Set up finance

Path: Business functionality > Set up Business Central > Set up finance · tier official · system finance · narrative reviewed (checked by Opus)

Overview

This section groups the setup articles for core finance. The page “Set up financial processes” is the entry point: it lists finance setup tasks in a table and links to the related articles. From there, pages cover the chart of accounts, posting groups, payment methods and terms, and fiscal years and accounting periods. Other pages are organized by topic. Currency pages cover additional reporting currency, exchange rate updates, and applying entries in different currencies. Tax pages cover VAT, unrealized VAT, withholding tax, excise tax, VAT number validation, and Intrastat. Collections pages cover reminder terms and levels, finance charge terms, multiple interest rates, and automated reminders. Reporting pages cover financial reports built from row and column definitions and account categories, and cash flow analysis. Smaller pages cover invoice rounding, payment tolerances, cash customers, audit trail codes, and allocation keys. Start with “Set up financial processes” to find the right task. Then open the article for the area you are configuring. Posting groups map customers, vendors, items and other entities to G/L accounts in the chart of accounts, so many other setups rely on them.

Key points

• Start with ‘Set up financial processes’, which tables finance setup tasks and links to related articles.
• Chart of accounts: account types, totaling field, extended texts, deletion controls, and the indent function.
• Posting groups: general, specific, and tax posting groups, with alternative and multiple posting group support and troubleshooting.
• Currencies: additional reporting currency, exchange rate updates (manual or automatic via a rate service), and applying entries across currencies with rounding accounts.
• Taxes: VAT (posting groups, clauses, reverse charge), unrealized VAT, withholding tax, excise tax (version 29), and VAT number validation through VIES.
• Collections: reminder terms and levels with fixed and dynamic fees, finance charge terms (average daily balance or balance due), multiple interest rates, and job-queue reminder automation.
• Payment setup: payment terms with date formulas and discounts, payment methods, payment tolerance and discount tolerance, and invoice rounding.
• Reporting and control: financial reports built from row and column definitions and account categories (2025 release wave 1), Intrastat (2022 release wave 2), fiscal years and period closing, source and reason codes, and cash flow forecasts.

Learn pages

• Apply Entries in Different Currencies: You can apply ledger entries in multiple currencies, for example, if you sell in one currency and receive payment in another.
• Automate reminders in collections: Save time in collections by automating the processes of creating, issuing, and sending reminders to customers.
• Build financial reports using financial data and account categories: Describes how to use financial reports to create various views and reports for analyzing financial performance data.
• Payment tolerance and payment discount tolerance: This article explains how to set up payment tolerance to close an invoice when the payment doesn’t fully cover the invoice amount.
• Posting group setup: Learn how to use posting groups to save time and avoid mistakes when you post transactions.
• Set up additional currencies: Your general ledger is set up to use your local currency (LCY), and another currency is set up as an additional currency, with a current exchange rate assigned.
• Set Up Cash Customers: This topic describes the steps required to set up the invoice with a customer number for customers who pay in cash.
• Set Up Codes for Audit Trails: Learn about the tasks to set up source codes and reason codes that you can use to track audit trails.
• Set up excise tax: Learn how to set up excise tax types, assign one or more excise taxes to items, configure fixed assets, and prepare excise journals.
• Set Up Finance Charge Terms: Learn how to set up Business Central so that you can inform customers of added charges by sending finance charge memos.
• Set up financial processes: Learn about the tasks required to set up finance in your business to suit all your accounting, auditing, or bookkeeping needs.
• Set up Intrastat reporting: This article explains how to set up Intrastat reporting features to report trade with companies in other EU countries/regions.
• Set up invoice rounding: If you need to round invoice amounts when you create invoices, you can use the automatic rounding function explained here.
• Set Up Multiple Interest Rates for Delayed Payment: This topic tells you how to calculate finance charges with multiple interest rates for a specific period.
• Set up or change the chart of accounts: Learn about setting up your chart of accounts (COA) with the ledger accounts that store your financial data.
• Set up payment methods: You use payment methods, for example, check, bank transfer, cash, or PayPal, to define how sales and purchase invoices are paid.
• Set up payment terms: Use payment terms to manage due dates and payment discounts.
• Set Up Reminder Terms and Levels: Set up Business Central so you can send reminders about payments due and add charges, or fees because of the delay.
• Set up unrealized value added tax: If you’re using cash-based accounting, you can specify how to handle unrealized VAT for sales and purchases.
• Set up value-added tax: Make sure that you correctly calculate, post, and report on VAT for sales and purchases. We recommend that you use the assisted setup guide to set up VAT.
• Set up withholding tax: Learn how to configure Business Central so that you can record withholding taxes.
• Setting up cash flow analysis: Use Accountant Role Center charts to analyze the flow of money in your business, including expenses and income, liquidity, and cash receipts minus cash payments.
• Update currency exchange rates: Learn how to use Business Central to adjust exchange rates for amounts in different currencies.
• Use Allocation Keys in General Journals: You can allocate an entry in a general journal to several different accounts when you post the journal.
• Validate VAT Registration Numbers: Let Business Central validate VAT registration numbers for your contacts, customers, and vendors, based on EU VIES VAT Number Validation service.
• Working with accounting periods and fiscal years: Learn how to work with accounting periods to define when your company reports financial performance.

