items to your role center. They are called bookmarks, but they show up on
the role center as regular menu items.
To create a bookmark, click on the bookmark icon on a page. Not all pages can be bookmarked, some
pages have to be opened with filters, so navigation to those pages must come from a page that will
supply the filters.
A bookmark have been created
Here I have added Physical Inventory Orders to my role center as a bookmark.
A bookmark have been added to the role center
You can see on the bookmark icon if this page has already been bookmarked on your role center.
This page is already bookmarked on the role center
Clicking the icon will then remove the bookmark from your role center.
Bookmark have been removed
Links, notes, and attachments
You can store attachments, notes and links on master data. Click on Attachments at the top of the
info pane to open the attachment pane.
Link, notes, and attachments on master data
Notes are simple pieces of text. Useful for reminders about customers or information that does not
fit into any of the database fields.
Add a note
Links have the benefit of being clickable when created. They open up in a new browser tab.
Add a link
Attachments are binary files. You can store PDFs, Office documents.
ProTip
Click on the number of attachment (0 to begin with) to quickly access the documents.
Attaching a document
Be aware that there is a size limit, on my instances the limit is around 30MB, but the error message
may report a different limit.
Attachment size limit
Do not use Business Central for your primary document storage. There are way better solutions for
that. SharePoint with Teams and OneDrive is a great cloud base solution.
Card Pages
Card pages are used for displaying and editing the details of entities that cannot fit on a tabulated
list. Typically something with plenty of fields and actions to be performed.
Customer Card with navigation icons
One example is the Customer Card, to get to a card, you select the entity in a list.
A card can be opened in read-only mode, shown with a pencil:
Edit Pencil
Edit Pencil in the top, or if in edit mode, shown with a circled pencil:
Edit Pencil, in edit mode
Next, to the pencil are two functions:

Insert And Delete
To Insert a new entity, click the plus sign and to delete the current entity, click the garbage can.
Business Central does not have an option for undo on delete, or a recycle bin where deleted data is
stored. When deleted, it’s gone for good, completely erased from the database.
To the left and right of the card, circles with arrows can be found:
Navigation arrows on card pages
These are used to navigate to the previous and next entity. Not all cards support this. It depends on
what filters are applied to the card from the calling list or function.
Journals
A Journal Page is an editable list with extra information before and after the list.
The General Journal
Behind the scenes of a journal is the management of line numbers. Each line gets a unique line
number. The first line in a journal will get number 10,000, the next line gets 20,000 and so on. The
challenge comes when you insert a line between those two. The line between the two gets 15,000.
If you insert another, it will get 12,500, and another will get 11,250 and so on. At some point, you
cannot insert more lines due to this design.
You can use Shift-F3 to access filters on Journals, but setting filters might prevent you from inserting
new lines. If a particular line number is filtered away, the journal might conclude the wrong number
to insert, and the insert will fail.
Documents
Document pages are a combination of a list and a card. It’s a card page with a list in the middle. The
Edit/Insert/Delete functions in the top are working at the Card level, not the line level.
A Sales Invoice
Actions in the top Action Bar is for the entire document, the Action Bar over the lines are targeting
the highlighted line.
Notifications
Business Central can notify you about several events and settings and give you a chance to be
proactive. Go to My Notifications to adjust what you want to be notified about.
My Notifications
Some notifications have a filter associated. The filter can be used to make the notification more
precise. One example is the notification for low inventory, where a filter can be added to specify
what items you want notifications on.
Shortcut Keys
A competent user utilizes the keyboard as much as possible. Business Central supports a wide range
of keyboard shortcuts, making it possible to perform many functions without using the mouse.
Access the list for keyboard shortcuts from the top bar
Key combinations are shown for PC. If you are using a Mac, the Cmd key is generally used instead
of the Ctrl key.
Key Combination Result

Alt+Down Arrow Open a drop-down list or look up a value for a field.
Alt+Right Arrow See the transactions that resulted in a calculated value in a field.
Alt+F2 Show and hide the FactBox pane.
Alt+Q Open Tell me what you want to do box that can help you find a page, a report, an
action on the current page, or an article in the documentation.
Alt+T Open the My Settings page.
Alt+Up Arrow Show tooltip for a field or a column header of a table. If the field has validation
errors, press “Alt+Up Arrow” to show the validation error. Press “Esc” or “Alt+Up
Arrow” to close the tooltip.
Ctrl+Alt+F1 Open and close the page inspection pane. The page inspection pane shows
information about the page, like its source table, fields, filters, extensions, and more.
Ctrl+C Copy the value of a field. If the field is in focus, and you have not selected any text
in the field, this will copy the entire value. If you have selected any text in the field,
then it will copy the selected text only.
Ctrl+F1 Open the Business Central help for the page.
Ctrl+F5 Reload the application. This is similar to selecting refresh/reload in the browser.

F5 Refresh the data on the current page. Use this to ensure that the data on the page is
up-to-date with any changes that others have made while you are working.
Ctrl+F12 Switch between wide and narrow layout view.
Enter Enable or access the element or control that is in focus.
Esc Close the current page or drop-down.
Tab Move focus to the next control or element on a page, such as actions, buttons, fields,
or list headings.
Shift+Tab Move focus to the previous control or element on a page, such as actions, buttons,
fields, or list headings.
Ctrl+Click Extend the selection of rows to include the row that you click.
Shift+Click Extend the selection of rows to include the row that you click and all the rows in
between. You can use this after using Ctrl+Up Arrow or Ctrl+Up Down to expand
your selection.
Ctrl+Up Arrow Move focus to the row above and keep the current row selected.
Ctrl+Down Arrow Move focus to the row below and keep the current row selected.
Ctrl+Space Bar Extend the selection of rows to include the focused row. You can use this after using
Ctrl+Up Arrow or Ctrl+Down Arrow to expand your selection.
Ctrl+A Select all rows.
Shift+Up Arrow Extend the selection of rows to include the row above.
Shift+Down Arrow Extend the selection of rows to include the row below.
Shift+Page Up Extend the selection of rows to include all visible rows above the current selection of
rows.
Shift+Page Down Extend the selection of rows to include all visible rows below the current selection of
rows.
Ctrl+C Copy the selected rows to the Clipboard.
Ctrl+V Paste the selected rows from the Clipboard into the current page or external
document, like Microsoft Excel or Outlook email. You can only do this in editable
lists.

F8 Copy the field in the same column of the row above, and paste it into the current
row. You can only do this in editable lists. Using this shortcut followed by a Tab lets
you quickly fill out fields in line items that you want to have the same value as the
row above.
F3 Toggles the search box. Activate the search box, so you can start typing your search
text. If the search box is already activated, F3 returns to the list without clearing the
search text.
Shift+F3 Open and close the filter pane. If the filter pane is not open, Shift+F3 opens it and
focuses on the + Filter action under Filter list by, which lets you just hit Enter to
start adding a field filter. If the filter pane is already open, Shift+F3 closes it but does
not clear any filters that you have added.
Ctrl+Shift+F3 Open and close the filter pane. If the filter pane is not open, Ctrl+Shift+F3 opens it
and focuses on the + Filter action under Filter total by, which lets you just hit Enter
to start adding a totals filter. If the filter pane is already open, Ctrl+Shift+F3 closes it
but does not clear any filters that you have added.
Alt+F3 Toggle filtering to the selected value. Applies a column filter on the selected field
value in the list. This does the same as choosing Filter to this value from a column
heading. It opens the filter pane, sets a filter to the selected value, while the focus
remains on the cell in the list. If the column is already filtered, Alt+F3 clears the
filter on that column.
Shift+Alt+F3 Open the filter pane and add a filter on the selected column in the list. Focus is on
the new filter field which lets users start typing the filter criteria right away. This
does the same as selecting Filter from the column heading. If there is already a filter
on the field, a new filter is added.
Ctrl+Shift+Alt+F3 Reset filters. This does the same as choosing Reset filters in the filter pane, and it
applies to field and totals filters. Filters return to the default filters for the current
view. If the current view is All, then this is the same as returning to an unfiltered
view with all records.
Ctrl+Enter Change focus from the filter pane back to the list.
The following are examples of keys that work in specific context. If there is a Post function on a
page, like the sales invoice, that post function will be accessible with F9. Microsoft will continue to
expand this list, so be sure to check the tooltips.

Alt+D Access to dimensions
F7 Statistics
F9 Post
Shift+F9 Post and Print
Ctrl+F7 Ledger Entries for the current entity
Ctrl+F9 Release Document
When setting a date field, you can either enter the date manually or open a calendar (date picker)
that lets you select the date you want. The following table describes the keyboard shortcuts for the
calendar.
Ctrl+Home Open the calendar if closed.
Ctrl+Home Move to the current month, current day.
Ctrl+Left Arrow Move to the previous day.
Ctrl+Right Arrow Move to the next day.
Ctrl+Up Arrow Move to the previous week, the same day of the week.
Ctrl+Down Arrow Move to the next week, the same day of the week.
Enter Select the focused date.
Ctrl+End Close the calendar and delete current the date.
Esc Close the calendar without a selection, keep the current date.
Page Down Move to the next month.
Page Up Move to the previous month.

Filters
A filter is the Business Central word for specifying what rows you want to see. You can specify
filters on nearly all pages in Business Central. In other systems, this is sometimes referred to as a
where clause.
Press Shift-F3 to access the filter dialogue or click on the funnel icon:
The funnel icon opens the filter pane
The Filter Pane
You can use a lot of smart ways to filter a list:
Characters Function
.. Specify a range, example 100..200
> Larger than, example >1000
< Smaller than, example <1000
| Logical Or, example 10|20|30, meaning 10 or 20 or 30
& Logical And, not used very much, but can be used like >10&<20
Characters Function
@ Ignore case sensitive
* Wildcard
’’ Empty, often used as <>’ ‘ meaning Not blank (Two single quotes next to each other)
Combining filters
Combining filters is a compelling way of finding data. In this example I’m looking for a customer
that uses the YELLOW warehouse location and is called something with export:
Using filters to find a customer that uses the YELLOW location
Setting Date Filters

Setting date filters is whole discipline by itself, you can do, and there are a series of keywords to
address special dates. Here’s a list of examples to get inspiration from:
Filter Value Resulting Filter

TODAY Today’s date
TODAY..TODAY+7D A week from today
Monday Monday in the current week
Friday Friday in the current week (And all the other day names)
YESTERDAY Yesterday’s date
WORKDATE The workdate from My Settings
WEEK Range of the current week
QUARTER Range of the current quarter
WEEK - 7D Last week
P1..P6 Period 1 to Period 2 of current accounting year
15D 15 days from now
WORKDATE+15D 15 days from the workdate
TODAY - 15D 15 days before today
CM End date of current month
CQ End date of current quarter
Setting a filter on Due Date for the rest of this month
You can go even crazier with filters like WORKDATE+CQ+CM-32D .. TODAY+100D-CM making
a date filter into a neat little date calculator.
ProTip
You can combine filters to create a quick “report”. Let’s say you want all customers in the US,
with a balance over 10,000, that also are getting a discount. Press Shift-F3 on the Customer
List and apply these three filters:
Field Filter
Balance (LCY) >10000
Customer Discount Group <>’’
Country Code US
You can add filters to fields not show in the list without issues. If you need the columns in the list,
see the chapter about personalization. After applying the filters, can you use the “Open In Excel”
function to get the customer list as an Excel spreadsheet.
Total Filters
A typical filter defines what rows you’ll see on a page, a Total Filter define how calculated fields
gets calculated. They define the filter applied to the underlying table.
Take a look at the chart of accounts, find the Net Change and Balance fields:
Calculated fields on the chart of accounts
If you click on any of the totals, Business Central opens a page showing the entries that make up
that total:
G/L Entries on account 11200 (Cash)
Now, press Shift-F3, open the Filter totals by section and add a Date Filter:
Setting a total filter on Posting Date
The Net Change field is now only based on entries from within the date filter specified, and if we
click on the total value again, we’ll get those entries:
Filtered entries on G/L account 11220 (Cash)
Saving Filters as Views

if there’s a particular set of filters that you’re always using, you can save them as a View:
Click the save icon to save your current filters as a view
Now you can find your saved view from the drop-down in the upper right corner of list pages.
You can also use other views as a template for creating a new view. Select the view that you want
your new view to be cloned from, update the filters and click save as to save the new view.
Save your view with a new name

Production vs. Sandbox

Microsoft will give you two types of environments in the Microsoft Cloud. One for production and
one for testing/development called sandboxes. Sandbox is a fancy computer term for a place where
you can play around without breaking anything. The sandbox can also be reset, so it’s possible to
start over. You can create multiple environments, and you can select a different country version for
each environment.
You can create environments by yourself, or you can ask your partner to do it for you. There are
two different way you can initiate the creation:
• By yourself from the application: Empty environment with CRONUS Company (CRONUS is
demo)
• By you or your Partner via the Admin Center: Copy of Production environment
Through the Admin Center you and your partner have an option to create multiple sandboxes if
needed, up to three sandboxes per tenant.
There is also a difference in how extensions are handled, as long as you’re in the sandbox access to
extensions are trial based.
To create a sandbox yourself, search for sandbox and select Sandbox Environment (Preview)
Search for Sandbox in ALT-Q
From here you can choose to create a new sandbox, reset the current one or merely open the sandbox.
If you open the sandbox, you can see that the URL has added a /sandbox
The /sandbox part of the URL
The name of the Sandbox in the top bar
The top bar has the name of the sandbox directly shown to help you know what the current
environment. And you can also use a Badge to help identify the environment. Remember, if you
create bookmarks or send links that the difference between production and sandbox is the /sandbox
in the URL.
Another option is to create a Container-based Sandbox. This is only for very experienced users. A
Container is a generic way of packaging an application environment into a portable package.
Search for Container in ALT-Q
This method will never contain your data. It is just a way to create a sandbox environment for use
for development and testing.
Using the Admin Center

Another option for handling your environments, is the Admin Center, either accessible by adding
/admin to your URL or by selecting it from the gear menu:
Gear-
Menu
Inside the admin center, you can manage all your environments. In my case, I have a production
environment and two sandboxes, one on version 14 and one on version 15.
Admin Center environments
You can create new environments by clicking + New:

Create a new environment in Admin Center
You can select what country version the new environment should have, having all supported
countries available. The country is otherwise determined by the country setting of your Office 365
tenant.
You can also control when Microsoft tries to apply updates to your system. Updates come twice a
year, spring and fall, and in some cases, you might want to postpone an update to a convenient time.
Click on the environment and use the Set update window to define the time of day that Microsoft
can try to get the update done. Use Schedule update to set the date span when Microsoft is allowed
to update. Depending on the workload, the upgrade might not happen within the date spa (but will
not arrive before).
Control updated in the Admin Center
Notification recipients
Another important feature of the Admin Center is the ability to define emails that should be notified
in case of issues with the tenant.
Setting up notification emails in Admin Center

Microsoft will notify these emails in case of issues with upgrades, outages and other essential
messages regarding the platform. You should always have at least one recipient here, two is better,
and if they’re one different email domain even better.
Telemetry and Reported Outages
You can also see information about reported outages and view telemetry collected from usage. The
telemetry view can be instrumental when trying to figure out when a specific feature has been
executed.
Viewing telemetry in Admin Center

Phones and Tablets

There is a great phone app for Business Central. You can find it in both the Apple AppStore and the
Google Play Store.
Business Central Phone App
Link to Apple AppStore

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dynamics-365-business-central/id1093325047
Link to Google Play

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft.dynamics.ProjectMadeira
Phones and Tablets connected to a cloud Business Central

If you are running on the cloud, this just works, log in to the app and enjoy access to Business
Central.
Phones and Tablets connected to an on-premises Business

Central
But if you’re running on-premises, there are a few things you must make sure are in place for the
phone app to work:
1. The phone needs to access the URL exposed for the web client. If you want to access your
Business Central from anywhere, the endpoint (IIS) must be exposed to the internet or be
available through a VPN service.
2. The exposed URL must be exposed as HTTPS with a valid SSL certificate.
HTTPS Connection with valid SSL Certificate
Getting a certificate to work can be a bit complicated, and certificates from a traditional vendor have
a yearly cost. There is a free alternative, called Let’s Encrypt, see https://letsencrypt.org/
There are several ways to configure an IIS server with Let’s Encrypt; one simple solution is https:
//certifytheweb.com/
Migrating from other systems to Business Central

There are several different ways to get data into Business Central. If your current data is located
in a system with a supplied conversion tool, it easy. Always check AppSource for the existence of
conversion tools before starting to create it yourself.
From Dynamics NAV

Since Business Central is NAV, with a new name, upgrading from NAV to Business Central on-
premises is as simple, or complicated, as upgrading from one NAV version to another. On the
Business Central DVD you can find upgrade objects from NAV2015, NAV2016, NAV2018 and
NAV2018. If you’re on an earlier version, you must first upgrade to NAV2015 before going to Business
Central.
With Intelligent Cloud
If you are running NAV2018 or Business Central on-premises, you have the option of using the
Intelligent Cloud to replicate your current database to the cloud.
With RapidStart Configuration Packages
If you’re coming from a NAV version that supports RapidStart Packages, also sometimes known as
Configuration Packages, you can import those in Business Central. Packages are best for setup and
master data.
From Dynamics GP
With GP you have two options, you can either use the Intelligent Cloud, if you have a GP version
that supports that, or you can use the GP Conversion tool that comes with NAV2018 and later.
From QuickBooks
Business Central has a simple QuickBooks data conversion tool. It comes as an Extension. The
underlying structure in QuickBooks is quite different from Business Central, so don’t expect
anything but master data and an opening balance.
From Excel
You can use Excel, together with the RapidStart packages to populate everything, but history, to start
a new company.
From Somewhere Else

It’s quite easy for partners to create imports in Business Central. If you have data in most formats,
partners can develop imports. What can sometimes be difficult is to recreate history. Usually, the
best way to get history into the system is to create journal entries and the post the history.
Excel Integration
Business Central and Excel go hand in hand. There are several levels of Excel integration from
simple export to an integrated experience where you can update Business Central directly from
Excel through an add-in.
Copy’Paste
Mark lines in Business Central
If you mark lines in Business Central, Copy can copy those directly into Excel with column headings.
ProTip
Use the keyboard. Hold the shift key down and press the arrow keys to quickly mark row,
then press Ctrl-C to copy the marked rows, just like a native application.
The rows copied into Excel
Open In Excel
Open In Excel
Open In Excel will export the current view to an Excel Sheet. This is still a one-way operation,
Business Central -> Excel.
Edit In Excel
Edit In Excel takes it one step further.
Edit In Excel
In Excel, we have access to the Dynamics Excel Add-in. With this add-in, we can write data back to
Business Central.
See the chapter on using Excel for General Journal editing.
Configuration Packages
Configuration Packages can also be edited in Excel. See the chapter on Configuration Packages.
Configuration Packages, aka RapidStart

This one requires a bit of explanation because if you talk to people in the Dynamics channel, they
will speak of “RapidStart Packages”, but try searching for RapidStart, and you’ll not see anything
about “packages”
Search for RapidStart in ALT-Q
What you are looking for are “Configuration Packages”.
Search for Configuration Package in ALT-Q
A configuration package is a tool to transfer data to and from Business Central.

