Getting Ready for Doing Business
Congratulations, you have just initiated your first company in Business Central.
To help you get ready for doing business, you can visit the Assisted Setup page where you can launch assisted setup guides, videos, or help topics for selected setup tasks. To access the page, simply choose the icon, and then the Assisted Setup action.
Alternatively, to open the list of assisted setup guides for any role, choose the icon, enter Assisted Setup, and then choose the related link.
Tip
Business Central includes tooltips for fields and actions and teaching tips for some of the most important pages that can help guide you through the various business processes. On each tooltip and teaching tip, choose the Learn more link to open Help for the page in question. On all pages, use Ctrl+F1 on your keyboard to open Help for the page in question. On any device, the question mark in the upper right corner opens the Help and Support page, and you can get to product Help from there as well.
Get started
Starting with 2021 release wave 1, when you sign in for the first time or launch a new company, the Get Started checklist takes you through the steps to make you ready for business. The steps vary depending on your country and any industry-specific functionality that you have added to your Business Central.
Once you have migrated data, such as vendors, customers, and items from your existing financial system, you are ready to begin. But depending on your needs, consider if other assisted setup guides on the list can help you.
If an area is not covered by an assisted setup, choose the icon, and then the Advanced Settings action. In Advanced Settings, the Manual Setup section provides access to setup pages where you can fill in setup fields for all areas manually. For more information, see also Setting Up Business Central.
Note
The list of assisted setup guides, extensions, and services that are available differ depending on the user experience you choose for your company. The Essential experience gives access to fewer than the Premium experience does.
The first time you sign in, you use the Essential experience. For more information, see Change Which Features are Displayed.
When you have run an assisted setup guide, it is marked as Completed.
Teaching tips and tours
Business Central includes in-product tours and teaching tips that can help you get started. In the current version, there are tours for the steps in the Get started list and some of the most commonly used pages in the demonstration company, such as the Sales Invoice card page.
Teaching tips are short messages that inform, remind, or teach you about important and new capabilities that launch automatically when you open a page. For example, to see the teaching tip for the Sales Invoice card, choose the link in the top left corner of the page where it says Sales Invoice. This launches a callout with a short description of the page and what you can do there. If a tour exists for the page, a link invites you to take the tour. The Learn more link takes you to the product Help for the page.
Role-specific home pages
Depending on your role, the home page provides an overview of the business. At the top, you see a navigation bar that gives you easy access to customers, vendors, items, and so on. In the center you find the Activities tiles. Activities show current data and can be clicked or tapped for easy access to the selected document.
The Key Performance Indicators can be set up to display a selected chart for a visual representation of, for example, cash flow or income and expenses. You can also build up a list of Favorite Customers on the home page for accounts that you do business with often or need to pay special attention to.
Use the arrows to collapse a part of the page and make more room to show specific data. At the top of the home page you will find all of the actions that can be applied to the current content. This too can be collapsed and you only need to click or tap within the collapsed area to view it again.
Tip
You can get back to the home page by selecting the company name in the upper left corner.
Company information
Under Company Settings you can view and edit setup information about the current company, much of this was prefilled if you completed the Set Up Company assisted setup when signing up for Business Central. If you want to change the company logo, contact information, bank settings, or tax information, you can do it from this page.
Adding users and permissions
If you need to add more users, this is done from Microsoft 365 Admin Center. For more information, see Create Users According to Licenses.
When users are created in Microsoft 365, they can be imported into the Users page by using the Get Updates from Office 365 action. You can then proceed to assign permissions to users and to organize them in user groups. For more information, see Assign Permissions to Users and Groups.
Product Help
Business Central includes tooltips for fields and actions and teaching tips for some of the most important pages that can help guide you through the various business processes. On each tooltip and teaching tip, choose the Learn more link to open Help for the page in question. On all pages, use Ctrl+F1 on your keyboard to open Help for the page in question. On any device, the question mark in the upper right corner opens the Help and Support page, and you can get to product Help from there as well. For more information, see Resources for Help and Support.
Next steps
Based on your migrated data, you can now proceed to create new sales or purchase documents. Use the Actions section of your home page to quickly create a new sales quote, sales invoice, sales order, purchase invoice, or payment registration.
See also
Working with Business Central
Assign Permissions to Users and Groups
Dynamics 365 Business Central Trials and Subscriptions
Resources for Help and Support
Microsoft Learn site
Start a free trial!
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