Videos, posts and code changes

Linked by a Haiku matcher with a grounding quote from the item’s summary (link/topics.ts); machine-generated.

• #11730 Bug 649042: [Expense Agent] It would be nice if default data setup included number series for users, reports, etc. (code change): “Number series for spend requests added to demo data setup”
• #9912 Restore the IRS Forms assisted setup registration removed by the CLEAN25 sweep (code change): “IRS Forms setup wizard registration that was accidentally removed”

Business Central pages and reports

The pages, reports and queries this hub’s Learn pages name (ms.search.form, API reference), joined to the code by exact object id (data/index/docs-objects.json); a page shows the table it runs on.

• Page 4 “Payment Terms” · on Table 3 “Payment Terms”
• Page 5 “Currencies” · on Table 4 “Currency”
• Page 6 “Finance Charge Terms” · on Table 5 “Finance Charge Terms”
• Page 10 “Countries/Regions” · on Table 9 “Country/Region”
• Page 16 “Chart of Accounts” · on Table 15 “G/L Account”
• Page 17 “G/L Account Card” · on Table 15 “G/L Account”
• Page 18 “G/L Account List” · on Table 15 “G/L Account”
• Page 21 “Customer Card” · on Table 18 “Customer”
• Page 22 “Customer List” · captioned “Customers” · on Table 18 “Customer”
• Page 25 “Customer Ledger Entries” · on Table 21 “Cust. Ledger Entry”
• Page 30 “Item Card” · on Table 27 “Item”
• Page 100 “Accounting Periods” · on Table 50 “Accounting Period”
• Page 103 “Account Schedule Names” · captioned “(Financial Report) Row Definitions” · on Table 84 “Acc. Schedule Name”
• Page 104 “Account Schedule” · captioned “(Financial Report) Row Definition” · on Table 85 “Acc. Schedule Line”
• Page 108 “Financial Reports” · on Table 88 “Financial Report”
• Page 118 “General Ledger Setup” · on Table 98 “General Ledger Setup”
• Page 148 “Customer Posting Group Card” · on Table 92 “Customer Posting Group”
• Page 195 “Acc. Sched. KPI Web Srv. Setup” · captioned “Financial Report KPI Web Service Setup” · on Table 135 “Acc. Sched. KPI Web Srv. Setup”
• Page 196 “Acc. Sched. KPI Web Srv. Lines” · captioned “Financial Report KPI Web Service Setup” · on Table 136 “Acc. Sched. KPI Web Srv. Line”
• Page 197 “Acc. Sched. KPI Web Service” · captioned “Financial Report KPI Web Service” · on Table 197 “Acc. Sched. KPI Buffer”
• Page 198 “Acc. Sched. KPI WS Dimensions” · captioned “Account Schedule KPI WS Dimensions” · on Table 197 “Acc. Sched. KPI Buffer”
• Page 249 “VAT Registration Log” · on Table 249 “VAT Registration Log”
• Page 257 “Source Codes” · on Table 230 “Source Code”
• Page 259 “Reason Codes” · on Table 231 “Reason Code”
• Page 279 “Source Code Setup” · on Table 242 “Source Code Setup”
• Page 283 “Recurring General Journal” · captioned “Recurring General Journals” · on Table 81 “Gen. Journal Line”
• Page 284 “Allocations” · on Table 221 “Gen. Jnl. Allocation”
• Page 308 “Transaction Types” · on Table 258 “Transaction Type”
• Page 309 “Transport Methods” · on Table 259 “Transport Method”
• Page 310 “Tariff Numbers” · on Table 260 “Tariff Number”
• Page 312 “Gen. Business Posting Groups” · on Table 250 “Gen. Business Posting Group”
• Page 313 “Gen. Product Posting Groups” · captioned “General Product Posting Groups” · on Table 251 “Gen. Product Posting Group”
• Page 314 “General Posting Setup” · on Table 252 “General Posting Setup”
• Page 386 “Extended Text” · on Table 279 “Extended Text Header”
• Page 391 “Extended Text List” · on Table 279 “Extended Text Header”
• Page 395 “General Posting Setup Card” · on Table 252 “General Posting Setup”
• Page 405 “Areas” · on Table 284 “Area”
• Page 406 “Transaction Specifications” · on Table 285 “Transaction Specification”
• Page 427 “Payment Methods” · on Table 289 “Payment Method”
• Page 431 “Reminder Terms” · on Table 292 “Reminder Terms”
• Page 432 “Reminder Levels” · on Table 293 “Reminder Level”