Give it a name and start selecting tables. In this example, table 18, the customer table, is chosen.
Creating a new Package
Thankfully, if you hit the … lookup, you’ll get a list of all the tables with names to make it easy.
If there are related tables to the selected one, BC asks you if they should be added to package
automatically.
In this case, the Post Code table with values for the City and Post Code fields.
Adding related tables to the package

Edit Configuration Package in Excel
Edit configuration package in Excel
Each table is placed on a separate sheet, it’s essential that you don’t change the sheets, add new ones
or in any way change the basic structure of the spreadsheet. Otherwise, Business Central cannot
read the spreadsheet afterwards.
Configuration Package in Excel
Add more rows, change the information and save the Excel file to your local hard drive. Then you’re
ready to import the sheet to Business Central again.
Select Import from Excel and select the file you just saved:
Import configuration package from Excel
After the import, you can then Apply the package to your database.
Apply Configuration Package

Custom Report Layouts

In Business Central, reports consist of two components:
1. Business Logic
2. Layout
End-users have no way of changing the business logic of a report, but they can change the layout.
Open Report Layout Selection and find the report you want to use a different layout for.
Switch to using a custom layout
Now use the Selected Layout field to switch from a built-in layout to your custom layout.
Now you’re ready to run the report with your changes. If something is not right, you can switch
back to the built-in by flipping the Selected Layout field.
Be aware that the selection of a custom layout is a global setting. The selection affects all users.
See the customization chapter for information on how to create your custom report layout.
Setting up the intelligent cloud

This section provides the steps required to configure your intelligent cloud environment. This can
simply be done by following the instructions in the Intelligent Cloud Setup assisted setup wizard
within your Business Central cloud tenant.
There are a few key points that need to be understood before proceeding with the setup:
• It is always a best practice to test this configuration in your Sandbox environment before
making changes to a production tenant.
• Any existing data in your Business Central tenant will be overwritten with data from your
on-premises solution, or source, once the data replication process is run. If you do not want
data in your Business Central cloud tenant to be overwritten, do not configure the intelligent
cloud environment.
• All users that do not have SUPER permissions will be automatically reassigned to the intelligent
cloud user group. This will limit them to read-only access within the Business Central tenant.
See more below.
• If your data source is Business Central (on-premises), several stored procedures will be added
to the SQL server you define. These stored procedures are required to replicate data from your
SQL server to the Azure SQL server associated with your Business Central tenant.
• In the current version of Business Central, the amount of data that can be replicated for any
tenant is limited to 150GB. If your database is larger than 150GB, try reducing the number of
companies you are replicating data for. This can be done using the company selection within the
Wizard. Additional options for databases exceeding 150GB will be available in future updates.
• Before setting up your intelligent cloud environment, ensure that at least one user in the system
that has SUPER permissions. This is the only user that will be allowed to make changes in the
Business Central tenant.
• Configuring the intelligent cloud environment will have no impact on any users or data in
your on-premises solution.
To begin configuring your intelligent cloud environment, navigate to the assisted setup page and
launch the Intelligent Cloud Setup assisted setup guide. If you are using Business Central (on-
premises), you may also launch the wizard from your on-premises solution. You will automatically
be redirected to your Business Central online tenant to continue the configuration process.
The assisted setup guide

The assisted setup guide consists of up to 6 pages that take you through the process of connecting
your solution to the intelligent cloud.
1. Welcome and Consent page

This page provides an overview of what the wizard will do. You must agree to the displayed
warning message before you can continue to the next step.
2. Product selection
On this page, specify the on-premises solution that you want to replicate data from. All
supported sources will appear in the list. If you don’t see your product, navigate to the Manage
Extensions page, and then verify that the intelligent cloud extension for your on-premises
solution is installed.
3. SQL Connection
If the product you selected requires a SQL connection, this page will be presented. Other source
applications may require different information to connect to them. This page will display the
connection information based on the product that you specified on the previous page. This is
defined from the installed extensions for the product you have selected.
Use the following setup:
1. SQL Connection: Use SQL Server for a locally installed SQL Server instance, or Azure
SQL if your database is hosted in Azure.
2. SQL Connection string, please specify the connection string to your SQL Server.
3. Integration runtime name. If your SQL connection is SQL Server, you must specify the
runtime service that will be used to replicate the data from the defined source to your
Business Central cloud tenant.
For more information on Connection Strings, see this article on the SQL Server blog https://
blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sqlforum/2010/12/20/faq-how-do-i-find-the-correct-server-or-data-
source-value-for-an-sql-server-instance-in-a-connection-string/.
The following snippets illustrate a couple connection strings with different formats:
Server={SQL Server Name};Initial Catalog={Database Name};UserID={SQL Authenticated
UserName};Password={SQL Authenticated Password};
Server={SQL Server Name};Database={Database Name};User Id={SQL Server Authenticated
UserName};Password={SQL Server Authenticated Password};
The SQL connection string is passed to Azure Data Factory (ADF), where it is encrypted and
delivered to your Self-Hosted Integration Runtime and used to communicate with your SQL
Server instance during the data replication process.
4. Self-Hosted Integration Runtime (SHIR)
This is the service will allow access to the Azure replication services to your on-premises SQL
Database during the replication process. Follow the instructions on this page to install the Self-
Hosted Integration Service (SHIR) to a local machine.
5. Company Selection
You will be provided with a list of companies from your on-premises solution, or source. Select
the companies you would like to replicate data for. If the company does not exist in your tenant,
it will be automatically created for you. This process may take several minutes depending on
the number of companies that need to be created.
6. Enable & Scheduling Replication
The final page in the wizard allows you to enable the replication process and create a schedule
for when the data replication should occur. These settings are also available within your tenant
on the Intelligent Cloud Management page. You have the option to schedule replication daily
or weekly. We recommend that you schedule your data replication for off-peak business hours.
Tip
Depending on the amount of data, your SQL configuration and your connection speed, a
full replication could take several hours to complete. Subsequent replications will complete
more quickly as only changed data is replicating.
The First Company
A company in Business Central is a legal entity. You need one company for each legal entity you
have.
Companies can also be used as a great way to create a place where you can test setup, posting and
everything without doing that in your live system.
List of companies in Business Central
Open Companies, from this list you can create new, rename, delete or copy companies.
ProTip
Press Alt-T to go into My Settings for a fast way to switch to a different company.
What is CRONUS?
The name CRONUS is the demo company indicator. A demo company has some limitation, but will
you to try out features that are not available in your current license.
You cannot run your business in a CRONUS company.
ProTip
Deleting a company will delete everything in the company. There’s no way to get the data
back unless you go through the Microsoft support to get an earlier backup of the entire
database (all companies) restored.
The First Company 108
More than one company?

So when do you have the need for more than one company? Many customers are tempted to
use dimensions and run multiple companies inside a single Business Central company. This gives
a lot of advantages when it comes to inter-company posting. But those advantages can also be
disadvantages.
Making it work with multiple companies inside one company usually requires extensive customiza-
tions. And there is usually no support for this model when it comes to 3rd party add-ons.
The default Business Central behaviour is “one Tax ID, one company”. This is what the system is
built for, and the model that everything is designed towards.
Assisted Setup
After you have created a new company, you can use a series of wizards to get going faster. All the
wizards are grouped together on a page called Assisted Setup
Assisted Setup wizards
There are wizards for:
• Migrating Data
• Setting up sales tax
• Setting up cash flow forecast
• Setting up approval workflows
• Connecting your email
• Connecting the Business Inbox in Outlook
• Setting up web services for building report in PowerBI
• Connecting to Dynamics 365 for Sales
Wizards will register when they have been used.

Setup Overview
One of the challenges with most “ERP” systems is an abundance of setup. Often it can be hard to
figure out the order of setup, what’s needed, what’s optional and where to find the relevant setup.
This is also true for Business Central. The following is an overview and a suggestion for how to
approach the setup task.
The very first setup - Company Information.

Company Information is the very place to visit.
Company Information
Company Information is where you enter your company name, address and all the static
information on your company. The information here has no impact on how Business Central will
work but are used on reports, documents and file exchanges.
Be aware that there are fields that are not shown by default.
Company Information, communication normal
Click on the Show more to reveal the other fields:

Company Information, communication expanded
You can always go back and fill out more field on Company Information.
After Company Information the next place to visit is General Ledger Setup (Can be accessed from
Application Settings on Company Information).
If you use multiple companies, you can add a company badge for easy identification:
Company Information Badge
Resulting in a badge on the upper right side of pages:
Company badge
General Ledger Setup

General Ledger Setup controls how the G/L works. Since every module in Business Central touches
the G/L at some point, this setup has the most significant impact of the entire system, so after
Company Information is filled out, this is the natural next place to visit.
General Ledger Setup
Here you define what currency is the G/L currency, often referred to Local Currency. The G/L only
works in one currency. If you have documents, like an invoice, in a specific currency, that’s referred
to as Document Currency with the corresponding G/L values stored in fields called LCY meaning
Local Currency. At the same time, you also define how many decimals you need and how rounding
should be done.
Specifying number of decimals
Business Central has a particular format for specifying decimals: 2:5 means that decimal numbers
should have minimum 2 and maximum 5 decimal places. Rounding is specified as the smallest
desired unit, 0.01 means cents and 1.00 is whole numbers.
The Allow Posting From and Allow Posting To field is very important. Business Central does not
work with hard closed periods, making it possible to keep multiple months, even years, open for
posting. Controlling these two fields is the main control gate to ensure when posting is allowed.
There is an extra layer of this control on User Setup to allow for some user to work in a different
period.
Look through the fields and make a mental note of the settings available so you can return and refine
the setup as you continue the setup process.
ProTip
When in doubt, take a peek at the CRONUS Company for inspiration or if you are uncertain
on how to fill out a field.
Chart Of Accounts
The heart of Business Central is the Chart Of Accounts. Every time something is posted, the G/L is
also updated.
The CRONUS company has a very well working Chart Of Accounts that covers the entire
application. Use that for inspiration before venturing into creating your own.
Chart Of Accounts
There are two types of accounts, Posting Accounts and Totals Accounts. Totals accounts cannot
be used in General Journals or anywhere for posting. Instead they are used to summarize posting
accounts.
Totaling of accounts in the chart of accounts
In this example, the 11700 account has a Totalling filter of 11100 to 11700 covering all the liquid
assets accounts.
Indent chart of accounts function
By assigning the Begin-Total and End-Total and the use the Indent Chart of Accounts function to
assign the totalling filter automatically. You can also use Account Type Total and then type your
own totalling filter.
Sales and Purchase Accounts

Before accounts can be used for either sale or purchase they must be assigned a Gen. Posting Type
of either Sale or Purchase with associated posting groups and tax setup.
Sales and purchase setup on accounts
Account Categories
Many companies have long and complex chart of accounts. But most accounts does not see daily
usage, making the signal to noise ratio quite high. To solve this issue, Business Central have G/L
Account Categories.
G/L Account Categories
Each account in the chart of account can be tagged with an Account Category and an Account
Subcategory
G/L Account Category and subcategory on a G/L Account
After setting up all the categories, you can get Business Central to automatically create a set of
Account Schedules for you.
Generate Account Schedules from G/L Account Categories
These are the account schedules specified in General Ledger Setup:
Account Schedules in General Ledger Setup

Account Schedules that starts with M- are built from the Account Categories.
Dimensions
Business Central is multi-dimensional. What that means, is that you can post the same entry on
multiple accounts. We call the first account the G/L account and the rest dimensions.
There are two types of dimensions, Global Dimensions and the rest. Global dimensions are directly
available for entry and filtering everywhere in Business Central, where the rest are sitting behind
lines and documents.
An important feature about dimensions is that they can be created on the fly. You do not have to
create them before going live. If something comes up, that requires a dimension, it can just be added.
The opposite is also true. You can retire a dimension. Not by deleting it (you cannot delete anything
with posted transactions) but by merely marking it blocked.
Create a Dimension
Creating a dimension is easy, first create the dimension from the Dimension List.
Dimensions
A dimension must have a name, but be aware, specific names are reserved since they are already
used for entities in Business Central.
Some names are reserved and cannot be used for dimensions

In many places, Business Central will insert the dimension as a normal field on the screen right next
to normal fields. So consider that when naming the dimension.
When you have created the dimension, you’ll some Dimension Values for the dimension to have
any effect. Click on Dimension Values and fill out what you need. You can always go back and
adjust your values. You cannot delete a value that has been used for posting, but you can block it to
prevent additional posting.
Dimension Values
Dimension values have the same structure with Begin-Total and End-Total as the chart of accounts.
The same rule applies, you can only use the marked Standard for posting, but you can use the totals
when you’re doing analysis or otherwise working with the dimension.
Accounting Periods
Every transaction in Business Central is stored in the database with a Posting Date. The Posting
Date is the date that a transaction will impact the General Ledger. The Periods are not used for
tagging transactions.
Every report, every batch, every page can be filtered by any date range. All G/L number can be
shown for odd periods just by specifying any date range.
Business Central still have accounting periods.
Accounting Periods
Accounting periods serve a few purposes, but the most important is control of the open fiscal year.
Secondary, it will help with an easy way to specify the period when you’re typing dates. Example,
to set a filter from period 3 to 4:
Specify periods as dates in filters
Typing p plus the period number will evaluate to the real date:
Specify periods as dates in filters, now evaluated
So now the filter is March 1st to April 30th just by typing p3..p4.
Periods can also be used in Account Schedules.
Budgets
Budgets in Business Central is one of the areas where the UI is different from all other areas. Usually,
there’s a journal of some sort, not with budgets. The budget uses the power of the calculated totals,
but in reverse, you can type in the total, and every time you type, a G/L Budget Entry is created to
match the total you just typed.
G/L Budgets
You can only type in one dimension at the time, but you can specify what dimensions the budget
need to use, and then, on the budget, you can select want dimension combination you’re currently
typing.
Click Edit Budget to open the selected budget.
Editing G/L Budget
As soon as we type something, total accounts are updated:
Typing in a budget
If we keep typing into the same field, Business Central will keep adding an entry to make the total
equal to what we typed.
Budget Entries
In this case, we typed, 100, then 120, then 80 and finally 113, resulting in the entries shown.
If we then make a change in the Filters section below the budget, my entry disappears because those
entries were made with a blank Department code. Add some new entries, and we can see that they
are now marked with a Department Code:
Budget Entries with department dimension filled out
Budget can be used the G/L by applying a Filter Totals By filter on Budget Code.
Filter Totals by Budget
Here we have added two columns to the chart of account Budgeted Amount and Budget at Date,
and set a filter on my budget. Then these columns are filtered to that budget. We can add more
filters, like the date filter, that will work both on the budget amounts and the regular chart of account
amounts.
How to Number Documents

When something needs a number in Business Central, the system uses a Number Series. Numbers
are used for documents, master data, batches and others.
Before Business Central will do anything, you’ll need to create the required number series.
Sometimes you can get prompted for a missing number series, in other case, you must go to Number
Series to create them yourself.
Number in Business Central
Alt-Q to No. Series to start creating new numbers.

