Have you used Assisted Setup to get started using Business Central? Maybe you used Assisted Setup for a function or two like email setup or bank statement import. It has documents that you can read to understand the purpose of each function on the list. Once you’ve done the reading homework, you can use the tool that walks you through simple steps to complete the desired activity.
Being an ‘old school’ implementation specialist, I have used the functions on this list here and there. I decided it would be an interesting task to explore and define each setup step in Assisted Setup.
The first question that came to mind was ‘are these in a particular order’? There order presented in BC, seems a little off to me because I have ‘get ready for first invoice’ before ‘get ready for business.’ There is a method to the madness, that we will explore during this blog series.
It also occurs to me that before you start any of the Assisted Setup Steps, you need to create a company. So the next blog will cover the Company Setup Assistant. We will then explore each of the Assisted Setup Groupings.
Assisted Setup Group 1 – Setup your Company includes setup of sales tax and exchange rate service, enter company details, and fetch users from Microsoft 365. I would have arranged this so that I add the users first, then setup company details before doing sales tax and exchange rates. It is a preference and will not matter what order the steps are completed. We will have an article on each setup.
Assisted Setup Group 2– Get Ready for First Invoice does not assist you through customer setup, payment terms, or use of the sales invoice screen but helps in the preparation of features that you might like to use with invoices. Setting up outgoing email and customized document layouts are the two steps in this section.
Assisted Setup Group 3 – Report on Financial Health will guide you through the setups of creating a consolidated company, a consolidated chart of accounts, mapping the chart of accounts and dimensions and business units. Once again, it does not teach how to execute the consolidation but the purpose here is to guide setup.
Assisted Setup Group 4 – Get Ready for Business has one of the largest lists of setups; some you may use, some you may not, or you may choose to wait to perform setups after you go live. Many times, we see import of bank statement files postponed until month two or three which forces you to learn manual reconciliation and appreciate the automation.
Assisted Setup Group 5 – Connect with Other Systems super helpful if you are using Dynamics 365 Sales, Shopify and/or Dataverse.
Assisted Setup Group 6 – Do More with Business Central aids with extending your use of BC. Cash Flow Forecast is a great tool that companies do manually in Excel. Deploying Outlook, Teams, and Excel for one or more users, as well as, setting up time sheets are reviewed is this section.
Assisted Setup Group 7 – Set Up Approval Workflows gives you directed setup for several specific workflows. This will shortcut the time it takes to put approval workflows in place for your company.
Assisted Setup Group 8 – Set Up Extended Security defines and assisted with field monitoring setup.
As we process through the lengthy list of setup steps above, we will work to provide real world scenarios and situations that you might find yourself in. The pros and cons for options in setups we will endeavor to explain and provide guidance. This will be a long ride but worth it!