# Business Central Setup Checklist: Initial Company, Finance and Manufacturing

> Source: https://netray.co/tools/business-central-setup-checklist
> Publisher: Netray (netray.co), AI and integration engineering for ERP and manufacturing systems.
> Section: Free Tools

## Short answer

A step-by-step checklist for the first setup of a Business Central company, covering finance, inventory, manufacturing, users and go-live basics.

## Category

microsoft-dynamics

## Erp

Dynamics 365 Business Central

## Audience

- Business Central consultant
- Finance manager
- ERP project manager

## Tool

**Kind:** checklist

**Groups:**

#### 1. Company and assisted setup

**Items:**

**Text:** Create the company (empty or with evaluation data) and confirm the country or region and base currency

**Critical:** true

Run the Assisted Setup guides you need, such as Set Up Accounting Periods and Set Up Email

**Text:** Fill in Company Information: legal name, address, VAT or tax registration number, bank details

**Critical:** true

Set the base calendar and company working days for planning and due dates

**Text:** Create the dimensions (department, project, cost center) before posting anything

**Critical:** true

Decide the language, regional settings and time zone defaults for users

#### 2. Finance setup

**Items:**

**Text:** Import or build the chart of accounts and set the income statement and balance sheet structure

**Critical:** true

**Text:** Set up General Ledger Setup: allowed posting dates, additional reporting currency if needed, global dimensions

**Critical:** true

Create accounting periods and a fiscal year, and close the unused ones

**Text:** Set up General Posting Setup, VAT Posting Setup and the business and product posting groups

**Critical:** true

**Text:** Set up customer and vendor posting groups and their receivables and payables accounts

**Critical:** true

Create currencies and exchange rates, and exchange rate adjustment accounts if you trade in foreign currency

Set payment terms, payment methods and bank accounts with their posting groups

Set up number series for sales, purchase, journals and posted documents

Create general journal templates and batches for each posting purpose

#### 3. Items, inventory and warehouse

**Items:**

**Text:** Set up Inventory Setup: automatic cost posting, automatic cost adjustment and default costing method

**Critical:** true

**Text:** Create inventory posting groups and Inventory Posting Setup per location

**Critical:** true

Create locations, bins and warehouse setup where bin tracking is required

Define units of measure, item categories and item tracking codes (lot and serial)

Create the item template and load items through a configuration package

Set up item costing: standard or average, and the rounding precision

Set reordering policy and planning parameters on items used by planning

#### 4. Manufacturing setup

**Items:**

**Text:** Open Manufacturing Setup: normal starting and ending time, document numbers, dynamic low-level code, planning options

**Critical:** true

**Text:** Create work centers and machine centers with calendars, capacity, and cost rates

**Critical:** true

Create the routing with operations, setup and run times, and certify it

**Text:** Create production BOMs with scrap and quantity per, and certify them

**Critical:** true

Set the production BOM and routing on items, plus the replenishment system (Prod. Order)

Set number series for released and finished production orders

**Text:** Test a full production order: release, consume, output, finish, and review the costs and ledger entries

**Critical:** true

Set up planning: planning worksheet or requisition worksheet, safety stock and lot sizes

#### 5. Users, security and go-live basics

**Items:**

**Text:** Create user groups and assign permission sets; follow least privilege and review SUPER

**Critical:** true

Set user setup limits for posting date ranges and approval amounts

Set up approval workflows for purchase orders and payments if required

**Text:** Load opening balances, open customer and vendor entries and inventory with a configuration package or journals

**Critical:** true

**Text:** Reconcile opening balances to the legacy system before go-live

**Critical:** true

Run user acceptance tests for order to cash, procure to pay and production

Set up job queue entries for cost adjustment, posting and any recurring batch

Document the setup decisions and back up configuration in a package

**Scoring Note:** Order matters: finance and posting groups before items, items before production, and opening balances last. Menu names vary a little between Business Central versions and between online and on-premises releases.

## Content

**Intro:** This Business Central setup checklist walks a new company from creation to go-live basics: assisted setup, general ledger and posting groups, inventory, manufacturing and user permissions. Tick items as you finish them and export the list to share with the project team.

**Sections:**

#### How to use the checklist

**Body:** Work through the groups in order, because later setup depends on earlier decisions. Posting groups and dimensions must exist before items, vendors or customers are created, and the chart of accounts must be settled before you map posting setup. Items marked critical cause wrong ledger postings or blocked transactions if skipped. Export the list to Excel and add owner and date columns so the project manager can track it.

#### Finance setup that you cannot easily change later

**Body:** Global dimensions, the chart of accounts structure, posting groups and the costing method are the decisions that are painful to change after entries exist. Spend design time here. Test with a handful of test documents and check the G/L entries, value entries and VAT entries before loading master data in bulk. In Business Central you can change many settings later, but changing the costing method or dimensions on live data needs careful planning.

#### Manufacturing setup in Business Central

**Body:** For production, Manufacturing Setup holds the default times, numbering and planning options. Work centers and machine centers carry capacity and cost rates, routings carry operations and times, and production BOMs carry components. Both routings and BOMs must be certified before use. Always run one complete production order in a test company and compare the cost with your expectation, because wrong rates or missing posting setup show up here first.

#### Common mistakes

**Body:** Typical errors are loading items before inventory posting setup exists, forgetting to certify the BOM or routing, giving everyone broad permission sets, skipping the cost adjustment job queue entry, and going live without reconciling opening balances. Keep configuration in configuration packages so you can repeat the setup in a new company or sandbox.

**Cta:** If you run Business Central on-premises or want a private AI assistant over your Business Central data, Netray can help design it. The checklist stands on its own.

**Faq:**

#### What is the first step in setting up Business Central?

**Answer:** Create the company, then run Assisted Setup and fill in Company Information. After that, set up dimensions, the chart of accounts and General Ledger Setup, because every later posting depends on them.

#### How long does a Business Central setup take?

**Answer:** A simple finance-only company can be set up in days, while a manufacturer with routings, BOMs, migration and testing typically needs weeks to a few months. Data cleansing and acceptance testing usually take longer than the configuration itself.

#### Do I need configuration packages?

**Answer:** They are strongly recommended. Configuration packages let you export and import setup tables and master data, so you can repeat the setup in a sandbox or a new company and keep a record of what you configured.

#### Is this checklist the same for online and on-premises?

**Answer:** The functional setup is largely the same. Differences are in installation, user management (Microsoft Entra ID or Windows authentication), extension deployment and some menu names, so check your release notes.

## Search terms

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