Overview of Tasks to Set Up Business Central
Business Central includes standard configurations for most business processes, but you can change the configuration to suit the needs of your organization.
For example, your chart of accounts is prefilled with a number of posting accounts ready for use. You can, of course, change the chart of accounts to suit your needs. For more information, see Finance.
From the 
menu, you can access assisted setup guides that help you configure certain scenarios and add features to Business Central. For information about how to access all assisted and manual setup pages, see Getting Ready for Doing Business.
Note
Starting with 2021 release wave 1, the Get started checklist can help you set up key information.
Some functionality, either general or for specific business processes, can be set up manually in addition to the assisted setup guide. The following lists some of functionality that can you can set up manually.
| To | See |
|---|---|
| Set up payment methods, currencies, and the chart of accounts, and define rules and defaults for managing financial transactions. | Setting Up Finance |
| Set up your own and your vendors' bank accounts and enable services for importing and exporting bank files. | Setting Up Banking |
| Configure the rules and values that define your company's sales policies, register new customers, and set up how you communicate with customers. | Setting Up Sales |
| Configure the rules and values that define your company's purchasing policies, register new vendors, and prioritize your vendors for payment processing. | Setting Up Purchasing |
| Configure the rules and values that define the company's inventory policies, set up locations if you keep inventory in multiple warehouses, and categorize your items to improve searching and sorting . | Setting Up Inventory |
| Specify default reports to be used for different document types. | Report Selection in Business Central |
| Set up resources, time sheets, and jobs to manage projects. | Setting Up Project Management |
| Configure how to insure, maintain, and depreciate fixed assets, and how you record the costs of fixed assets in your company books. | Setting Up Fixed Assets |
| Define the general rules and values for warehouse processes and the specific handling at each location. | Setting Up Warehouse Management |
| Prepare production BOMs and routings to define how end items are produced, and prepare machine or work centers to perform the required operations. | Setting Up Manufacturing |
| Establish standard services, symptoms, and fault codes and set up the service items, resources, and documentation needed to provide service to your customers. | Setting Up Service Management |
| Read best practices for setting items up for up inventory costing and supply planning. | Setting Up Complex Application Areas Using Best Practices |
| Improve the quality of implementation and shorten deployment time by using a toolset for setting up a new company using wizards, templates, worksheets, and customer questionnaires. | Setting Up a Company With RapidStart Services |
| Transfer customers, vendors, inventory, and bank accounts information from another system into Business Central | Importing Business Data from Other Finance Systems. |
| Use Business Central Outlook add-ins to see financial data related to customers and vendors or create and send financial documents, such as quotes and invoices. | Using Business Central as Your Business Inbox in Outlook |
| Get insights into your Business Central data with Power BI and the Business Central content packs. | Enabling Your Business Data for Power BI |
| Use your Business Central data as part of a workflow in Power Automate. | Using Business Central in an Automated Workflow |
| Make your Business Central data available as a data source in Power Apps. | Connecting to Your Business Central Data to Build a Business App Using Power Apps |
| Use dedicated Quickbooks migration guides. | Changing from a QuickBooks App to Business Central |
| Access your Business Central data from your mobile device. | Getting Business Central on Your Mobile Device |
| Do bulk invoicing of appointments created in Bookings. | Bulk Invoicing for Microsoft Bookings |
| Set up an SMTP server to enable e-mail communication in and out of Business Central | Set Up Email Manually or Using the Assisted Setup |
| Set up unique identification codes for records, such as cards, documents, and journal lines, to track them in the system. | Create Number Series |
| Set up and assign a base calendar to your company and its business partners, such as customers, vendors, or locations. Delivery and receipt dates on future sales order, purchase order, transfer order, and production order lines are then calculated according to the calendar's specified working days. | Set Up Base Calendars |
Some areas require you to be an administrator in your Business Central subscription. For more information, see Administration.
Note
As an administrator, you can set up a new company in Business Central with RapidStart Services, which is a tool designed to shorten deployment times, improve quality of implementation, introduce a repeatable approach to implementations, and enhance productivity by automating and simplifying recurring tasks. For more information, see Setting Up a Company With RapidStart Services.
See Also
Administration
Finance
Sales
Purchasing
Inventory
Project Management
Fixed Assets
Assembly Management
Manufacturing
Warehouse Management
Working with Business Central
Creating New Companies in Business Central
Getting Ready for Doing Business
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