Create a new number series
The number series has a Code. The Code is what you use to specify what number series you want
to use.
Specify Starting Number
Typically, you will specify a Starting Number, but you can also use dates to control what numbers
to use.
Formatting a number series

You can use both number and letters in a number series. To separate numbers and making it easier
to determine what is number is.
If you set the starting number to DEMO00001, then Business Central is smart enough to be able to
increment this to DEMO00002, DEMO00003, DEMO0004.
Don’t use the same number series for multiple purposes. Take a look at CRONUS for an excellent
example of how to set up numbers. Be aware that there is a difference between an Invoice and a
Posted Invoice, these are not the same. The Posted Invoice is the one that goes on the document
to the customer, where the Invoice is the draft.
Allow gaps in number series

You can select the Allow Gaps in Nos. to allow the number series to be broken. If there’s no
legal requirement for a number to stay unbroken, this will increase performance in certain areas
of Business Central by reducing the time the number series remain locked.
Allow gaps in number series

Posting Setup
There are two layers of posting setup in Business Central. Direct Posting Groups and the General
Business and General Product Posting Groups with the matrix styled setup. Each module that
touches the G/L needs posting setup.
The main reason for any posting setup is to define what G/L account Business Central should use
when there’s a need to post anything. Because the chart of accounts is entirely user definable, then
the usage of the chart of account most also be definable.
ProTip
Before a new module can be used, make sure that the posting setup is correct. If you have
copied the setup from somewhere else, check that the accounts are valid and correct.
Different Setup Groups in Business Central
Type Purpose
Customer Posting Groups G/L setup that is only related to customers. Setup of Receivables
accounts
Vendor Posting Groups G/L setup that is only related to vendors. Setup of Payables accounts
Inventory Posting Groups Paired with location codes to define Inventory Accounts
Job Posting Groups Setup of WIP accounts
FA Posting Groups Defines account used for all operations on Fixed Assets
Employee Posting Groups Defines the payables account for employees
Bank Account Posting Groups Defines the “shadow” G/L account for bank accounts
General Business Posting Groups The customer side of the matrix for General Posting Setup
General Product Posting Groups The product side of the matrix for General Posting Setup
General Posting Setup Setup of all sales and purchase related accounts. The setup is a
matrix crossing customer information with product information to
give a setup.
Tax Business Posting Groups The customer side of the matrix for Tax Posting Setup
Tax Product Posting Groups The product side of the matrix for Tax Posting Setup
Type Purpose
Tax Posting Setup Setup of all VAT and sales tax. The setup is a matrix crossing
customer information with product information.
There are two similar structures for posting setup and tax posting setup. Some customers keep
these two structures the same to reduce complexity. Others reduce the tax setup to a way more
straightforward matrix than the posting setup.
ProTip
Products? Notice the use of the word Product, even though there are no products in Business
Central, just Items. This is on purpose, because non-item entities, such as Jobs or G/L
accounts also can have General Product Posting Group.
If you operate in a “simple tax” (That an Oxymoron) area, you can start output with just two settings,
TAX and NOTAX. This can be defined both on the customer and the product side of the matrix.
Tax/VAT Setup
Setting up “tax” can be a complicated process depending on what country you’re in. Business Central
support both VAT and Sales Tax principles.
VAT Setup
VAT is controlled by VAT Product Posting Groups, given by Items, resources and G/L Accounts:
VAT Product Posting Groups
Crossed with VAT Business Posting Groups from Customers and Vendors:
VAT Business Posting Groups
These two types, are crossed into a VAT posting Setup:

VAT Posting Setup
The posting setup will give the VAT percentage and specify the accounts for incoming and outgoing
VAT.
ProTip
If you want to access and use VAT from a North American Business Central, the names have
been changed from VAT …. to Tax …., so VAT Product Posting Groups is Tax Product
Posting Groups.
Sales Tax Assisted Setup

Setting up sales tax is more dependent on the state (or province, if Canada). To help you with getting
started on setting up Sales Tax, Business Central have an assisted setup for sales tax that will take
your though the entire setup process, and have you up running with a simple sales tax set up.
Sales Tax Assisted Setup
First you much create a default tax group:
Adding a default tax group
And supply account for posting the tax:

Accounts for sales tax
Now you must define your first tax area, since I’m in British Columbia, Canada, I will create that
one:
Enter tax formation formation for your area
Followed by giving it a name:

Give your area a name
Lastly, I can assign the tax area to customer and vendors.
Assign the new tax area to customers and vendors

Sales Tax Areas

Behind the scenes it’s a bit more complicated. Because a sales tax rate is actually built from several
entities.
Sales Tax area for Miami, Florida
Each tax area is a grouping of sales tax jurisdictions based on a particular geographic location. For
example, the Miami, Florida, tax area includes three sales tax jurisdictions: city (Miami), county
(Dade), and state (Florida). CRONUS includes a limited set of tax areas with a default configuration,
but you can change them and add new tax areas.
Sales Tax Jurisdictions
If you set up new tax areas and tax jurisdictions, you must make sure that you fill in the fields
correctly. In the United States, states, counties, cities, and localities can charge sales tax. Companies
collect and remit sales tax to these government authorities for products sold to end users. Sales tax
can also be charged to existing sales tax. For example, tax can be calculated on a sales invoice amount
that already includes the tax from other jurisdictions.
Sales Tax Details
The Tax Details window shows different combinations of sales tax jurisdictions and sales tax groups
to establish sales tax rates. For each tax jurisdiction, I recommend that you set up one tax group
for normal sales tax, another tax group for items or services that are not taxed, and an additional
tax group for every type of item or service that is handled with a different sales tax rate in that
jurisdiction.
In the United States, when you sell to a customer at a location where you do not have a legal location
in that state, you do not collect sales tax. For locations in which you do not have a situs, ensure that
both the Tax Below Minimum and Tax Above Maximum fields are 0.00.
ProTip
If you need sales setup for multiple states, it might be better to use one of the 3rd party sales
tax extension currently available in AppSource.
Opening Balance
After your Chart Of Account and the rest of the setup is complete, it’s time to get your opening
balances into the system.
Open the General Journal and go to the Action Button, find Opening Balance and select Prepare
Journals and G/L Account opening balance.
This will generate a General Journal filled with all the lines that require an opening balance.
You can then either fill out the number here, or you can export the Journal to Excel by using the
Excel Add-in.
After you’re done with the GL you can continue with Customer and Vendor balances, the same
way. Please remember that when posting the opening balance on customer and vendors, you’ll
automatically post the opening AR and AP balance in the GL. This will generate double postings
if your opening balance for the G/L included AR and AP. Make sure to reverse the G/L portion
afterwards. Another option is to do the AR an AP opening balances first and then create a delta
G/L opening balance that excludes AR and AP balances.
Bank Integration
A central part of running Financial Management is managing bank accounts. Bank Accounts exists
in Business Central and are directly connected to the G/L.
Go to Bank Accounts to start creating your bank accounts.
General setting on a bank account
The bank card has a multitude of fields. Some are used for certain integrations
Posting Setup on Bank Account
Two of the most important fields are the Currency Code field and the Bank Acc. Posting Group
field. Currency is easy enough to understand, but the Bank Account Posting Group field requires a
bit of explanation.
Using Bank Accounts in the General Journal

When you’re using the bank account in a transaction, perhaps just from the General Journal, every
entry posted to a bank account is mirrored in the G/L.
General Journal with simple Debit/Credit posting between two bank accounts
Here is a simple General Journal transfer $100 from one bank account to another.
Preview of bank posting
This generates two Bank Entries, as expected, but also two G/L entries, mirroring the Bank Entries.
G/L Entries from bank posting

Registering a customer payment using a bank account
After bank accounts are set up, they can be used in journals just like any other account. To register
a payment from a customer, open the Cash Receipt Journal (or the General Journal) and create
a line with Document Type Payment and Account Type Customer. A cash receipt journal can set
up to default a bank account as balance account on lines to avoid typing the same bank account on
every line.
Create a Customer Payment line in a journal
Scroll to the right, and click the … in the Applies-To Doc No. column:
Select a document to match with the payment
You’ll be presented with a list of open entries on the customer specified on the journal line. Navigate
to the invoice the matches the payment and click OK.
Select an open, unpaid customer invoice
Now we can see that the amount fields are matched.
Invoice is selected as the target for a payment
In some cases, a single payment will cover multiple documents. Instead of using the Applies-To
Doc No. field, use Apply Entries… from the action bar.
Use Applies-to ID to apply multiple documents to a payment
On this page, you can select multiple invoices by giving each of them an ID.
Paying a Vendor using a bank account
Paying vendors is done through the Payment Journal or the General Journal. You can either create
a single manual payment or generate a payment suggestion covering multiple vendors.
The process of paying a single vendor follows the same steps as with customer payments, first create
a line with Document Type Payment and Account Type Vendor and select the vendor:
Create a vendor payment, first create the line
Scroll right and select the purchase invoice you want to pay in the Applies-To Doc. No. field.
If you want to do this smarter, you can select Suggest Vendor Payments from Prepare in the action
bar.
Suggest Vendor Payments
Specify a starting document number and a cut-off date in Last Payment Date (Based on the Due
Date on open vendor ledger entries) and click OK.
Result of payment suggestion
You can create multiple payments to the same vendor or collapse into a single payment per vendor.
Checks
Checks can be printed from the payment journal:
Print Checks from Payment Journal
To avoid printing the same check multiple times, preview printing is disabled, but a separate preview
function is added.
Electronical Funds Transfer

Integrating banks with ERP systems can be quite complicated. With Business Central, there are two
different approaches. You can use integration Apps/services or use “old-fashion” file exchange.
Business Central comes with one integration option preloaded, called Envestnet Yodlee Bank Feed
Service. Yodlee can supply bank feeds from a large selection of banks.
Envestnet Yodlee Bank Feed Service Integration
Search the marketplace (AppSource) for app supporting your local bank.
If there are no apps available for your bank, you can still use old-fashion files for exporting payments
and importing statements. On the Bank Account Card, in the Transfer FastTab, select the layout file
matching your country/bank.
Transfer setup on bank account card
Many companies have multiple banks, not all using the same file formats. To help with this, you can
use the Payment Method Code to link payments to specific bank accounts and file formats.
Select Payment method on transaction
Payment Methods
Bank Account Reconciliations
Bank Reconciliation
With the Bank Reconciliation module, you can easily match your posted Bank Ledger Entries with
the statement from the bank.
You can setup if you want auto-match in General Ledger Setup
If you have specified a bank format for statements, you can import statements directly from your
bank.
Import Bank statement directly from your bank
After the Reconciliation is completed, you can post the difference to the G/L.
Exchange Rates
Currencies in Business Central follows the same pattern of separating master data and transactions.
In this case, the exchange rates are not part of the currency record but stored behind as exchanges
rates.
The Currency List
Clicking on an Exchange Rate Entry will show the exchange rates for the selected currency. Every
time Business Central needs an exchange rate for a document, it will find an entry that fits with the
posting date.
Example:
You have the following exchange rates in the system:
Date Rate
1/Jan/2019 1.5
1/Feb/2019 2.1
15/Feb/2019 1.9
1/Mar/2019 1.7
Any posting date in January will get the January 1st rate of 1.5. A posting date of February 14th will
get the February 1st rate and posting dates later in February will get the February 15th rate. After
March 1st, everything will get the 1.7 rate cause that’s the newest one we have.
To input an actual rate requires two fields:
Field Meaning
Exchange Rate Amount The amount in the currency
Relation Exch. Rate Amount The amount in local currency
Exchange rates for Australian Dollars
In this example, we can see that we must pay CAD 79.4057 for 100 Australian Dollars, this gives the
0.794057 exchange rate. Depending on your source for currencies it might be reversed, so you input
how many Australian dollars one Canadian can buy.
Two different ways of creating the same exchange rate
Use an Exchange Service to update Exchange rates automatically

It’s possible to set up an Exchange Rate Service, select Exchange Rate Service from the Currency
List.
In this example, I’ll use Bank Of Canada as an example. They have a service where exchange rates
are returned as XML, the URL for this is here:
https://www.bankofcanada.ca/valet/observations/FXAUDCAD/xml
This URL is for AUD to CAD.
Create a new Service Record and fill out the Service URL with the URL from your Bank, then go the
Field Mapping area and click the Assist Edit on the Parent Node for Currency
Field Mapping
Now you will be presented with the data structure from the URL supplied. This is how my URL
looks:
Bank Of Canada, XML structure for currency
Now we’ll look for an entry that can be looped over, in this case, it’s the o structure, so we select
that.
Parent Node Selected
Next select the entry for Currency Code, starting date and, in this case, Relational Exch. Rate
Amount. Set Exchange Rate Amount to 1.
We got a problem because the s structure has the value FXAUDCAD and we only need the AUD part.
To solve that, go to the Transformation Rule field and click + New to create a new transformation
rule. We want character 3,4,5, so the transformation we need is a substring
Substring transformation rule
Select substring and specify start position as 3 and Length as 5.

You can even test the rule at the bottom of the screen by typing a test value into Test Text and then
press Update.
When the rule is working, press OK to select it.
Depending on your data source, you might need to apply other transformation rules, especially on
the date field. There are already several predefined rules for handling different date formats.
My mapping looks like this:
Completed exchange rate mapping
Now click Preview to test your service:
Preview of exchange rate service output
When everything looks good, go back to the General section and Enable the service. This will create
a Job in the Job Queue for updating exchanges automatically.
Using FloatRates
Another example, from http://www.floatrates.com/daily/usd.xml. Here you’re getting exchanges
rates for multiple currencies in one service, but only the daily rates.
Setup for FloatRates

Setting up Approvals and Workflow

What happens when there are more than a few user and responsibilities becomes distributed across
multiple people, even departments. What about the four-eyes principle and other methods for
making sure that everything is done the right way?
For all of that, Business Central has workflow and approvals. Workflows make sure, that data flows
through the system and that users knows their responsibilities. Add approvals to ensure that key
processes are done by authorized users.
As soon as a user tried to do an action that requires approval, they will be stopped:
You cannot post this purchase invoice, it’s not approved
Instead, send an approval request:
Send approval request
Approval request sent
Now, the approver (User BOSS in this case) can log in, and open the Requests to Approve page:
Approval user looking at request for approval
The approver have the following options:
Action Description
Approve Release and approve the document
Reject Reject approval of the document
Delegate Delegate the approval to another approver
Open Record See the document before approval or rejection
Now the original user can see on Approval Entries that the purchase order is now approved, and
it’s ready for posting.
Approval entries
Approval Users
Before you can create workflows that involve approval steps, you must set up the workflow users
who are involved in approval processes. On the Approval User Setup page, you also set amount
limits for specific types of requests and define substitute approvers to whom approval requests are
delegated when the original approver is absent.
Approval User Setup
Each user can have separate limits for sales and purchase.
Workflow
A Workflow handles a process, broken down into specific steps and guides user through the process.
Workflow for handling to approve purchase invoices
The steps are triggered by event. A typical start trigger could be a user requesting approval. The
event has to fulfill some conditions, as shown in the conditions column.
Workflow step
When an event is trigger the responses are then executed, in order.
Workflow responses
You can build workflows from scratch, or you can start with a pre-built template.
Workflow Templates
Business Central comes with a bunch of workflow templates that covers many normal processes in
both sales and purchase. Since setting up a workflow can be a daunting task, these templates are a
starting point for creating your own workflows.
Workflow Templates
You can edit the workflow after it’s created from a template. The template stays unmodified and
can be used to create other workflows.
Approval Groups
You can also create Approval Groups, in the system called Workflow User Groups. You can setup
a group for have all group members approve in sequence, or not in sequence. You can also set it up
so that just one member of the group have to approve.
Workflow User Group
To change your flow to use groups instead of users, open the Workflow in question, disable it and
click on Add record restriction
Click (+) Add record restriction
Select the line with Create an approval request …. Change the Approver Type to Workflow User
Group and select the Workflow User Group to use.
Change approver type in workflow
Using this setup will create a “train” of approvers for the document
Multiple approvers on a single document
If you give all the approvers in the group the same Sequence No. approval can happen in any order.
To allow approval from a single user in the group, you’ll have to make two changes to the workflow.
First, go to the workflow again, disable it and select the line with the condition Pending Approvals:0
(the second line), click on the … and select Delete Event Conditions.
Delete Event Conditions
Then delete the third line (second with an approval request is approved) and the workflow should
look like this:
Workflow is now ready for approval by any user in group

Intercompany Posting
In some cases, one company is not enough, and after the creation of multiple companies comes the
question about inter-company posting.
Intercompany options in Business Central
Business Central supports intercompany posting. A common chart of accounts and dimension must
be agreed upon before starting out. The parent company can have a more complicated chart of
accounts and the child companies only a subset, but not the other way around. Each company maps
its full chart of accounts to the shared intercompany chart of accounts, and each company maps its
dimensions to the intercompany dimensions.
The intercompany chart of accounts
Notice the Map-to G/L Account No. field, this the mapping to the local chart of accounts in
the current company. Otherwise, the intercompany account is not a full account setup, only the
information on what account it is.
An intercompany account
To send a transaction (such as a sales journal line) from one company and have the corresponding
transaction (such as a purchase journal line) automatically created in the partner company.
You must also set up an intercompany partner code for each partner company, which is agreed upon
by all of the companies, and then assign them to customer and vendor cards respectively by filling
in the Intercompany Partner Code field.
Intercompany partner code needs to be filled out in three places:
Place Purpose
Company Information Fill out Intercompany Partner Code, Intercompany Inbox Type. and Intercompany
Inbox Details fields to define this company’s role in the intercompany structure
Customer Fill out the Intercompany Partner Code field on a customer to designate that
customer to be an intercompany sales destination
Vendor Fill out the Intercompany Partner Code field on a vendor to designate that vendor
to be an intercompany purchase destination
If you create or receive intercompany lines with items, you can either use your own item numbers,
or you can set up your partner’s item numbers for each relevant item, either in the Vendor Item No.
field or in the Common Item No. field on the item card. You can also use the Item Cross Reference
function: To map your items’ numbers to your intercompany partner’s descriptions of the items,
open the card of each item, and then choose the Cross References action to set up cross-references
between your item descriptions and those of the intercompany partner.
ProTip
Read more here: https://docs.microsoft.com/dynamics365/business-central/intercompany-
how-setup
Customers and Vendors

When the very first version of Business Central was programmed, at the time called IBM-Navigator,
the programmers first created the accounts receivable module with customer, orders, invoices and
everything. When it came to accounts payable, they duplicated the AR module, renamed customers
to vendors, renamed Quote to Requisition, reversed the sign of posting and added the Vendor
Invoice No., created payment suggestion and a few more things.
30 years later, in Business Central, it’s still pronounced that these two modules are very alike. The
base structure is the same and users of one module will be able to operate the other module without
any issues.
Customer Card
The base structure of Master Data, Journals and Posted Data is also preserved in these modules.
Journals are supplied with Documents, but internally, an invoice is actually posted through the Item
Journal and the General Journal.
Sales and Purchase Documents