• Page 436 “Reminder List” · captioned “Reminders” · on Table 295 “Reminder Header”
• Page 459 “Sales & Receivables Setup” · on Table 311 “Sales & Receivables Setup”
• Page 460 “Purchases & Payables Setup” · on Table 312 “Purchases & Payables Setup”
• Page 470 “VAT Business Posting Groups” · on Table 323 “VAT Business Posting Group”
• Page 471 “VAT Product Posting Groups” · on Table 324 “VAT Product Posting Group”
• Page 472 “VAT Posting Setup” · on Table 325 “VAT Posting Setup”
• Page 473 “VAT Posting Setup Card” · on Table 325 “VAT Posting Setup”
• Page 478 “Currencies for Reminder Level” · on Table 329 “Currency for Reminder Level”
• Page 483 “Currency Exchange Rates” · on Table 330 “Currency Exchange Rate”
• Page 488 “Column Layout Names” · captioned “(Financial Report) Column Definitions” · on Table 333 “Column Layout Name”
• Page 489 “Column Layout” · captioned “(Financial Report) Column Definitions” · on Table 334 “Column Layout”
• Page 490 “Acc. Schedule Overview” · captioned “Financial Report” · on Table 85 “Acc. Schedule Line”
• Page 494 “Finance Charge Terms Card” · on Table 5 “Finance Charge Terms”
• Page 495 “Currency Card” · on Table 4 “Currency”
• Page 572 “Finance Charge Interest Rates” · on Table 572 “Finance Charge Interest Rate”
• Page 575 “VAT Registration No. Formats” · on Table 381 “VAT Registration No. Format”
• Page 734 “VAT Clauses by Doc. Type” · captioned “VAT Clauses by Document Type” · on Table 562 “VAT Clause by Doc. Type”
• Page 747 “VAT Clauses” · on Table 560 “VAT Clause”
• Page 748 “VAT Clause Translations” · on Table 561 “VAT Clause Translation”
• Page 764 “Acc. Sched. Chart Matrix” · on Table 763 “Acc. Sched. Chart Setup Line”
• Page 765 “Acc. Sched. Chart Line” · on Table 763 “Acc. Sched. Chart Setup Line”
• Page 766 “Acc. Sched. Chart SubPage” · on Table 763 “Acc. Sched. Chart Setup Line”
• Page 846 “Cash Flow Setup” · on Table 843 “Cash Flow Setup”
• Page 847 “Cash Flow Forecast Card” · on Table 840 “Cash Flow Forecast”
• Page 849 “Cash Flow Forecast List” · captioned “Cash Flow Forecasts” · on Table 840 “Cash Flow Forecast”
• Page 851 “Chart of Cash Flow Accounts” · on Table 841 “Cash Flow Account”
• Page 855 “Cash Flow Account List” · on Table 841 “Cash Flow Account”
• Page 862 “Cash Flow Account Card” · on Table 841 “Cash Flow Account”
• Page 869 “Cash Flow Forecast Chart” · captioned “Cash Flow Forecast” · on Table 485 “Business Chart Buffer”
• Page 1279 “Service Connections” · on Table 1400 “Service Connection”
• Page 1818 “Cash Flow Forecast Wizard” · captioned “Set Up Cash Flow Forecast”
• Page 1877 “VAT Setup Wizard” · captioned “VAT Setup”
• Page 4810 “Intrastat Report Setup” · on Table 4810 “Intrastat Report Setup”
• Page 4811 “Intrastat Report List” · on Table 4811 “Intrastat Report Header”
• Page 5200 “Employee Card” · on Table 5200 “Employee”
• Page 5600 “Fixed Asset Card” · on Table 5600 “Fixed Asset”
• Page 6285 “Sust. Excise Jnl. Templates” · captioned “Excise Journal Templates” · on Table 6238 “Sust. Excise Journal Template”
• Page 6784 “Wthldg. Tax Bus. Post. Group” · captioned “Withholding Tax Bus. Post. Group” · on Table 6784 “Wthldg. Tax Bus. Post. Group”
• Page 6786 “Withholding Tax Posting Setup” · on Table 6786 “Withholding Tax Posting Setup”
• Page 6789 “Withholding Tax Groups” · on Table 6792 “Withholding Tax Group”
• Page 6790 “Withholding Tax Group Card” · on Table 6792 “Withholding Tax Group”
• Page 7414 “Excise Tax Types” · on Table 7412 “Excise Tax Type”
• Page 7416 “Item Excise Taxes” · captioned “Excise Taxes” · on Table 7415 “Item Excise Tax”
• Report 25 “Account Schedule” · captioned “Run Financial Report”
• Report 86 “Adjust Add. Reporting Currency”

Learn also names 8 objects with no object page: page/311, page/325, page/326, page/327, page/328, page/8451, page/12202, page/31077.

Source: Microsoft Learn (CC BY 4.0). Descriptions are Learn’s own.