Get ready for doing business
Congratulations, you have 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 articles for selected setup tasks. To access the page, choose this link.
Alternatively, choose the 
icon, and then the Assisted Setup action.
You can also find the list of assisted setup guides if you choose the 
icon, enter Assisted Setup, and then choose the related link.
Tip
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 Show help link to open the Help pane where you find information about the current page and related tasks. If the chat with Copilot feature is turned on, instead of the Show help link on tooltips, you have an Ask Copilot link. When you select this link, the chat pane opens and a prompt asking for an explanation of the field is automatically entered, like "Explain field name "Invoice Discount %". 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/region and any industry-specific functionality that you 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.
After you migrate data, such as vendors, customers, and items from your existing financial system, you're ready to begin. But depending on your needs, consider if other assisted setup guides on the list can help you.
If an area isn't 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.
After you run an assisted setup guide, it's 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. The navigation bar gives you easy access to customers, vendors, items, and so on. The Activities tiles show current data and provide 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'll find all of the actions that you can use in the current content. You can collapse this area too. To expand it again, select or tap in the collapsed area.
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 information was prefilled if you completed the Set Up Company assisted setup when you signed 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
Security groups are new to Business Central in 2023 release wave 1. They're similar to the user groups that this article mentions. Like user groups, administrators assign the permissions to the security group that its members need to do their jobs.
User groups will no longer be available in a future release. You can continue using user groups to manage permissions until then. To learn more about security groups, go to Control Access to Business Central Using Security Groups.
You add users in Microsoft 365 admin center. For more information, see Create Users According to Licenses.
When users are created in Microsoft 365, you can import them to the Users page by using the Get Updates from Office 365 action. You can then 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 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 Show help link to open the Help pane where you find information about the current page and related tasks. If the chat with Copilot feature is turned on, instead of the Show help link on tooltips, you have an Ask Copilot link. When you select this link, the chat pane opens and a prompt asking for an explanation of the field is automatically entered, like "Explain field name "Invoice Discount %". 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.
Set up your company in Business Central
The quick start articles can help you take the first steps into setting up Business Central for your organization. Inside Business Central, the Assisted Setup page lists the assisted setup guides that can help you. Depending on your role and country/region, the page shows different assistant setup guides as illustrated in the following table:
| Assisted Setup | Description |
|---|---|
| Set Up My Company | Creates a new trial company for you to enter data and try out Business Central. |
| Set Up Approval Workflows | Sets up the ability to automatically notify an approver when a user tries to create or change certain values on documents, journal lines, or cards. For example, you can set up approval of amounts above a specified limit. |
| Set Up Email | Gets you ready for sending email messages directly from, for example, sales orders or contacts in Business Central. |
| Set Up Your Business Inbox in Outlook | Gets you ready to manage business interactions with your customers and vendors, directly in Microsoft Outlook. |
| Migrate Business Data | Lets you import your existing company data such as vendors, customers, and items from Excel or Quickbooks. |
| Set Up Email Logging | Sets up the capability to log email correspondence in Business Central to follow up on interactions. |
| Set Up an Item Approval Workflow | Sets up the ability to send a notification to an approver when a user changes or creates an item. |
| Set Up a Customer Approval Workflow | Sets up the ability to automatically notify an approver when a user tries to create or change a customer card. |
| Set Up a Payment Approval Workflow | Sets up the ability to send a notification to an approver when a user sends payment journal lines for approval. |
| Set Up Dynamics 365 Sales Connection | Sets up a connection to Dynamics 365 Sales, which allows you to synchronize data such as contacts and sales order information. |
| Set Up Cash Flow Forecast | Sets up the Cash Flow Forecast chart, so you can view the predicted movement of cash in and out of your business. The chart is available on the Accountant Role Center. |
| Set Up Reporting Data | Sets up data sets that you can use to build powerful reports using Excel or Power BI, for example. |
| Invite External Accountant | If you use an external accountant to manage your books and financial reporting, you can invite them to your Business Central so they can work with you on your fiscal data. |
The Assisted Setup page might contain other entries. When you finish a setup, its status is Completed. You can set up other areas of the company by using manual setup. For more information, see Setting Up Business Central.
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
Business Functionality
Assign Permissions to Users and Groups
Search in the help pane
Resources for Help and Support
Microsoft training
Migrate Data
Trials and Subscriptions