The AR and AP documents follow the same triangular structure as the rest of Business Central, you
got master data, journals and posted data. However, here the naming is changed a bit compared to
other modules where the word journal is covering all the draft data.
When the first version of Navision was created, the purchase module was a carbon copy of the
sales module, with two exceptions. The sign for all posting was reversed, and the external document
number field was required (For vendor’s invoice number).
Over the years both modules have of course diverted to support the different workflows of AR and
AP, but the underlying similarities in the base structure have been preserved.
There are five types of AR and AP documents:
Document Purpose
Quote A real draft document, this document cannot be posted, does not affect inventory
Order An order is a working document, and you can do partial deliveries (or partial receipts)
Invoice A draft Invoice
Credit Memo A draft Credit Memo
Blanket Order A blanket order represents a framework for a long-term agreement between you and
your customer or vendor
Posting these documents will create different posted documents:
Document Purpose
Posted Sales Invoice The result of posting either a Sales Invoice or a Sales Order
Posted Sales Credit Memo The result of posting a Sales Credit Memo
Sales Shipment Shipment is created from a Sales Order
Posted Purchase Invoice The result of posting either a Purchase Invoice or a Purchase Order
Posted Purchase Credit Memo The result of posting a Sales Credit Memo
Purchase Receipts Receipt for received lines on a purchase order
One common misunderstanding about documents is the word Invoice. In Business Central, an
Invoice is a draft document, that becomes a Posted Invoice when posting. The Posted Invoice is
the document you send to customers, the draft is just a draft and cannot be used as an official
document.
ProTip
In some cases you might need a Pro Forma Invoice. Something that looks like an invoice,
but is not posted yet. Business Central can do that. Select Pro Forma Invoice… from the
Posting action on a Sales Invoice.
Document Order
The normal flow on the sales starts with a Quote. The Quote can be converted into a Sales Order.
Posting from the Sales Order will generate a Posted Sales Invoice and Sales Shipment.
A Credit Memo can either be created directly or from a posted document.
Sales Orders are working documents

A sales order is a living document. When the order is ready for shipment and invoicing you must
first Release it. Then there are four columns on the sales lines that control shipments and invoicing:
Shipped and invoiced quantities on a sales order
The Qty. to Ship and Qty. to Invoice controls how much will be shipped and invoiced the next time
posting is invoked. The Quantity Shipped and Quantity Invoiced shows the result of previous
postings. You cannot invoice a larger quantity than shipped. A line is considered complete when
Quantity Shipped and Quantity Invoiced matches the Quantity field. If you need to change the
Quantity field, you must first reopen the sales order.
Release and Reopen documents

To avoid one user editing a sales order and another user shipping from it, Business Central has a
feature called Release.
Release a sales order
When you release a sales order, it gets recalculated and becomes semi-locked. When released, you
can still ship and invoice from it, but you cannot change the sales order.
If you reopen the document, you can update the Quantity field, but of course not reduce Quantity
lower than what’s already been shipped.
Report Selection
Business Central comes with several different reports. However, quite often, the supplied reports do
not have the correct layout matching a required corporate identity.
With Report Selection, you can specify what report to use when the system wants to print a specific
document.
The different report selection areas
Within a module, you can select a report for all the different documents.
The different reports in sales
Internally, Business Central uses numbers to identify different reports. A number below 50,000 is a
report supplied by Microsoft. Number between 50,000 and 99,999 are custom reports created by a
partner or by the customer. Numbers from 100,000 are reports from 3rd party ISV solutions.
A custom report is selected for invoice printing
Report Layout Selection

A report is built from two components. A dataset generator and a visual layout. Business Central
offers an easy way to customize report layouts. See the chapter on reports layouts. When you have
a new layout, you can specify that a report should use that. Go to Report Layout Selection.
In Report Layout Selection you specify what layout a report should use in a specific Company.
There are three choices:
Report Layout Choices
RDLC is a classic layout, based on SQL Server reporting service. RDLC is great for creating
conditional sections and programmatic features in the layout. But it’s quite hard to edit unless that’s
your full-time occupation. Word is simply using Microsoft Word with XML Parts for the layout and
is very easy to edit and maintain for non-programmers.
If you select Custom Layout you can select between all the layouts attached to the current report:
Custom Layouts on Sales Invoice
Select a layout, and that is now active when printing invoices in the specified company. If you have
more than one company, this is a straightforward method to get the correct logos on invoices.
Pr. Customer/Vendor
In some cases, a global layout for a company is not enough. In that case, you can specify an override
layout for a customer or vendor.
Document layout on a customer
Go to Document Layout on a Customer to specify how a specific document should be printed, only
on this customer. You can also specify a layout for use for the email body when sending the document
as email.
Document Archive
The consequence of having Sales Orders, but also Quotes, as a living document, is that it can be
hard to follow what has happened to a document. To solve that, we have the document archive. The
archive holds copies of how a document looked at a specific time. There is no limit to how many
archives a document can have.
There are three ways you can get an archive copy of a document:
Action How
Manually Use Archive Document action on a document to manually create an archived copy
Posting An archived copy is automatically created when you post on a document
Printing Several reports have an option to create an archive during printing
A sales document has an option for archiving while printing
When printing, check the Archive Document to create an archive during printing. Archives are not
created if you preview a report.
Click on the No. of Archives number to go to the list of archives on a document:
No. of Archives counter
Archives on a sales order
Archiving documents provides an excellent lifecycle overview. This will provide many benefits for
users. Archives can be used for creating sales performance KPIs, they both provide a timeline of
effort spend on a quote, and also information on time spent on quotes that never resulted in a sale.
Inventory
In the inventory module, an Item is the centrepiece, sometimes also known as an SKU. Everything
starts and stops with items. The interesting thing about the Business Central inventory is that it’s
built just like the G/L.
Inventory
Under every Item there are Item Ledger Entries, just like a G/L account has G/L Ledger entries and
a customer has Customer Ledger Entries.
The item card is master data and does not contain any transactional information if we look at fields
containing information on quantities, they are all calculated from the Item Ledger Entries.
Calculated fields on items

Clicking on any of these fields will take you to the underlying Item Ledger Entries making up the
total.
Setting a Total Filter on Posting Date will change the totals:
Calculated fields on items with total filter
Inventory Type
There are three different types of items:
Inventory type on items
Type Usage
Inventory A physical item with costing and stock levels, with full business support.
Service A labour time unit, such as a consultancy hour, for limited business support.
Non-Inventory A physical unit, such as a bolt, for limited business support, for example, because the
item is only used internally and has a low cost.
The different types of results in different behaviour throughout Business Central:
Item Sales Purch. Job Con- Service Assemb. Prod. Assembly Prod.
Type sumption Con- Con- Con- Output Output
sumption sumption sumption
Inventory Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Item Sales Purch. Job Con- Service Assemb. Prod. Assembly Prod.
Type sumption Con- Con- Con- Output Output
sumption sumption sumption
Non- Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No
Inventory
Service Yes Yes Yes No No No No No
Item Location Physical Invent. Invent. Item Reser- Ware- Planning

Type Transfer Count- Revalu- Costing Track- vation house
ing ation ing
Inventory Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Non- No No No No No No No No
Inventory
Service No No No No No No No No
You cannot change the inventory type after you have started using the item.
Item Posting
Just like all the other master data entries, Items require a posting setup to work with the rest of
Business Central.
Posting information on an item
The Costing Method is perhaps the most important field to get right when setting up an item.
Costing method setting on an item
Costing method Description When to use

FIFO An item’s unit cost is the actual value of In business environments where product
any receipt of the item, selected by the cost is stable. (When prices are rising, the
FIFO rule. In inventory valuation, it is balance sheet shows greater value. This
assumed that the first items placed in means that tax liabilities increase, but
inventory are sold first. credit scores and the ability to borrow
cash improve.) For items with a limited
shelf life, because the oldest goods need to
be sold before they pass their sell-by date.
LIFO An item’s unit cost is the actual value of Disallowed in many countries/regions, as
any receipt of the item, selected by the it can be used to depress profit. (When
LIFO rule. In inventory valuation, it is prices are rising, the value on the income
assumed that the last items placed in statement decreases. This means that tax
inventory are sold first. liabilities decrease, but the ability to
borrow cash deteriorates.)
Average An item’s unit cost is calculated as the In business environments where product
average unit cost at each point in time cost is unstable. When inventories are
after a purchase. For inventory valuation, piled or mixed together and cannot be
it is assumed that all inventories are sold differentiated, such as chemicals.
simultaneously.
Specific An item’s unit cost is the exact cost at In production or trade of easily
which the particular unit was received. identifiable items with relatively high
unit costs. For items that are subject to
regulation. For items with serial numbers.
Standard An item’s unit cost is pre-set based on Where cost control is critical. In repetitive
estimated. When the actual cost is realized manufacturing, to value the costs of direct
later, the standard cost must be adjusted material, direct labour, and
to the actual cost through variance values. manufacturing overhead. Where there are
discipline and staff to maintain standards.
You can mix costing method from item to item, but you cannot change the costing method after
posting has begun.
ProTip
See more information here: https://docs.microsoft.com/dynamics365/business-central/
design-details-costing-methods
Item Journal
The base operations on items resemble the rest of Business Central. There is an Item Journal where
you can maintain the inventory manually.
Item Journals
The four base operations are Purchase, Sale, Positive Adjustment and Negative Adjustment.
These are typically triggered by posting documents like sales invoices or purchase orders. However,
sometimes, you need to make adjustments yourself.
Bills of Material
Often there is a parent-child structure of items, sometimes called BOMs or kits. In Business Central
it’s called a Bills of Materials. BOMs are also used for production, but in this book, I’ll only cover
assembly orders.
Bill of Material on Item
A BOM can be constructed with an assembly order.
Assembly order for 10 whiteboards
You can add Resource lines for recording assembly costs or add more lines if additional items are
used for the assembly.
Assembly Order
The Assembly Order will consume all the components of the Assembly BOM. However, what if you
need to record extraordinary consumption or perhaps add some usage, you can manually add lines.
A resource line is added to an assembly order
In this example, resource LINDA is spending 15 minutes per whiteboard, adding to the cost of the
produces whiteboards.
This is not the Manufacturing module of Business Central. In many cases, the assembly order
module is more than sufficient, and it will avoid the complexity of the manufacturing module.
Categorise Items
In cases with many items making it hard to overview your inventory, Business Central offers an
Item Category.
Item Categories
To assign an Item to a Category, select the Category in the Item Category Code field.
Select Item Category on an item
Item attributes can also be feed from the category. They are making it easier to maintain attributes.
ProTip
See more about categorizing items at: https://docs.microsoft.com/dynamics365/business-
central/inventory-how-categorize-items
Items Attributes
You can assign attributes to an item. Attributes are a great way to describe your items and to make
sure that you select the right item.
Item Attributes
You define your attributes, and you can define the data type of the attribute.
Edit Item Attribute
If the type is Option you can define a comma-separated list of valid options.
Item Attributes on an Item
An Item can have all the attributes you want, but only one value for each attribute.
Computer Vision for assigning attributes
Computer Vision for Item Attributes
You can use computer AI to derive attributes from the item image. This uses Azure Computer Vision
behind the scene, read more here https://azure.microsoft.com/en-ca/services/cognitive-services/
computer-vision/
Reserve Items
You can reserve an item for a sales order. To avoid promising the same item to two customers, you
can reserve an item on a sales order. This will prevent selling the same item on other orders.
Item reservation on a sales order
You can also reserve items for production orders.
Item Tracking
Some items are numbered individually, either with a serial number, a lot number or perhaps a batch
number. And it’s essential to manage what specific item goes where.
There are two fields, Serial Number and Lot Number. The difference is that a Serial No. is attached
to a unique item (Quantity = 1) and Lot No. can be used with Quantity later than 1. Lot numbers are
often used in food production or in the medical industry where it’s crucial to identify the production
run from which a specific item comes.
Select the Tracking method on an item:
Item card Item Tracking setting
You can define your own item tracking methods, and specify what operations requires tracking
information, both for Serial Number and Lot numbers.
Item Tracking Method
This starts with opening Item Tracking on a purchase order.
Item tracking on Purchase documents
You can either enter a new number, get the system to assign a number from a number series or type
in the numbers supplied from a vendor.
ProTip
Read more about item tracking here: https://docs.microsoft.com/dynamics365/business-
central/inventory-how-work-item-tracking
Locations
Locations are used for keeping track of inventory when you have multiple warehouses or other
places where your inventory might be located.
The Location Card
Business Central runs fine without using locations, but even if you only have a single location, you
might still want to create that single location to enable functionality that’s only available when
using the location module.
Warehouse setup on locations

Daily Operation
For many users, Business Central will become their primary tool. It will be the application they
spend most of their work hours inside. Getting to know the application, keyboard shortcuts, search
names, filters, and how to personalize the system is vital for getting to an optimal work experience.
The danger of an application running inside a web browser is to treat the application like any other
website. A new trend is emerging, called PWA, Progressive Web Apps. A PWA is an application
created using web technologies and powered by a web browser. You can get Business Central as a
PWA in the Microsoft Store on Windows 10.
The Business Central App in Microsoft Store
Read the chapter on keyboard shortcuts to improve your efficiency in Business Central, by using
fewer moues and more keyboard.
Remember to use Alt-Q for searching and Alt-T for settings. Start to memorize the often used search
terms to navigate to the right spot in the application quickly. Use ESC to close windows.
Avoid clicking on the Reload/Refresh icon in the browser. Doing that will reload the application, a
process that takes several seconds. Instead, press F5, this will refresh the data in the current window
without the reload, taking just a few milliseconds.
Daily Operation 194
Take advantage of all personalization possibilities. Make sure the fields you need to see on the screen
and hide the fields you’re not using.
Remember to be smart about filters; don’t spend time scrolling and search for data. Combine filters
to find the data you need, fast.
This chapter is not meant to cover all daily operations inside Business Central, consider it a teaser
to guide you in the right direction for how to approach different tasks.
Daily Operation 195
Master Data Maintenance

Business Central has high segregation of data in the database. Master Data, like customers, vendors
and items can be maintained separately from transactional data, and historical data are also isolated.
ProTip
In the following, we will use customers as an example, but the behaviour is the same for
Vendor, Items, Jobs, Resources, Chart Of Accounts.
The Customer Card only holds static information about the customer. Name, Address, codes and
other static information:
A typical Customer Card
The fact boxes shown on the right, are not part of the actual customer card, it’s information gathered
from transactional and historical data. The same goes for fields like Total Sales, even though the
field is located on the Customer Card, the actual information is stored with the posted transactions.
Daily Operation 196
Behind every master data type, Business Central has a Ledger Entry table. Every time something
gets posted, it gets posted to the Ledger Entry table, not to the Customer Card.
Maintain Master Data

Usually, you can open Customers, Vendors, Item etc. all from the search bar (Alt-Q) in a List or tile
form. But you also get access from any lookup control in the system.
Lookup control with Select from full list
If you click Select from full list, Business Central will open the full list. From the full list, you can
do all the operations you can do if you open the list directly.
ProTip Navigate the system through lookups and drop-

downs
One of Dynamics NAVs trademark features have always been the way the user interface
allows a user to navigate using lookups and dropdowns. If your data is connected, you can
typically get to the data either via Lookups or via dropdowns (like clicking on sums)
Create a New Customer from an Invoice

If you type an unknown customer in the customer name field on a document:
Daily Operation 197
Enter a new customer on a document
Hit enter and Business Central will ask:
Create new customer from a document
Press OK and select a customer template and fill out the rest of the customer card:
New customer card
Merge Customers/Vendors/Contacts
Errors happen, and sometimes the same customer (or Vendor or Contact) get created twice, and
posting happens on both. Use the Merge With function to create a single customer with the
combined information, even merging posted data from two accounts into one.
Daily Operation 198
Merge With
Daily Operation 199
Journals, Journals and more Journals

Every time something gets posted in Business Central, the process goes through a Journal. Entries
and Posted Documents can only be created if you go through a journal. Even processes like posting
an invoice, will behind the scene create temporary journals and then use regular journal posting.
There are quite a few journals in Business Central.
Journal Purpose Result

General Journal All posting to the G/L, AR, AP G/L Ledger Entries, Customer Entries and Vendor
Entries
Item Journal All posting to the inventory Item Ledger Entries
Job Journal Posting on a job Job Ledger Entries
Resource Journal Posting on a resource Resource Ledger Entries
Fixed Asset Journal FA posting FA Ledger Entries
Posting in a non-G/L Journal can result in G/L entries also being posted depending on the integration
settings.
But there are even more journals, like the Payment Journal and Cash Receipt Journal. These
journals are all versions of the General Journal. The only difference is what fields are shown and
what actions are available from the menu. Anything done in those journals can also be done in the
General Journal.
Balance Accounts
When you enter lines into a journal, you have two options. You can enter two lines, one for the debit
account and one for the credit account. Or you can create the credit posting by entering a balance
account on the same line.
Daily Operation 200
Two General lines posting vs. Balance accounts
In this example, the last line results in the exact same G/L Ledger Entries as the first two lines.
ProTip
Use the General Journal for cross journal posting. This is especially important in case of
complicated posting. No reason to spilt posting into multiple journals and document, just
because you’re mixing G/L, AR, AP or FA. An example of this: If you have a Vendor and a
Customer that are the same entity. Sometimes you might need to create a sales credit memo,
but the Vendor already has an open purchase invoice. In that case, you can use the General
Journal to create a transaction that will close out the purchase invoice with the balance from
the sales credit memo.
Journal Batches
You can have more than one journal of each type. Those are called Batches.
Daily Operation 201
General Journal Batches
You can create as many as you wish. Typically, batches are created for different users and different
tasks. It’s possible to assign different Number Series to different batches, making it easier to use the
correct document numbers.
Recurring Journals
A recurring Journal is a journal that does not get deleted after posting, and with a frequency to roll
posting dates forward to the next period.
Recurring General Journal
A recurring journal is a general journal with specific fields for managing transactions that you
frequently post with few or no changes, such as rent, subscriptions, electricity, and heat. Using these
Daily Operation 202
fields for recurring transactions, you can post both fixed and variable amounts. You can also specify
automatic reversal entries for the day after the posting date. You can also use allocation keys to
divide the recurring entries among various accounts.
With a recurring journal, entries that will be posted regularly need only to be typed once. That is,
the accounts, dimensions and dimension values you enter, will remain in the journal after posting.
If any adjustments are necessary, you can make them with each posting.
Recurring Method field
This field determines how the amount on the journal line is processed after posting. For example, if
you will use the same amount every time you post the line, you can let the amount remain. If you
will use the same accounts and text on the line, but the amount will vary every time you post, you
can choose to delete the amount after posting.
Method Result
Fixed The amount on the journal line will remain after posting.
Variable The amount on the journal line will be reset after posting.
Balance The posted amount on the account on the line will be allocated among the accounts
specified for the line in the General Journal Allocation table. The balance on the
account will thus be set to zero. Remember to fill in the Allocation % field on the
Allocations page.
Reversing Fixed The amount on the journal line will remain after posting, and a balancing entry will
be posted on the next day.
Reversing Variable The amount on the journal line will be deleted after posting, and a balancing entry
will be posted on the next day.
Reversing Balance The posted amount on the account on the line will be allocated among the accounts
specified for the line on the Allocations page. The balance on the account will be set
to zero, and a balancing entry is posted on the next day.
Recurring Frequency field
This field determines how often the entry on the journal line will be posted. It is a date formula
field, and it must have a value on a recurring journal line.
Journals and Excel

