Get 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 this link.

Alternatively, choose the Sprocket icon to open the Settings menu. icon, and then the Assisted Setup action.

You can also find the list of assisted setup guides if you choose the Lightbulb that opens the Tell Me feature. icon, enter Assisted Setup, and then choose the related link.

[!TIP] --- author: edupont04

ms.topic: include ms.date: 04/08/2022 ms.author: edupont

Business Central includes tooltips for fields and actions that can help guide you through the various business processes. Some pages also have teaching tips and tours to help you. On each tooltip and teaching tip, choose the Learn more link to open the Help pane where you find information about the current page and related tasks. On all pages, use Ctrl+F1 on your keyboard to open the Help pane. On any device, use the question mark in the upper right corner to get to the Help.

Get started

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. Starting with 2021 release wave 2, when you first sign in to the CRONUS demonstration company, your home page is optimized for your first experiences. If you prefer to see more links to more pages, just switch to the Business Manager role. For more information, see Change Basic Settings.

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 Sprocket icon to open the Settings menu. 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

> APPLIES TO: Business Central 2021 release wave 1 and later

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.

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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

--- author: edupont04

ms.topic: include ms.date: 04/08/2022 ms.author: edupont

Business Central includes tooltips for fields and actions that can help guide you through the various business processes. Some pages also have teaching tips and tours to help you. On each tooltip and teaching tip, choose the Learn more link to open the Help pane where you find information about the current page and related tasks. On all pages, use Ctrl+F1 on your keyboard to open the Help pane. On any device, use the question mark in the upper right corner to get to the Help. 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. Check out the quick start articles to help you take the first steps.

See also

Business Central Quick Starts
Work with Business Central
Change Basic Settings
Company Information Overview
Accessibility and Keyboard Shortcuts
Trials and Subscriptions
Business Functionality
Assign Permissions to Users and Groups
Search in the help pane
Resources for Help and Support
Microsoft Learn site
Migrate Data

Start a free trial!

--- author: edupont04

ms.topic: include ms.date: 12/20/2021 ms.author: edupont

Business Central on Microsoft Learn