Getting Started with Dynamics 365 Business Central
Business Central is a business management solution for small and mid-sized organizations that automates and streamlines business processes and helps you manage your business. Signing up is easy, and you can migrate existing business data from your legacy system.
To help you with your subscription, find a Business Central partner. For more information, see How do I find a reselling partner?.
When you sign up for Business Central, you get access to a demonstration company. The demonstration company contains sample data, but you can create new sales documents, for example, or set up a bank account. However, if you want to use Business Central to help run your business, you must contact a Business Central reselling partner and buy a subscription. For more information about trials and subscriptions, see Trials and Subscriptions.
Get to know Business Central
In Business Central, some things will be familiar to you, and other things might be unfamiliar. For some quick, nice-to-know tricks, see:
For more information, see Working with Business Central.
Tip
You can always get back to the Role Center by selecting the company name in the upper left corner.
In the demonstration company, the Business Manager and Accountant Role Centers include the Getting Started tile and the Product Videos tile. Both tiles launch pages where you can choose between different videos that can help you get started with different aspects of Business Central. You can find more videos on our YouTube channel. For more information, see Visit Our Video Library. You can also find eLearning content for the base version of Business Central on Microsoft Learn. If you want more assistance, contact a Business Central partner.
When you are ready to start working and you want to look at some of the business processes that Business Central supports, see Business Functionality.
Before you can begin to use functionality, certain setup must be made. To get started, simply choose the 
icon, and then the Assisted Setup action. For more information, see also Setting Up Business Central.
Tip
Some setup steps can be performed semi-automatically by using assisted setup guides. Others required manual setup, and you can find a list in the Advanced Settings page.
For an overview of current capabilities and what is coming, take a look at our release plan at Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Release Plan.
The Role Centers
The Role Center page is based on a role-centric design to give you fast access to the business process and intelligence tools that you need to do your job. For example, an accountant can monitor payments and approvals, and view finance performance charts. Find out what your current role gives access to with the role explorer. For more information, see Finding Pages with the Role Explorer. Check out the various Role Centers by choosing the Settings icon in the top right corner, choosing My Settings, and then the Role Center to explore. You are automatically signed out and in again to apply the change. For more information, see Change Basic Settings.
Trying things out in your own company
Thinking about subscribing? You can easily change from the demonstration company, and create and work in a company of your own. This is a great way to start toward a subscription. Setups for finances are provided; you just need to create or import your customers, vendors, and the products or services that you sell. After that, you're ready to post invoices and use business intelligence tools to analyze your business. You can use your company for free for a 30-day trial period. If you subscribe to Business Central during that time, you're already up and running. You can continue with the work you did during the trial.
To create a company to try things out, go to the My Settings menu in the top right corner, and change the company to My Company. Sign out of Business Central and then sign in again to apply the change. An assisted setup guide will help you provide basic information about your company. When that's done, explore the Role Center and find the Assisted Setup action.
You can also contact a Dynamics 365 reselling partner. For more information, see How do I find a reselling partner?.
Getting answers to questions
If you are not sure how to do something in Business Central, you can hopefully find the answer either from reading the tooltip for the field that you are unsure of, or by reading the content by opening the Learn more link in a tooltip (use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+F1 ). You can also get to the documentation by choosing the related link in the Help and Support page.
All fields in Business Central are described in tooltips. You can access tooltips by choosing the name of the field. For example, in a page like the Customer Card, simply choose the name of the field to read the tooltip. In a list such as the Customers list, or the lines in a document such as a sales order, you have to choose the drop-down menu to the right of the name of the column and then choose the What's this? menu item.
If you have additional questions, we recommend that you ask the community or contact your reselling partner. For more information, see Where do I go if I have questions?.
Ready to subscribe?
Each time you sign in during the trial period, a notification in a blue bar at the top displays the time remaining. If you decide to subscribe, you must contact a Dynamics 365 reselling partner. For more information, see How do I find a reselling partner? and Dynamics 365 Business Central Trials and Subscriptions.
Other Dynamics 365 apps
Navigate to content about the other Dynamics 365 apps by choosing the Dynamics 365 link in the black banner at the top of this page. You can also learn more at the Dynamics 365 Business Central website.
See Related Training at Microsoft Learn
See Also
Working with Business Central
Setting Up Business Central
Customizing Business Central Using Extensions
Using Business Central as my Business Inbox in Outlook
Getting Business Central on Your Mobile Device
Dynamics 365 Business Central Trials and Subscriptions
Resources for Help and Support
Dynamics 365 Business Central on Microsoft Learn
How do I find a reselling partner?
Dynamics 365 Documentation
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Release Plan
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central