You can edit Journals in Excel. That is a great way to handle long and complicated journals. Quite
often those journals come from an Excel sheet anyway, making it even easier to get those numbers
into Business Central.
Daily Operation 203
Opening General Journal in Excel
It is essential to click Enable Editing in Excel. This will open the Microsoft Dynamics Pane:
Excel with the Microsoft Dynamics pane
Click Sign In and sign in with the same credentials as you use for signing into Business Central.
If you have multiple accounts, it’s vital to select the right one, since this is the connection to your
Business Central instance. (Partners, be aware: Admin users cannot access customer tenants with
the Excel Add-in)
Daily Operation 204
After you have signed in, your journal lines with be retrieved and shown in the spreadsheet.
General Journal opened in Excel
The first thing to understand is that it’s a specific area of the spreadsheet that’s connected to
Dynamics. If you want to add more lines, you must use the + New function in the Dynamics Pane.
To activate that, you must first place the cursor in an existing cell of the Journal.
+ New is activated in Excel
Now you can add new lines to the Journal. Remember to fill out all cells. Often it’s a great idea to
copy the cells from an existing line.
Daily Operation 205
Journal Line added in Excel
When finished you can hit Publish to repopulate the General Journal in Business Central.
If something goes wrong, the line will be marked red, and you’re prompt to take a look at the message
center:
Excel publish failed
In this case, we forgot to fill out all columns, and even the three most important column, the Template
Name, Journal Batch and Line No.
Daily Operation 206
Excel Publish Error
Fill those fields out, remembering to increment the Line No. field, increments of 10000 is customary
in Business Central.
Now Publish work and the line we added in Excel is added to the Journal in Business Central.
Journal updated from Excel

Daily Operation 207
Payments to Vendors
The process of paying vendors takes place in a payment journal. You can have many payment
journals, called batches.
Payment Journal Batches
Create batches based on the different payment runs you have. It generally a good idea to keep
different payment method in separate batches.
You can manually type the payments in the journal, or you can use the Suggest Vendor Payments…
process.
Suggest Vendor Payments menu
Suggest Vendor Payments is a process with many options. Thankfully, the options are labelled
quite well.
Daily Operation 208
Suggest Vendor Payments
The last three options are the most critical. They define how you’re paying the vendor:
Suggest Vendor Payments - Balance account
The balance account setting defines how to pay the vendors. First, you define the account to pay
from, either a bank account or a G/L account. Then you define how to pay, you have the following
options:
Daily Operation 209
Payment Type Description

Computer Check Select this option if you want to print a check for the amount on the payment
journal line. You must print the checks before you can post the journal lines.
Manual Check Select this option if you have created a check manually and want to create a
corresponding check ledger entry for this amount. By using this option, you
cannot print the check.
Electronic Payment Select this if you want to generate an EFT file for your bank system.
Electronic Payment-IAT For generating an EFT file for you bank system as International ACH
Transactions.
Other than that, decide how you want to separate payments in different payment runs. Decide if
you wish to have mixed currencies in the same journal, perhaps separating journals based on users.
ProTip
If you have a specific invoice that you would like to exclude from payment suggestions,
you can use the On Hold field on Vendor Ledger Entries. Enter your initials, a reason
or anything. If the field has a value, that document will be excluded from the payment
suggestion.
Payment Journal after running Suggest Payments
If you’re paying with checks, be aware that there is no “preview” of the actual check report. Instead,
there is a Preview Check function to view the information on the check.
Daily Operation 210
Check preview
When you’re done with printing checks or exporting bank files, you must post the payment journal.
Prepayments
In some cases, a vendor will require a pre-payment on a purchase order. Business Central
supports this. Here is a great explanation on how to set that up: https://newviewstrategies.
com/2018/10/17/prepayments-for-accounts-payable-in-microsoft-dynamics-nav-part-i/
https://newviewstrategies.com/2018/10/24/prepayments-for-accounts-payable-in-
microsoft-dynamics-nav-part-ii/
https://newviewstrategies.com/2018/10/31/prepayments-for-accounts-payable-in-
microsoft-dynamics-nav-part-iii/
Daily Operation 211
Keeping track of your business

Business Central has several overview pages to help to keep track of your business. All of the list
pages support filtering, where clever users can create their own “reports” easily.
One example is if you have oversight of the sales operation, you use the Customer Order Status
page to check on the status of sales orders.
Customer Order Status
Reports to help with getting an overview

There are several reports designed to give an overview of a specific process.
Daily Operation 212
Report Purpose
Sales Order Status Sales orders with details on ordered and back-ordered items
Availability Status Item availability, combined information from sales, purchase and
production
Drop Shipment Status Information on shipments directly from vendors to customers
Purchase Order Status List of outstanding items on purchase orders
Warehouse Shipment Status Status of sales orders awaiting warehouse shipment
Serial Number Status/Aging Serial number in inventory and their age
Outstanding Sales Order Status Outstanding Sales order status with backorder information
Outstanding Purch.Order Status Outstand Purchase order status with backorder information
PowerBI Reports
Also, explore the different ways you can create dashboards in PowerBI. Many of these reports are
simple filters on the Sales Header and Purchase Header tables, and it’s easy to visualize that in
PowerBI.
Daily Operation 213
Inventory Cost Adjustment

An item can be sold before it has been purchased. The result of the out of order operation will be that
the recorded inventory value of the sale does not match the actual purchase cost. Cost adjustment
updates the cost of goods sold (COGS) for historic sales entries to ensure that they match the costs
of the inbound transactions to which they are applied.
ProTip
Background information on item application: https://docs.microsoft.com/dynamics365/
business-central/design-details-item-application
The following are secondary purposes, or functions, of cost adjustment:
• Invoice finished production orders.

• Change the status of value entries from Expected to Actual.
• Clear WIP accounts.
• Post variance.
• Update the unit cost on the item card.
Inventory costs must be adjusted before the related value entries can be reconciled with the general
ledger.
You can set up the costing to be performed automatically by adding Report 795 to the Job Queue.
ProTip
Background information on inventory costing: https://docs.microsoft.com/dynamics365/
business-central/inventory-how-adjust-item-costs
Daily Operation 214
Updating Exchange Rates

When you’re working with documents in different currencies, Business Central calculates the local
currency amount based on the posting date of the transaction. If you’re posting a payment that is
being applied to an invoice, a currency gain/loss will be calculated and posted.
For this to work, currency exchange rates have to be updated. Only updating exchange rates
periodically will increase end-of-month bank reconciliation.
If you haven’t set up the automated exchange rate import, then you need to update exchange rates
in the system regularly. Go to the currency list and click on the exchange rate for each currency.
The Currency List
Click + New to add a new exchange rate line for a new date.
Exchange rates for Australian Dollars
But, this is not necessary, the automated exchange service works quite well, see the chapter on how
to configure that. By setting this just once, it will update every day automatically.
Daily Operation 215
Use the Job Queue to automate operations

The Job Queue is a way to automate operations and schedule mundane tasks.
Job queues in Business Central enable users to schedule and run specific reports and codeunits.
You can set jobs to run one time, or on a recurring basis. For example, you might want to run the
Salesperson - Sales Statistics report weekly, to track sales by salesperson each week. Or you might
want to run the Process Service E-mail Queue codeunit daily, to make sure pending email messages
to customers regarding their service orders are sent out on time.
Job Queue Settings
The Job Queue Entries page lists all existing jobs. You can add a new job queue entry that you
Daily Operation 216
want to schedule. You must specify information about the type of object you want to run, such as
a report or codeunit, and the name and object ID of the object that you want to run. You can also
add parameters to specify the behaviour of the job queue entry. For example, you can add a setting
only to send posted sales orders. You must have permission to run the particular report or codeunit,
or an error will be returned after the job queue finished.
A job queue can have many entries, which are the jobs that the queue manages and runs. Information
in the Job Queue Entry specifies what codeunit or report to run, when and how often the entry is
scheduled, in what category the job runs, and how it runs.
To set up background posting with job queues

Job queues are an effective tool to schedule background running of business processes. An example
could be when multiple users are trying to post sales orders, but only one order can be processed at
a time. Alternatively, you may want to schedule postings for hours when it is convenient for your
organization. For example, it may make sense in your business to run certain routines when most
of the data entry for the day has concluded.
You can configure this by setting the job queue up to run various batch-posting reports:
Report Description
Batch Post Sales Orders Post released sales orders
Batch Post Sales Invoices Post released sales invoices
Batch Post Sales Return Orders Post released sales return orders
Batch Post Sales Credit Memos Post released sales credit memos
The following codeunits are Job Queue compatible:
No. Codeunit Description

88 Sales Post via Job Queue Background sales posting
98 Purchase Post via Job Queue Background purchase posting
137 OCR Inc. Doc. via Job Queue OCR Incoming Documents via Job Queue
260 Document-Mailing Send email in background
880 OCR - Send to Service OCR - Send to Service
882 OCR - Sync Master Data OCR - Sync Master Data
1281 Update Currency Exchange Rates Connects and retrieve exchange rates from provider
1328 Top Customers By Sales Job Update Top Customers By Sales
1415 Automatic Import of Bank Stmt.. Automatic Import of Bank Statements
1441 Headline RC Order Processor Update the data shown in the headline news on Role Centers
1509 Notification Entry Dispatcher Notification Entry Dispatcher
1511 Delegate Approval Requests Delegate Approval Requests
1512 Workflow Create Payment Line Workflow Create Payment Line
2103 O365 Sales Cancel Invoice O365 Sales Cancel Invoice
2161 Calendar Event Execution Calendar Event Execution
5065 Email Logging Dispatcher Email Logging Dispatcher
5339 Integration Synch. Job Runner Integration Synch. Job Runner
Daily Operation 217
No. Codeunit Description

5349 Auto Create Sales Orders Auto Create Sales Orders
5350 CRM Statistics Job CRM Statistics Job
5351 CRM Customer-Contact Link CRM Customer-Contact Link
5352 CRM Order Status Update Job CRM Order Status Update Job
5354 Auto Process Sales Quotes Auto Process Sales Quotes
5355 CRM Notes Synch Job CRM Notes Synch Job
5917 Process Service Email Queue Process Service Email Queue
5918 ServOrder-Check Response Time Service Orders, check response time
6700 O365 Sync. Management O365 Sync. Management
8626 Config. Import Table in Backgr. Configuration Import Table in Background
The following reports are not printing reports, but batch jobs that can also be used with the Job
Queue:
No. Report Description
296 Batch Post Sales Orders Posting of released sales orders
795 Adjust Cost - Item Entries Adjust the cost of items sold before purchased
ProTip
See more examples of Job Queue usage here: https://docs.microsoft.com/dynamics365/
business-central/admin-job-queues-schedule-tasks
Other examples of creative Job Queue Usage

Here are some examples of how creative people gets with the Job Queue. Many of these examples
are based on custom reports.
• Verify sales and shipping documents for common errors

• Periodic internal reporting: Every Monday email balance sheet to the board of directions
• Customer statements: Every week send out customer statements on Email.
• Periodic emails vendors about backorders
• Data exchange, send/receive data to/from other systems, kind of a cheap homegrown EDI
system.
• Create reminders for outstanding purchase orders
• Create reminders for backorders without a purchase line
Daily Operation 218
Schedule Reports
You can schedule a report to run at a specific date and time. Scheduled reports are entered in the job
queue and processed at the scheduled time, similar to other jobs. You can choose to save the printed
report to a file, such as an Excel, Word, or PDF, print it to a selected printer, or process the report
only. If you choose to save the report to a file, then the printed report is sent to the Report Inbox
area on your Role Center, where you can view it.
You can schedule a report when you open a report. You choose the Schedule action under the Send
To button:
Choose Schedule in Send To
Then you enter information such as printer selection, and scheduled time and date.
Specify parameters for scheduling reports
The report is then added to the job queue and will be run at the specified time. When the report is
processed, the item will be removed from the job queue. If you saved the printed report to a file, it
would be available in the Report Inbox area.
Daily Operation 219
Deferral Posting
To recognize revenue or an expense in a period different from the posting date, you can use the
deferral functionality to defer revenues and expenses over a specified schedule automatically.
To distribute revenues or expenses on the involved accounting periods, you can set up a deferral
template for the resource, item, or G/L account. When you post the related sales or purchase
documents, Business Central will defer the revenue or expense to the involved accounting periods.
The template defines the calculation method and how to set the schedule dates, relative to the posting
date of the document.
Deferral Template
First, you must create one or more balance statement accounts for deferral posting. Then go to
Deferral Templates and create a new template:
Deferral Template
In the Period Desc. field, you can specify a description that will be shown on entries for the deferral
posting. You can enter the following placeholder codes for typical values, which will be inserted
automatically when the period description is displayed.
Daily Operation 220
Code Result
%1 The day number of the period posting date
%2 The week number of the period posting date
%3 The month number of the period posting date
%4 The month name of the period posting date
%5 The accounting period name of the period posting date
%6 The fiscal year of the period posting date
Example: The posting date is 02/06/2016. If you enter Expenses deferred for %4 %6, then the
description displayed will be Expenses deferred for February 2016.
You don’t need multiple deferral template to cover different periods. You can modify the schedule
and number of periods in the journals and on the documents.
Using a deferral Template

There are two ways to invoke deferral posting. Either you specify the template on master data (Like
G/L account or Items), or you specify the template on the transaction.
As the default, the deferral code (not called template) field is not visible on sales lines. So you need
to make it visible using the personalization tool.
Deferral Code on a Sales Invoice Line
After you have added the deferral code, go to Deferral Schedule from the line menu to view and
edit the schedule.
Daily Operation 221
Deferral Schedule on a Sales Line
From here you can change everything on the template.
Calculate Deferral Schedule on Sales Line
When you changed what’s needed, click the Calculate Schedule button to create a new schedule
matching your input.
Daily Operation 222
ProTip
When using Navigate on a posted document with deferral posting, the results are based
on the posting date. To see all the deferral posting, remove the date filter to show all G/L
postings across posting dates.
Daily Operation 223
Handling expenses and reimbursements

A very typical operation is to handle expenses and to reimburse employees. This can be performed
by creating employees as vendors or better, use the employee table.
Employee Card
The employee table is part of the HR module. But to be able to pay employees, you must fill out the
Payments section at the bottom of the employee card.
Payments section on the employee card
The Employee Posting Group defines the payables account to use. The bank fields define the
Daily Operation 224
employee’s bank account if payment is made with an EFT.
ProTip
Employee transactions can be posted in the local currency only. Reimbursement payments
to employees do not support discounts and payment tolerances.
Chart of Accounts requirements

You need to have a balance sheet account for holding the payables amount. Just like the regular
payables account.
Employees Payable account in the chart of accounts
This account should be specified on the Employee Posting Group as the payables account. You can
have more than one if needed.
Posting employee expenses

Open up the General Journal and create an empty line. Select the expense account, enter the amount
and specify the employee as balance account.
Daily Operation 225
Posting a travel expense on an employee
After posting, we can go to the Employee Ledger Entries and see the open entry with the travel
expenses.
Reimbursing the employee

Next step is reimbursing the employee. You have two options. First, you can reimburse the expense
directly from the employee ledger entry. Select the Create Payment action.
Pay an employee directly from the employee ledger entries
You specify the payment form:

Daily Operation 226
Create Employee Payment
THen the payment journal is created, ready for processing.
Payment journal is created with employee payment
The other method is to use the Suggestion Employee Payments action from the Payment Journal.
ProTip
Remember to hit Show More to get the important Balance Account fields shown.
Daily Operation 227
Suggest employee payments
The result is a journal with all the employee payments, just as if we did a Vendor payment journal.
Daily Operation 228
What about backups?

