Viewing and Editing in Excel From Business Central

With pages that display a list of records in rows and columns, like a list of customers, sale orders, or invoices, you can also view the records using Microsoft Excel. To do this, you have two options. You can either select the Open in Excel action or the Edit in Excel action on the page. The differences between the two actions are as follows:

Open in Excel

  • With this action, Excel respects any filters on the page that limit the records shown. The Excel workbook will contain the same rows and columns that appear on the page in Business Central.

  • You can make changes to the records in Excel, but you cannot publish the changes back to Business Central. You can only save the changes to Excel file on your computer.

  • This action works on both on Windows and macOS.

Note

For Business Central on-premises, the Open in Excel action is available by default. However, if you set up Business Central on-premises for editing data in Excel, then the Open in Excel action is replaced by the Edit in Excel action.

Edit in Excel

  • With this action, Excel respects most filters on the page that limit the records shown, so the Excel workbook will contain almost the same records and columns.

  • The advantage of the Edit in Excel action is that it lets you make changes to records in Excel and then publish the changes back to Business Central.

  • It only works on Windows; not macOS.

  • You can switch the company that you are working with. To switch company, select the Options icon Excel add-in options in the Excel Add-in pane, then select the company from the Company field.

    Important

    When changing the company, make sure that the Environment field is not empty. If it is, then set it to one of the available options; otherwise, the add-in will not work correctly.

If you make changes to the add-in, you must reload it to update the connection. To reload, use the Excel add-in menu menu in the top-right corner of the add-in. If you cannot load the add-in, talk to your administrator. If you are the administrator, see Setting up the Excel Add-In for Editing Business Central Data.

Note

For Business Central on-premises, the Edit in Excel action is only available if the Excel add-in has been configured by your administrator, and only available for the Web client. For administrators, if you want to learn how to install the Excel add-in, see Setting up the Excel Add-In for Editing Business Central Data.

See the differences between the options



See Also

Analyzing Financial Statements in Microsoft Excel
Working with Business Central
Enhancements to Excel integration in 2019 release wave 2

Note

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