One of the significant advantages of running in the cloud is that many of the traditional operational
tasks are handled automatically.
That includes backups. Microsoft is continuously making backups of your data, and they can restore
your environment from almost any point in time within the last 14 days.
ProTip
It’s a support request to have Microsoft restore the database.
If you want a copy of your database, either for offline work or perhaps because your company policy
requires it, you can set up a database export.
Database Export
In the Admin Center, you can set up a database export. The export is not a download, but an export
of the database to an Azure storage account. An Azure storage account is a cloud storage system
that can hold a lot of different data. An Azure storage account can also store SQL backups.
When Business Central exports a database, it’s done in the BACPAC file format. A BACPAC can
be restored with newer versions of SQL Server Management Studio, also known as SSMS, into a
Microsoft SQL Server (2012 or later).
ProTip
You can use the Azure Storage Explorer to manage your storage accounts https://azure.
microsoft.com/features/storage-explorer/
Select Create Database Export under Database to set up an export:
Amin Center, create database export menu option

Daily Operation 229
The export uses a SAS URI as the destination for the backup. SAS means Shared Access Signature.
SASs are created in the Azure Portal (https://portal.azure.com) under Storage Accounts.
Generate an Azure Storage Account Shared Access Signature
Allowed services should be Blob and resource types should be Containers and Object. You can
leave all permissions on or remove access to List and Add.
The last option is to define a period where access is allowed. Outside the specified time, the SAS will
not work.
Click the generate SAS and connection string button, then get the value from the Blob Service
SAS URL field:
You need the Blob service SAS URL
When the SAS is created, you must also create a container. A container is similar to a folder, and
this is where the backup will be placed.
Daily Operation 230
Create a storage container in Azure Portal
Give the backup a file name and paste the Blob Service SAS URL into the SAS URI field and specify
the container name.
Setting up the export
When the process has finished, the resulting .bacpac file is available for you in your Azure Storage
Account.
ProTip
Be aware that there’s a limitation on how many exports you can make, check your “export
balance” at the bottom of the Create Database Export dialogue.
Daily Operation 231
You can only do 10 exports pr. month

Periodic Operations
Some operation in an accounting system only happens once a year, some every month. This chapter
will showcase a few different examples of operations that are not part of the daily workflow.
The process of closing a fiscal year is an essential operation that most users never get experienced
with since it’s something you only do once a year.
Business Central has no operations that need to be activated on specific days. All activities have
a date or date range setting, where you can specify dates before running. This means that with
Business Central, there is no rush for the accountants to come to the office before everybody else
on the 1st, just to close the previous month.
Date setting on report
And same the same applies for reports. All reports have date settings where you specify dates or
date ranges for the report to run. You can also go back and rerun reports on close accounting years.
Periodic Operations 233
Financial Reporting with Account Schedules

Account schedules are a special kind of user-defined financial reports.
An Account Schedule is a two-dimensional report, where you define both the rows and the columns.
The columns are defined as Column Layouts that can be assigned to different reports.
ProTip
The concept is quite powerful, but can also be intimidating. Make sure to take one step at a
time and preview the result often.
Column Layouts
Business comes with a bunch of column layouts, that can be found in the CRONUS company, they
can either be recreated or even better, just copied over with a RapidStart Configuration Package to
your company.
Standard Column Layouts
Each layout has a series of columns:

Account Schedule Column Layout
The Column Type defines what kind of column can be created:
Column Types
Type Meaning
Formula Simple formulas based on the different columns, A+B*C/D style
Net Change The net change in the period
Balance at Date Balance at date
Beginning Balance Balance at the start of the reporting period
Year to Date Current Year until date
Rest of Fiscal Year Rest of Current Fiscal Year
Entire Fiscal Year Entire Fiscal Year

The Comparison Date Formula field can be used to shift the date range, use -1Y to get the value
from last year:
Two columns for showing this year compared with last
You can create quite complicated layouts, here is an example of comparing current posting with the
budget and also showing last years numbers:
Compare G/L posting with budget Column layout
Comparing Accounting Periods using Period Formulas
Here are some examples of period formulas. P, LP, CP and FY are abbreviations to target Period,
Last Period, Current Period, Fiscal Year.
Formula Description
<Blank Field> Current period
-1P Previous period
-1FY[1..LP] Entire previous fiscal year
-1FY Current period in previous fiscal year
-1FY[1..3] First quarter of previous fiscal year
-1FY[1..CP] From the beginning of previous fiscal year to current period in previous fiscal year,
inclusive
-1FY[CP..LP] From current period in previous fiscal year to last period of previous fiscal year, inclusive
Schedule Rows
Now that we we have tackled the column, it’s time to define the rows.
Account Schedule Rows
The field Totalling Type defines the source type for the row:
Totalling type on account schedules
Type Total Column

Posting Accounts Filter with normal accounts, or simply a single account number
Total Account Filter of Total Account in the Chart of Account
Formula Use the Row No. field to give rows names. These names can be used in
formulas
Underline Places a single underline, great for totals
Double Underline Places a double underline, great for grand totals
Set Base for percent A special variant of the Formula type. The result of this row will be the base
Cost Type Filter with normal Cost Types, or simply a single cost type number
Cost Type Total Filter with Total Cost Types
Cash Flow Entry Accounts Filter with Cash Flow Accounts
Cash Flow Total Account Filter with Cash Flow Total Accounts
You have the option of hiding lines from print. This is a great way, if you have internal calculations
and only wants to show the answer on the schedule.
Row Formula
Formulas work similar to Excel here. If you have named two rows A and B, yo can create a formula
row with the formula A+B. If you use numbers for your rows, your formulas will be strange to read.
The formula of 1+2+3 is equal 6, unless you have rows numbered 1,2 and 3. Then it’s the sum of
row number 1, 2 and 3.
Here are some examples of formulas:
Formula Description
A+B The sum of two rows
L1..L10 The sum of all the lines from L1 to L10
L1|L3|L5 The sum of L1 + L3 + L5
-P-S Negate P(purchase row) and substract S(Sales)
R10/R40 Division example from Cashflow Account Schedule
A^2 Raise Row A to the power of 2
A%30 30 Percent of Row A
A+(B*C) Evaluate B*C before adding A
To create a column that calculates percentages

Sometimes you may want to include a column in an account schedule to calculate percentages of
a total. For example, if you have a number of rows that break down sales by dimension, you may
want a column to indicate the percentage of total sales that each row represents.
1. Insert a line immediately above the first row for which you want to display a percentage.
2. Fill in the fields on the line as follows: In the Totaling Type field, enter Set Base for Percent.
In the Totaling field, enter a formula for the total that the percentage will be based on. For
example, if row 11 contains the total sales, enter 11.
3. Choose the Edit Column Layout Setup action to set up a column.
4. Fill in the fields on the line as follows: In the Column Type field, select Formula. In the
Formula field, enter a formula for the amount that you want to calculate a percentage for,
followed by %. For example, if column number N contains the net change, enter N%.
5. Repeat steps 1 through 4 for each group of rows that you want to break down by percentage.
Count Inventory
When it comes to counting the physical inventory Business Central offers two main methods of
doing it. You can also use the Item Journal, but I suggest using one of these two methods.
Counting should always be done at the highest dimension detail level (When talking inventory,
dimensions are Location/Serial Number and Bins). If you’re using locations, count per location, if
you’re using serial number or bin, count per serial numbers and bins.
When you’re done with the entire counting process, all the discrepancies will be posted to the
inventory as positive or negative adjustments.
Calculate Inventory counting list
With both methods, you can (and must) specify the items and the dimensions to prepare the counting
process.
Physical Inventory Journal

Using the physical inventory journal is the easy way of doing inventory. This is great for single user
counting and great for a quick count without much paperwork.
You can also print a count report, or you can operate the count page directly from a computer or a
tablet
When you’re done with the counting, post the journal, and the negative or positive adjustments are
posting to each item/location combination, just as if you had manually created positive or negative
adjustments in an item journal.

Physical Inventory Order
Add lines to count order
The Physical Inventory Order is a document based counting process. This is very suited for multi-
user operation, where multiple users are counting or with multiple locations where counting is
distributed across locations.
Physical Inventory Recording
Physical Inventory Recording
The actual counting is done in a Physical Inventory Recording. When you’re counting a large
inventory, you can split the count into multiple recordings, making it easier to overview the entire
process.
Inventory count report
When you’re done with a recording, click Finish to close it.
Finish Inventory Recording
After a recording is marked finished, the recording is added to the Physical Inventory Order.
Blue Location is updated on Phys. Order from Inventory Recording
You cannot finish a Physical Inventory Order until all lines are counted.
Reminders
Issuing reminders is an integral part of an AR department. Business Central has a robust reminder
module.
There are two difference reminders in Business Central, sometimes the root of confusion among
users. A Reminder is a draft document and an Issued Reminder is, as the name implies, a Reminder
that has been issued.
There are two main processes to reminders. First, you use the Create Reminders to generate
reminders based on open Customer Ledger Entries. Second, you Issue Reminders to finalize the
reminders.
Reminder Terms
To be able to remind customer, you must first assign a Reminder Term to each customer.
Reminder Terms, aka. Reminder Setup
Reminder terms define the reminder behaviour like grace period and fee calculation.
Reminder Levels
When you create a reminder term, Business Central automatically creates Reminder Level 1.
Reminder Levels are the staggered levels that get applied every time you create a new reminder for
the same document. So the first reminder will tag the invoice as reminded at level 1, if you create a
new reminder, including the same invoice, it will be tagged with level 2 (and the fee rate on level 2).
Reminder Levels Setup
If you create more reminders for an invoice than you have defined levels for, the conditions for the
highest level will be used. You can create as many reminders as are allowed by the Max. No of
Reminders field in the Reminder Terms.
For each level, you can add a beginning and an ending text to the reminders. Inside the text, you
can use special codes (starting with % followed by a number) to insert information. The following
codes are available:
Code Value
%1 Content of the Document Date field on the reminder header
%2 Content of the Due Date field on the reminder header
%3 Content of the Interest Rate field on the related finance charge terms
%4 Content of the Remaining Amount field on the reminder header
%5 Content of the Interest Amount field on the reminder header
%6 Content of the Additional Fee field on the reminder header
%7 The total amount of the reminder
%8 Content of the Reminder Level field on the reminder header
%9 Content of the Currency Code field on the reminder header
%10 Content of the Posting Date field on the reminder header
%11 The company name
%12 Content of the Add. Fee per Line field on the reminder header
Create Reminders
Create Reminders
If you have outstanding invoices that you don’t want to be included on reminders
Setting Purpose
Only Entries With Overdue Amounts Normally check, but if unchecked, non-due documents will be
included
Include Entries On Hold A Customer Ledger Entry can be placed on hold, typically used for
a document in dispute
Use Header Level Use levels when creating reminders
Issue Reminders
After you have created reminders and made any needed modifications, you can either print test
reports or issue the reminders.
When you issue a reminder, a Issued Reminder document is created. At the same time, reminder
entries are posted. If interest or an additional fee has been calculated, entries are posted to the
customer ledger and the general ledger.
When a reminder is issued, the entries are posted according to your specifications on the Reminder
Terms page. This specification determines whether interest and/or additional fees are posted to the
customer’s account and the general ledger. Setup on the Customer Posting Groups page determines
which accounts are posted to.
Issue Reminders
For each customer ledger entry on the reminder, an entry is created on the Reminder/Fin. Charge
Entries page.
If the Post Interest or the Post Additional Fee check boxes are selected on the Reminder Terms,
then the following entries are also created:
• One entry on the Cust. Ledger Entries page

• One receivables entry in the relevant G/L account
• One interest and/or one additional fee entry in the relevant G/L account
In addition, issuing the reminder may result in VAT entries.

The Reminder is either printed or sent to a specified email as a PDF attachment.
Financial Charge
The Financial Charge Memos works the same way reminders, but calculate interest on due
documents. The work process is the same. Use Financial Charge Terms to define the setup.
Month End Close

Just to get it out of the way, Business Central doesn’t have any need for closing or ending months.
Non-fixed date ranges control everything.
You can start posting in the next month (or period in Business Central language) without affecting
the previous month.
Accounting Periods
But if we look at Accounting Periods we can see that months are still a thing in Business Central.
The different “periods” in Accounting Periods are usually months and can be addressed as P1 to
P12 in filters. The Closed column is only used for year closing and will result in G/L Entries being
checked as Prior-Year-Entry.
The only thing you have to do when “closing a month” is to restrict posting in the General Ledger
Setup.
Restrict Posting dates in General Ledger Setup
Entering dates will lock out any new posting in that period and will enable you to run reports with
numbers that will remain static.
The result is that you’re in control. How you want to deal with ending months can be a choice that
fit your organization.
Adjust Exchange Rates

Adjusts general ledger, customer, vendor, and bank account entries to reflect a more updated balance
if the exchange rate has changed since the entries were posted.
For customer and vendor accounts, the batch job adjusts the currency by using the exchange rate that
is valid on the posting date that is specified in the batch job. The batch job calculates the differences
for the individual currency balances and posts the amounts to the general ledger account that is
specified in the Unrealized Gains Acc. field or the Unrealized Losses Acc. field in the Currency
table. Balancing entries are automatically posted to the receivables/payables account in the general
ledger.
The batch job processes all open customer ledger entries and vendor ledger entries. If there is an
exchange rate difference for an entry, the batch job creates a new detailed customer or vendor ledger
entry which reflects the adjusted amount on the customer or vendor ledger entry.
ProTip
The Adjust Exchange Rates batch job is also used to update additional reporting currency
amounts on general ledger entries.
Adjust exchange rates report

Year End
Fiscal years are controlled in Accounting Periods. The process of actually closing a year is quite
simple, just four steps:
1. Go to Accounting Periods and use the Close Year to mark all the periods in the open year
closed.
Accounting Periods
2. Use Close Income Statement (from Alt-Q) to generate a general journal with closing entries
for all accounts marked as Income Statement. Remember also to close dimensions.
Close Income Statement Process

3. Restrict posting dates on users. Go to General Ledger Setup and make sure that Allow Posting
From is set in the new accounting year.
Restrict Posting dates in General Ledger Setup

4. Create a new fiscal year in Accounting Periods, use the Create Year function for this.
ProTip
Create a new fiscal year while you’re at it. Your Account Schedules and other reports might
not show the right result if you forget to create a new year. You can create multiple years at
once. Just restrict posting with Allow Posting To to the current allowed posting period.
Posting in the closed year

If you allow posting in the close year, you can re-run the Close Income Statement process again.
Closing Dates
Business Central operates with a special date, called a closing date. A closing date sits right between
two dates.
Let’s create an example, here are some entries posted to different dates:
Date Amount
31/12/2018 100
C31/12/2018 -100
1/1/2019 50
Then let’s calculate the balance on different dates:

Range Result
1/1/2018..31/12/2018 100
1/1/2019..31/12/2019 50
1/1/2018..31/12/2019 50 (100-100+50)
1/1/2018..C31/12/2018 0 (100-100)
This is how the balance field works in the G/L.

Closing Inventory Periods

Inventory periods define a time period in which you can post changes to inventory. An inventory
period is determined by the date on which it ends or the ending date. When you close an inventory
period, you cannot post any changes to inventory, either expected or invoiced, before this ending
date. You cannot post any new values to inventory before the ending date. If you have open item
entries in the closed period, meaning positive quantities that have not yet been applied to outbound
transactions, you can still apply outbound quantities to these entries, even if the period is closed.
Close Inventory Period
Backdated transactions or cost adjustments often affect balances and stock valuations for accounting
periods that may be considered closed. This can have adverse effects on accurate reporting, especially
within global corporations. The Inventory Periods feature can be used to avoid such problems by
opening or closing inventory periods to limit posting in a set period of time.
An inventory period is a period of time, defined by an ending date, in which you post inventory
transactions. When you close an inventory period, no value changes can be posted in a closed period.
This includes new value postings, expected or invoiced postings, changes to existing values, and cost
adjustments. However, you can still apply to an open item ledger entry that falls in the closed period.
ProTip
Background information on item application: https://docs.microsoft.com/dynamics365/
business-central/dynamics-nav-app/design-details-item-application
Prerequisite
To make sure that all transaction entries in a closed period are final, the following conditions must
be met before an inventory period can close:
1. All outbound item ledger entries in the period must be closed (no negative inventory).
2. All item costs in the period must be adjusted.
3. All released and finished production orders in the period must be cost adjusted.
When you close an inventory period, an inventory period entry is created by using the number of
the last item register that falls in the inventory period. Also, the time, date, and user code of the user
closing the period are recorded in the inventory period entry. By using this information with the
last item register for the previous period, you can see which inventory transactions were posted in
the inventory period. It is also possible to reopen inventory periods if you need to post in a closed
period. When you reopen an inventory period, an inventory period entry is created.
Item Costing
The value of an item that you purchase and later sell may change during its lifetime. For example,
because a freight cost is added to its purchase cost after you have sold the item. To always know the
correct inventory value, item costs must therefore regularly be adjusted. This ensures that sales and
profit statistics are up to date and that G/L KPIs are correct.
ProTip
For more information on item costing, see: https://docs.microsoft.com/dynamics365/
business-central/design-details-cost-adjustment
As a rule, the value in the Unit Cost field on the item card is based on the standard cost for items with
costing method standard. For items with all other costing methods, it is based on the calculation of
the inventory available (invoiced costs and expected costs) divided by the quantity on hand.
In Business Central, item costs are automatically adjusted every time that an inventory transaction
occurs, such as when posting a purchase invoice for an item.
You can also use a function to adjust the costs of one or more items manually. This is useful, for
example, when you know that item costs have changed for other reasons than item transactions.
Item costs are adjusted by the method selected in the Costing Method field on the item card.
If you use the FIFO costing method, then an item’s unit cost is the actual value of any receipt of
the item. Inventory is valuated with the assumption that the first items placed in inventory are sold
first. Be aware, that in many cases, it’s more often LIFO, last in first out, that used when inventory
is located on shelves.
Selecting inventory costing method on an item
If you use the Average costing method, then an item’s unit cost is calculated as the average unit cost
at each point in time after purchase. Inventory is valuated with the assumption that all inventories
are sold simultaneously. For items that use this costing method, you can choose the Unit Cost field
on the item card to view the history of transactions that the average cost is calculated from
The cost adjustment function processes only value entries that have not yet been adjusted. If the
function encounters a situation where changed inbound costs need to be forwarded to associated
outbound entries, then new adjustment value entries are created, which are based on the information
in the original value entries but contain the adjustment amount. The cost adjustment function uses
the posting date of the original value entry in the adjustment entry unless that date is in a closed
inventory period. In that case, the program uses the starting date of the next open inventory period.
If inventory periods are not used, then the date in the Allow Posting From field on the General
Ledger Setup page will define when the adjustment entry is posted.
Post Inventory Cost to G/L

When you post inventory transactions, such as sales shipments, purchase invoices, or inventory
adjustments, the changed item costs are recorded in item value entries. To reflect this change
of inventory value in your financial books, the inventory costs are automatically posted to the
related inventory accounts in the general ledger. For each inventory transaction that you post, the
appropriate values are posted to the inventory account, adjustment account, and COGS account in
the general ledger.
If you want automatic cost posting, you can turn it on in Inventory Setup using the Automatic
Cost Posting field.
Even though inventory costs are automatically posted to the general ledger, it is still necessary to
ensure that the costs of goods are forwarded to the related outbound sales transaction, especially in
situations where you sell items before you invoice the purchase of those items. This is referred to
as cost adjustment. Item costs are automatically adjusted when you post item transactions, but you
can also adjust item costs manually.
Post Inventory Cost to G/L Report

Calculate and Post Tax Settlement

Depending on your country, Business Central offers functionality to handle tax.
Calculate and Post Tax Settlement
ProTip
The best way to find information on the local functionality for your country is to start here:
https://docs.microsoft.com/dynamics365/business-central/about-localization Just searching
for Tax on Business Central gives results from all countries mixed.
Advanced Features
This chapter covers more advanced and optional features in Business Central. Most modules have
multiple dependencies on inner modules. The innermost module is the G/L. Almost any operation,
in any module, will have an impact on the G/L, either directly, or indirectly through other modules.
Modules in Business Central
The further you move from the center, the more optional a feature becomes. All features require the
base modules to be working.
Advanced Features 260
Some of the advanced features in Business Central requires that users have a Premium License.
Currently, that’s Service Management and Manufacturing.
The advanced features are fully integrated with the base functionality. If a feature requires an item,
the item table will be used. Posting from advanced features is done through regular posting routines
and standard journals.
ProTip
To avoid cluttering the user interface with 100s of fields, some fields are not visible by default.
Use the Show More to locate special fields that are used by advanced features, or in some
cases, use Personalization to make fields available.
Project Management (Jobs)

In Business Central, the Project Management module is called Jobs. Don’t let that fool you; it’s still
a complete Project Management module. The original module, from 30 years ago, was targeted law
offices and accounting firms and was named with the Danish name for “case”, as in “a client case”.
That got translated into Jobs.
Please be aware that if you look in the demo company (CRONUS), you’ll find fields named Project
Code. That is not the Project Management module. It’s a Dimension called Project.
Job Setup
The Job Setup defines defaults for new jobs and what number series that should be used for creating
new jobs.
Job Setup
Job Budgets can work in two different ways. Use the Apply Usage Link field to activate a link
between Job Usage (Job Ledger Entries). If enabled, posting of usage will drive down the budgeted
amount (On Job Planning Lines).
Job
A Job is the base container for a project. A job has the following associated elements:
Element Purpose
Job Ledger Entry Everything posted on a job creates Job Ledger Entries, just like all other modules in
Business Central
Task A Job Task defines a specific task within a project
Planning Line A Job Planning Line is a Budget Entry, that specifies usage of resources, items or
expenses
Work Type Work Types defines the different types of work a planning line can be, controlling costs
and prices
Resource
A Resource is a non-inventory sub-ledger for handling workers, machines and other entities that
can be used on a Job. If you want to track hours, billable time, machine usage, a resource is the right
tool. It’s good practice to align Resource No. and User Name If the resource is also a user.
Resource Card
A resource needs a General Product Posting Group for posting. A resource has the same impact
on purchase and sales posting as an item.
Resources have costs and sales prices. From The Resource Card, you can specify both. Prices can be
defined by Work Type, so a single resource can have different price and cost based on what the
resource is doing.
Work Types
In this example, resource LINDA has three different prices based on the type of work she’ll be doing.
Resource Prices
On each resource, you can enter capacity based on dates. The capacity unit is controlled by the Base
Unit of Measure field on the Resource Card.
Resource Capacity matrix
Resource Ledger Entries
Resources have their own sub-ledger, called Resource Ledger Entries. This sub-ledger is rarely used
since the Job Ledger Entry sub-ledger also has entries for resources. Only useful in cases where
you’re using resources outside jobs.
Job Tasks
A Job can be broken down into a list of tasks. The Task List is inspired by the chart of account
and uses the mechanisms to provide a recognizable, readable overview. You can group posting tasks
with surrounding Begin-Total and End-Total tasks. You can also create lines with the Total type
and manually create a Totalling filter.
The Job Budget, the list of tasks
Everything gets tracked on the task level. If you scroll right on the task list, you can see statistical
information for each task with totals calculated for all the End-Total and Total lines.
Statistics on job tasks

Job Planning Lines
Behind each task, the Job Planning Lines are the actual budget entries. You can use the following
types on a planning line:
Type Purpose
Resource Resources and machines
Item Items
G/L Expenses or a monetary budget amount
Text A comment line
Job Planning Lines (Work Type field added to this with Personalization)
A Planning Line can be three different types. The Line Type field controls how invoicing is done.
Line Type Purpose

Both Budget and Billable The cost and price amounts entered on the planning line are the budgeted costs
for the particular planning line. The price amount will be invoiced.
Budget The customer is not charged for usage. Usage is not transferred to an invoice,
but will still be used in the calculation of WIP.
Billable The customer is charged for usage. Usage is transferred to the invoice, based on
the quantity specified in the Qty. to Transfer to Invoice field.
ProTip
Turn on the Apply Usage Link to have usage posting reduce the Quantity field on Planning
Lines.
Getting ready to use the Job
When a Job has Tasks and Planning Lines, it’s ready for posting. Set the Job Status to Open when
the job goes from planning to production.
Updating the Job Status
Time Sheets
If you need to record time spend on jobs, you can use Time Sheets to organize recording of time.
Time Sheets Entering Time Sheets is one of the operations that can be done by users with just the
Team Member subscription.
Only Time Sheet Admins can create Time Sheets
Make sure resources are set up for using Time Sheets by activating it on the resource card and
specifying the user as owner and an approver if an approval workflow is used:
Check Use Time Sheets on the resource card

Time Sheets Manager
If you have the responsibility of controlling and managing Time Sheets, there are two views for this.
Use the Manager Time Sheets view to keep track of the status on all time sheets or the Manager
Time Sheet By Job view to order by jobs.
Manager Time Sheets View
The Manager can edit all time sheets and mass-archive time sheets.
ProTip
Users can find archived Time Sheets in Time Sheet Archives, and the manager can find
everything in Manager Time Sheet Archives.
Jobs and Time Sheets

An essential part of running a project is to keep the project information updated. Business Central
provides several tools to make that easy.
Purchase Orders
You can specify Job and Job Task directly on purchase order (and invoice) lines. The result is usage
posting on the Job as if the usage had been posted through a Job Journal.
Job and Task fields on purchase order lines
ProTip
The Purchase Line has several fields for Jobs, but they’re not visible by default. Use
Personalization to add the Job No. and Job Task No.. If you need to be more specific,
you can also add Job Planning Line No. if you need that level of precision in your posting.
Job Journal
With the Job Journal, you can quickly post usage directly to the Job. You use Resources, Items and
G/L Accounts. Be aware that using G/L accounts in the Job Journal will not post anything to the
G/L.
Time Sheets are posted through the Job Journal behind the scene, so you can also do time entry in
the Job Journal.
The Job Journal
Posting in the Job Journal will general G/L, receivable or payables entries. Only entries on the Job
and resources.
ProTip
Resource Journal vs. Job Journal, use the right journal for the right job:
Journal Result
Job Journal Posting with a Resource in the Job Journal will create both Job Ledger Entries and
Resource Ledger Entries.
Resource Journal Posting in the Resource Journal only produces Resource Ledger Entries.
Time Sheets
Employees need a place to enter their time spend. For that, Business Central has Time Sheets. A
Time Sheet covers a specific period, like a week and gives the user a matrix of days and tasks. This
will make it easy for the user to enter time and for managers to control the process. After a Time
Sheet has been filled out, it can be sent for approval.
Users with just a Team Member license can enter time sheets.
Use the Create Time Sheets function to create time sheets for one or more resources.
Create time sheets
Users can fill out Time Sheets and submit then for approval. Time Sheets also works for users with
a Team Member license.
Enter time sheet (Work Type field added with personalization)
Update Job Budget

The Job Budget can be updated throughout the life cycle of a project.
Job Budget updated with
Posting will update % Completed and % Invoiced on the Job Card:

Job Completion % on the Job Card

Jobs monitoring, invoicing and WIP

With Project Management comes several periodical operations. Jobs need monitoring, invoicing,
and you can recognize work in process on the balance sheet.
Job Invoicing
To invoice a job, use the Job Create Sales Invoice function to generate invoices from the job. You
can create invoices from a global scope across all jobs or filter on Jobs and Tasks to invoice specific
tasks.
The Line Type on Job Planning Lines will control how much is invoiced on each task.
Create invoices from Jobs
After the process has completed, invoices are created and available under Sales Invoices.
Invoices have been created
Work in Process Recognition

As a job progresses, materials, resources, and other expenses are consumed and must be posted to the
job. Work in Process (WIP) is a feature that enables you to estimate the financial value of jobs in the
general ledger while the jobs are ongoing. In many cases, you might post expenses for a job before
invoicing a job. When only expenses have been posted, your financial statement will be inaccurate.
If a job runs over a long period, you may want to transfer these costs to a WIP account on the balance
sheet while the job is being completed. You can then recognize the costs and sales in your income
statement accounts when it is appropriate.
WIP calculation and posting are based on a WIP Method. The method can be selected on the Job
Card.
WIP Setup on the Job Card
WIP Methods
The WIP Method can be defined in Job WIP Methods. Business Central comes with a set of standard
methods, and you can design your own. A method determines how to recognize WIP of both Cost
and Sales.
Job Work in process methods
Make sure to select the appropriate recognition calculation method that matches your company
guidance for WIP.
Type Purpose
Cost Value Cost value calculations start by calculating the value of what has been
provided by taking a proportion of the estimated total costs based on the
percentage of completion. Invoiced costs are subtracted by taking a proportion
of the estimated total costs based on the invoiced percentage. This calculation
requires that the billable total price, budget total price, and budget total costs
be correctly entered for the whole job.
Cost of Sales Cost of sales calculations begin by calculating the recognized costs. Costs are
recognized proportionally based on budget total costs. This calculation
requires that the billable total price and budget total costs be correctly entered
for the whole job.
Sales Value Sales value calculations recognize revenue proportionally based on usage total
costs and the expected cost recovery ratio. This calculation requires that the
billable total price and budget total price be correctly entered for the whole
job.
Percentage of Completion Percentage of completion calculations recognize revenue proportionally based

on the percentage of completion, that is, usage total costs vs. budget costs.
This calculation requires that the billable total price and budget total costs be
correctly entered for the whole job.
Completed Contract Completed contract does not recognize revenue and costs until the job is
complete. You may want to do this when there is high uncertainty around the
estimates of costs and revenue for the job. All usage is posted to the WIP
Costs account (asset), and all invoiced sales are posted to the WIP Invoiced
Sales account (liability) until the job is complete.
Using WIP
The WIP Menu Item on the Job Card
All the WIP functions are located underWIP in the action bar on the job card.
Function Purpose
Calculate WIP Calculate WIP and prepare WIP Entries
Post WIP to G/L Post the calculated WIP to G/L or reverse a previously WIP posting
WIP Entries View the WIP entries
WIP G/L Entries View the G/L entries
After calculating, you can view the generated WIP entries.
WIP Entries
You can post the G/L right away, or use the Post WIP to G/L function.
Post WIP Entries

How to Customize Business Central
the right way
The killer feature in Business Central is the ability to be customized. This has been one of the most
prominent feature of the product since the introduction of 100% customization back in 1990 (Check
the history chapter)
There are many different ways to customize Business Central, and depending on the type of
customization need the approach might be different.
The first level is called Personalization, this is where you tweak the UI to show the information
you need. The key word here is you. Your colleague might have another need and his or her own
personalization.
The second level is done with the same tools as the personalization, but the result is stored in an
Extension. Applying an Extension affects all users, and users actually then have the option to put
their personalization on top of everything.
You can also download the extension you just created and continue into the third level of
customizations. The extension can be editing in Visual Studio Code. There are many resources
for this available but it’s beyond the scope of this book to cover how to develop extensions in Visual
Studio Code.
A great alternative to doing it yourself, is to go shopping in the built-in app store called AppSource.
Here you can find 3rd party solutions for almost anything, ranging from small, simple tasks to
complete industry solutions.
Apart from the UI you can also customize reports. Business Central support Custom Report
Layouts.
Last, but not least, it’s also important to mention Role Centers. Role Centers (and profiles) shapes
the initial user interface and makes sure the user is off to a great start.
How to Customize Business Central the right way 279
Profiles and role centers - Give your users the right

experience
The user experience in Business Central starts with a Role Center. A Role Center is a start screen, a
dashboard with often used actions and data. The Role Center is given from a profile.
The default profiles in Business Central
To switch to a different profile/role center, click on the gear icon in the top bar:
My settings
Then select another role center:
Select a Role Center
What you’re in reality selecting is a profile, try searching for role centers and you’ll get profiles:
You can create new profiles or you can switch the role center on the profile:
Edit profile, switch role center
You’ll get new role centers from installed extensions.

A role or profile is not related to security or permissions. If a role center has data or link to actions
not available for the current user they will not be shown.
Personalizations, the first level of customizations

To create a personalization, open the spot you want to change and select personalize from the top
bar:
Start Personalization
Now you’ll get the personalization bar:
The personalization bar
I’m personalizing the User Personalization page, just to be extra meta. This is also the place where
you can reset personalizations if needed.
User Personalizations
When the bar is active, you can start dragging fields around, but if you want to add fields to the
current screen, click more to expand to the full personalization bar:
The full personalization bar
Click the + Field to open the Add Field to Page Pane on the right side of the screen:
The Add Field Pane
As you can see, we have two extra fields we can add to this page. Simply drag the Field into the spot
you want it in, let the red indicator guide you an drop it:
Drag Field into place
List with the new Field
Now the Field is there and we can click Done to save my changes.
The changes are stored in the User Personalization table we just personalized and can be deleted
from there.
Personalization are personal so if you want your change to be available for all user, you need to
advance to the next step.
Quick Entry
Left click on the red triangle to modify a single field.
You can control if a field is part of the field jump order. If there’s a field you either want to include
in the jump list or a field you want to exclude because you never type that Field.
Extensions, using the page designer
Select Design
The design bar
The Design bar is purple and works the same way as the personalization bar. The Design bar have
more advanced editing capabilities if you click more:
The expanded design bar
When you’re done with designing one page. Navigate to another and design that one also. You design
all the pages you want in one design session.
Stop Designing
When you’re done, click Stop designing and give your extension a name and designate yourself as
the publisher. You can even download the extension to use later in Visual Studio Code.
Report Layouts
In Business Central, reports consist of two components:
1. Business Logic
2. Layout
End-users have no way of changing the business logic of a report but they can change the layout.
Initiate a custom report layout

To create a Custom Report Layout you’ll be extracting the base layout from the report in question.
First, open Custom Report Layout and click new. Now select the report you want to extract the
layout from, and select if you want to extract the RDLC or the Word layout. What base layout is
available depends on the report.
Edit the layout

Editing a the layout is external process. That does not happen in Business Central, you must
download the layout to your machine and use a local installed application to edit the layout
Edit a RDLC Layout
Many application can edit RDLC files, Visual Studio, SQL Server and many others. If you don’t have
a tool for this.
ProTip
Editing RDLC layout is beyond the scope of this book, here is a good link
to get started: https://docs.microsoft.com/sql/reporting-services/install-windows/install-
report-builder?view=sql-server-2017
Edit a Word Layout
After you download the Word layout, you’ll discover that it’s just normal Word document. Well,
almost normal. To find the good stuff, you must activate the hidden Developer ribbon. Right click
on the ribbon in Word and select Customize the Ribbon.
Customizing the Word Ribbon
Then active the ribbon by checking Developer.

Now you can select the Developer ribbon, all merge fields are located in the XML Mapping Pane,
click that to open the XML mapping pane on the right side of Word.
Open the XML Mapping Pane
The mapping pane have a custom XML part from Business Central with all the field and data
available in the report.
selecting field from XML Mapping Pane
Right-click on a field to insert a Content Control box into the Word document. When running the
report, the Content Control box will be filled with the field value.
Defining a repeating table row
If you have a repeating element, such as the lines on sales invoices, you must first select a whole
row in a table in the Word document, then right click on the repeating element (Like sales line) and
insert Repeating on that row. What will happen now, is that the report generator will insert rows
on demand in that table to fit the data.
Save the Word document and upload it to Business Central on the same Custom Report layout as
you downloaded it from.
Assign a custom layout to a report

The last piece to bind everything together, it so assign the report to use the new custom layout.
Open Report Layout Selection and either find or create a line for the report we’re working on.
Switch to use a custom layout
Now use the Selected Layout field to switch from a built-in layout to your custom layout.
Now you’re ready to run the report with your changes. If something is not right, you can just switch
back to the built-in by flipping the Selected Layout field.
Extending Business Central with Apps
AppSource
Everything about distributing software changed back in 2008 when Apple introduced their AppStore.
The idea of a central store where everything for a platform was delivered from was, perhaps not
new, but extremely well executed. Since then, the Apple AppStore have been the default everybody
compares themselves to.
AppSource is the AppStore for Business Central. What you’re getting from AppSource are Ex-
tensions. Extensions can be installed automatically, uninstalled again, all on a platform that can
upgrade itself. That means you can safely try out extension (or “apps”) without any issues, both in
your production but better in your sandbox.
Be aware, that AppSource covers much more than just Business Central, it covers all the Dynamics
products, so if you access AppSource.microsoft.com just directly, not via the Marketplace link from
inside Business Central, make sure that the App you’re looking at is actually for Business Central.
Since CRM was the first Dynamics to have the “365” moniker in it’s name, there’s still many places
where it just says “Dynamics 365”, unless Business Central is actually specified, assume that it default
to CRM.
Install Apps
To see what Extensions you have installed, go to Extension Management. When you search for
extension in Alt-Q you’ll also find Extension Setting, that not what you’re looking for.
In Extension Management you can manage what Apps you have in your system and what Apps
are active. Microsoft use the term Publish for getting an App into your database, you publish an
App to the database and Unpublish it to remove it again. But, that’s only the first step. To active an
App you need to Install it. That’s because a database can have multiple tenants, so first you publish
the App to the database, then you install it to the tenants that needs it. In case of the cloud system
you have only one tenant, yourself, so it seems cumbersome, but there’s another good reason for
this.
Upgrade Apps
Think about an upgrade scenario, you have an App installed, and there’s a new version available. To
upgrade, you must first publish the new version. So now, there’s actually two versions of the same
App in the database, one is installed, the other is published, you could say in a waiting position.
To upgrade, you install the new version. Business Central will then uninstall the first version, run
through an upgrade procedure (if version 2 have an upgrade as part of the extension) and then install
version 2. After this, both versions are still published to the system, but have switched which one is
installed.
Create your own extension with Visual Studio Code

Business Central continues the tradition from NAV by offering a best-in-class customization
experience. In NAV we used the C/Side tool, but in Business Central, the development experience
have moved into Visual Studio Code. Customizations also have a new name, now they’re called
Extensions.
You will encounter other incarnations of extensions when dealing with Business Central. They are
the same from a technical perspective, but the handling of them are very different. Designing from
the client, moving fields around, adding new fields, produces an extension. Installing an app from
AppSource is also just an extension. They all following the same rules. When ISV produces a new
vertical solution, they also use VS Code. Even Microsoft deals with the base application as extension,
using VS Code. So everybody are using the same tools with the same capabilities, there are no
technical limitations that would prevent you from making comparable solutions.
AL Development in Visual Studio Code
With the move to VS Code, Microsoft have revamped the internal language, used to be called C/AL,
and renamed it to simply AL. Gone are also the FOB files. Now objects are packages together in
single package, called an APP.
Upgrades was the biggest issue with the old development model in NAV. Many NAV customers got
stuck on an old NAV version because upgrading their customizations became too expensive or too
complex to reimplement in a newer version. Microsoft have addressed this with AL. An Extension
(as the name implies) extends the functionality of Business Central rather than modifying it. This
results retaining full upgradeability while still allowing for very intensive development.
The new development components are;
What Purpose
Events Subscribe to processes in standard objects, and manipulate the process without changing
the original code
TableExtension Extend a table with new fields and new fields
PageExtension Extend a page with new fields and new actions
EnumExtension Extend an option field with new options
Upgrading C/AL code to AL is a process that involves converting old code modification to the above
components.
Add the AL Language Extension to Visual Studio Code to start playing with extension development.
All development is done in a sandbox, either the cloud sandbox or an offline Docker based sandbox.
When everything is tested and rated ready for production, you can upload the extension to the live
environment.
AL Language Extension for Visual Studio Code
ProTip
It’s beyond this book to cover how to develop in AL, check this video for inspiration: https:
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=04T2pAnXjGQ
Use Azure Functions for hosting “external code”

When running on-premises, it’s easy to do integration inside Business Central, using SQL, DotNet
or other technologies. But that integration cannot be migrated to the Business Central cloud. Many
developers have turned to Azure Functions, the ability to host code “server-less” in Azure.
When you’re hosting code in Azure Functions, you can use the extensive web service support in
Business Central to integrate the code seamless into business processes.
Integrating Business Central with the
World
Business Central is an open system. There are many different ways to connect to and from the
system. In this chapter, I’ll cover the different method to provide an overview.
Integration works on many levels, from simply being able to copy-paste to and from Business
Central, over seamless integration with Microsoft Office and the Power Platform, to using web
services to communicate with others system.
The DNA of Business Central and NAV has always been a champion of integration, very often being
selected because it can integrate so well with almost any system.
Integrating Business Central with the World 296
Email Integration
Email is still the backbone of communication for most business users. Business Central support
sending emails to customer and vendors with documents.
To setup mail, you must first configure Business Central to know your SMTP server. An SMTP server
is the sending part of a mail server.
It is a one-click setup if your company is using Microsoft Office 365. Otherwise, you must first locate
the SMTP information for your company email.
You should create an email account dedicated to Business Central, like billing@company.com or
accounting@company.com or perhaps invoice@company.com. The account can also be shared
mailbox depending on company policies and setup.
Setting up SMTP
Smtp Setup
If you are using Office 365, click on Apply Office 365 Server Settings to fill out all fields with the
correct setup. Otherwise, you’ll need to get the SMTP server and authentication information.
Use the Test Email Setup to verify that the setup is working.
Document Sending Profiles

A Document Sending Profile defines how to deliver a document to a vendor or a customer.
Document sending profile
There are three basic ways of delivering a document:
Method Results
Printer Print the document
Email Email the document to the default email address on the customer
Disk Save the document to disk (Only for on-premises version)
The on-premises version offers both an option to save the document to disk and to also deliver a
PEPPOL document, see more at https://peppol.eu/what-is-peppol/
Document Sending Profile have more options on-premises
Customers can then be assigned a Document Sending Profile, be aware, that the field can be hiding
and you’ll need to click Show more to locate it.
Document sending profile on a customer

Expose Web Services to the World

The default way of exposing data and business logic to other systems is called a web service. Web
services are using the same underlying protocol as the regular web client. You could call it web pages
optimized for machines rather than humans.
Business Central supports two different web service protocols, OData and Soap. Both have strengths
and weaknesses; be sure to select the right tool for the right job. OData is great for data-heavy
communication and Soap is an excellent choice for complicated business logic. You are allowed to
mix and match.
To create a web service, you first select an object and add that to the web services list.
The Web service list
The following objects can be exposed as web services:
Object OData Soap

Codeunit No Great for exposing business logic, not data
Normal Page Yes Yes
API Page Yes Yes
Query Yes, read only No
Exposing a new object as a web service is as simple clicking New and adding an object. The Service
Name field is essential. This is the name that the service is visible as when looking at the server.
Getting access to a web service

Authentication with Business Central is based on OAuth V2. You can use basic authentication when
accessing the sandbox, but production environments require OAuth V2.
Register Business Central as an App in Azure

If you want to use web services, you must register the App in the Azure Portal. Go to https://portal.
azure.com and login with the same credentials as you use in Business Central. Select Azure Active
Directory on the left side, and locate App Registrations in the new menu.
Register App for web service access in Azure Portal
Select New Registration and fill out a name (just for display) and select what accounts can access the
web services, always accounts in this organizational directory since only valid users in Business
Central will be able to use web services.
Register App for web service access in Azure Portal

You must give a redirect URI, also sometimes known as the callback URL. Use https://api.
businesscentral.dynamics.com if your App does not specify one.
Click Register and go to View API Permissions. Add a new Permission and select Dynamics 365
Business Central and Delegated permissions. Check user_impersonation and under Financials
Financials.ReadWrite.All. Check Add permissions.
Give your App permissions
Now, select Certificates & secrets and create a Client secret, give it a description and specify an
expiration.
Generate a client secret
Note the client secret together with the Application (client) ID from the overview page and supply
those two values to your App.
The client ID for your App
Some applications are having trouble with the full OAuth process. For those application you can try
activating Implicit grant (under authentication).
ProTip
More information on Implicit grant can be found here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/
azure/active-directory/develop/v2-oauth2-implicit-grant-flow
Activating Implicit grant in Azure
Use Postman to verify OAuth authentication

To test that you have OAuth access to Business Central, you can use Postman https://getpostman.com
for that.
Use the following values when setting up OAuth authentication:
Setting Value
Callback URL https://api.businesscentral.dynamics.com/
Auth URL https://login.windows.net/[tenant
ID]/oauth2/authorize?resource=https://api.businesscentral.dynamics.com
Access Token URL https://login.windows.net/[tenant
ID]/oauth2/token?resource=https://api.businesscentral.dynamics.com
Client ID The Client ID from Azure
Client Secret The Client Secret from Azure
If configured correctly, that will procedure a token in Postman.
Postman returning a valid OAuth token
ProTip
Read more about the OAuth process here https://docs.microsoft.com/dynamics365/business-
central/dev-itpro/developer/devenv-develop-connect-apps
OData
OData the protocol used for exposing data to Excel and the Power Platform (PowerBI, Flow).
OData is often the choice you need access to your Business Central data from other platforms. Most
Microsoft tools understand OData directly.
Reading an OData Feed in Excel
Soap
Soap is a programming protocol, meaning, that Soap requires development if you want to use it.
What’s excellent about Soap is that you can expose codeunits. With codeunits, you can expose
business logic directly, and it’s often used for complicated integrations.
ProTip
Expose XMLPorts. If you expose a codeunit procedure with an xmlport as the parameter, that
will be exposed as a complex data type (This is the only way to expose data like “records”
since “records” are not supported on Soap codeunits).
Consuming web services

Business Central does not have a generic way to directly consume external web services, but it does
have a rich programming interface for accessing web services and consuming web services.
There are ways that you can circumvent this shortcoming:
Use Power Automate (Microsoft Flow)

If the web service you want to integrate with Business Central is supported by Power Automate
(Used to be called Microsoft Flow), then you can use Flow as an interim service to bring data into
Business Central.
Use Excel
In many cases Excel can also be used as an interim service. If you have a way to consume a web
service from Excel, then you can use the Excel Dynamics Add-in to consume the data.
Integration with PowerBI

There are several difference incarnations of PowerBI:
• PowerBI Desktop
• PowerBI Online
• PowerBI Embedded
Reports shown in Business Central uses PowerBI embedded that runs in the cloud, it’s a specialized
version of PowerBI Online that can, as the name implies, be embedded into another application, in
this case Business Central. For PowerBI to be able to see your data, the data must be exposed as web
services visible from the Microsoft PowerBI cloud platform.
To add Dynamics 365 Business Central as a data source in Power

BI Desktop
• In Power BI Desktop, in the left navigation pane, choose Get Data.
• On the Get Data page, choose Online Services, choose Business Central, and then choose the
Connect button.
• Power BI displays a wizard that will guide you through the connection process. You will be
prompted to sign into the service. Select Sign in and choose the account you would like to sign
in as. This should be the same account you sign into Dynamics 365 Business Central with.
• Choose the Connect button to continue. The Power BI wizard shows a list of Microsoft Business
Central companies and data sources. These data source represent all the web services that you
have published from each company in Business Central.
• Alternatively, create a new web service URL in Dynamics 365 Business Central by using the
Create Data Set action on the Web Services page, using the Set Up Reporting Assisted Setup
guide, or by choosing the Edit in Excel action in any lists.
• Specify the data you want to add to your data model, and then choose the Load button.
• Repeat the previous steps to add additional Business Central, or other data, to your Power BI
data model.
Integration with PowerApps

PowerApps uses OData, just like PowerBI.
To create a connection, selection Connections from the Gear icon in the top bar, and hit the + to add
a new connection. You need
You have two options, either Cloud or On-Premises:
Cloud or on-premises connector
After the selection, the connection will be created. You might have to log in again.
Creating the connection
When the creation is completed, the connection is part of your connection list. You can see what
User is used for authentication.
The created connection
Now you’re ready to create your first PowerApps application, select Start from data
Four different ways to start your PowerApps application
Select Business Central as Connection and select the right company (in case you have more than
one). After you have selected a company, you’re presented with the available tables.
This is not the complete list of tables in the database; only the tables exposed as Web Services are
shown. You can add more tables to the list, by adding either a Page or a Query to the Web Services
List. Select a table and click Connect to continue.
PowerApps, select a table from a Connection
PowerApps will now build your application:

PowerApps is building your application
When building is completed, you can hit F5 to test your newly built application.
PowerApps application running

ProTip
For more information on how to build PowerApps apps, visit: https://docs.microsoft.com/
powerapps/index
Mix and match connections with the Power Platform

One of the great features of the Power Platform is the ability to combine data and features from
multiple sources. If you’re creating an app, and need data from more than one system, you can do
that with the Power Platform. Microsoft is constantly adding new connectors to the platform, check
the current list on https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/connectors/
Some of the connectors available on the Power Platform
ProTip
Check out Mariano Gomez’s YouTube channel for great information on how to
use Flow and PowerApps with Dynamics products: https://www.youtube.com/channel/
UCWrnDvyh6bgqmXFPRkhYT9g
Final Words
The world of Business Central is rapidly changing with a new release every six months.
You can influence the development of Business Central. Microsoft has a great website where ideas
for coming version can be submitted and voted on, visit https://aka.ms/bcideas The last couple of
releases clearly shows that Microsoft listen and I suggest using this website.
Also, take a look at the Resource list in this chapter for other great resources to make your Business
Central work even better for you and your company.
The aim of this book is continuing to cover Business Central, but I need your input for me to know
where to add relevant material to the book. Reach out to on me on erik@hougaard.com or find me
on Twitter as @eHougaard.
Final Words 311
More Business Central Resources

There are many great resources for Business Central knowledge on the net. One of the best is
docs.microsoft.com. Throughout this book, I have several links to information on docs. Visit https:
//docs.microsoft.com/dynamics365/business-central/ to access all the documentation Microsoft has
created.
This overview is not meant to be a complete list, just an appetizer, and I’ll love to add suggestions if
you have one.
User Groups
Joining a user group can be a great way to connect with other people who are using Business Central
in their job. Both online and at MeetUps and conferences.
Dynamics Communities NAVUG/BCUG https://www.navug.com
NAVUG is very active and has a great community of 1000s of users. They have a very active forum
with great answers and always put up inspirational webinars. Also, every year, they put on a
conference called Summit that not only covers Business Central but all the Dynamics products.
And they also put on several other conferences every year, both in North America and Europe.
Training Resources
Taking a class can boost your knowledge in a specific area.
New View Strategies, great classes for controllers and accountants https://www.newviewstrategies.
com
MVPs
Microsoft MVPs are a group of individuals who are doing great community work, either as bloggers,
speakers, coders, or just helping out. Microsoft has recognized them for their work and awarded them
an MVP.
Find them here: https://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/MvpSearch?ex=Business+Applications&kw=Business+
Central&sc=e
MVPs are awarded for one year, so instead of trying to keep the link current, use the link and website
to find an MVP in your area.
Final Words 312
Change Log
This chapter will be updated whenever I update the book. Since the book is ever-changing, this
chapter also serves as a way to see the current version of a downloaded book.
August 2019
• Lots of small fixes of spelling mistakes.
• Better table layout.
• Adjusting images.
• Added a section about employee expenses and reimbursements.
September 2019
• Added link for AAD tenant signup.
• Added exchange rate service example from floatrates.com.
• Added section on setting up OAuth authentication for web services.
• Rewrote the sandbox chapter and added information on the Admin Center.
• Updated PowerApps chapter.
Version 15 Features below

• Added section about page bookmarks.
• Added section about the role center menu.
• Added section about opening pages in new windows.
• Added section about attachments, links and notes.
• Added section the role explorer.
• Added section on saved filtered views.
• Updated chapter on number series.
• Added more shortcut keys.
October 2019
• Jobs Module. Setup of Job module, daily and periodical operations.
December 2019
• Added tip to user chapter to clarify how to activate Premium features.
• Change the name of Microsoft Flow to Power Automate
• Added tip to payment suggestion chapter about the On Hold field
• Added section about SQL backups from the admin center

11 Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Cookbook Field Guide

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

11 Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Cookbook Field Guide

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

This version was published on 2019-12-04

© 2019 Erik Hougaard

Overview of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Signing up for Business Central . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Deploying Business Central On-Premises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Getting Started With Business Central . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

The First Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Daily Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Periodic Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

Calculate and Post Tax Settlement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

Advanced Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

How to Customize Business Central the right way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

Integrating Business Central with the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

Final Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310

About Erik Hougaard

Modules in Business Central

Just outside the center:

• Sales handles customer, ordering and invoicing.

History of Business Central

Business Central 2019 Wave 2 - Version 15

Business Central April’19 - Version 14

Business Central april’19 Release

Business Central Fall’18 - Version 13

Business Central Spring’18 - Version 12

Dynamics NAV 2018 - Version 11

Introductions of Extension V2 and development outside C/Side.

Dynamics NAV 2017 - Version 10

Dynamics NAV 2016 - Version 9

Dynamics NAV 2016 - Role Tailored Client

• Native integration with Dynamics CRM

Dynamics NAV 2015 - Version 8

• Tablet client for iPad, Android and WindowsRT.

Dynamics NAV 2013R2 - Version 7.1

Dynamics NAV 2013 - Version 7

Dynamics NAV 2009/SP1/R2 - Version 6

Dynamics NAV 2009R2 - Role Tailored Client

Dynamics NAV - Version 5

Dynamics NAV - Version 4 (sp3)

The first version that will run on Windows Vista/7/10.

Navision 4.0 - New menu

Navision Attain 3.0

Navision Financials 2.6(5)

Navision Financials 2.0

Navision Financials 1.2/1.3

Navision Financials 1.0 (Windows)

Navision Financials, main menu (in Danish)

Navision 3.5 (Character based)

Navision 3.0 (Character based)

The first screen of Navision 3.0 (Also in Danish)

Navision 2.0 (Character based)

Navision 1.0 (Character based) - 1987 DOS/OS2

The main menu in PC-Plus clearly showing GL AR AP and Inventory as modules

Relationship to Dynamics NAV

Relationship to other Dynamics Products

PowerBI, Flow and the Power Platform

CDS - The Common Data Service

Intelligent Cloud insights

Viewing Intelligent Cloud Insights On-Premises

You can start at businesscentral.dynamics.com

A new tenant is provisioned very quickly

Active the 30 day trial

Welcome to your trial

• Partners that come from the Dynamics NAV channel