Start Here

Something in Business Central not behaving? Work down this page. Most things are answered here already — and if they aren't, the last section tells you exactly what to send me so we can skip three rounds of questions.

The sixty-second checks

These four clear most of what reaches me. Try them before anything else.

1. Hard refresh the page. Hold Ctrl and press F5. A normal refresh reloads the cached copy; this one doesn't.
2. Check which company you are in. The name is at the top of the screen. Posting into the wrong entity is easier than it sounds.
3. Open it in a private window. If it works there, the problem is cache or a browser extension, not Business Central.
4. Try a different browser. If Edge fails and Chrome works, that alone narrows it down enormously.

Part 1 — Something on screen isn't working

A page won't load, a button does nothing, something has gone missing. Start here if Business Central itself is misbehaving.

A field or column has disappeared

• Personalising your screen — almost always someone hid it, and it only affects you

A document has vanished from a list

Filters persist between sessions, so one you set weeks ago is probably still hiding it. Clear the whole filter pane, including anything you'd need to scroll to see. Also check you're on the right list — posted and unposted documents live in separate places. Fastest route is to search the document number directly.

A report or PDF won't open

Nine times out of ten it generated fine and the browser blocked it. Look for a blocked pop-up icon in the address bar, then check your Downloads folder. If neither works, try a different browser.

Getting data in and out of Excel

• Importing data from Excel — building the template and pasting payables or receivables in

If Export to Excel does nothing at all: allow pop-ups and downloads for the site, and check your Downloads folder. If Excel opens but stays empty, sign in to your work account from inside Excel. Note that Open in Excel gives a read-only snapshot while Edit in Excel writes changes back — people pick the wrong one constantly.

Working faster

• Keyboard shortcuts

Part 2 — The numbers don't look right

Nothing is broken, but the result isn't what you expected. This is where most month-end questions land.

Month-end and closing the period

• Extending your financial year — going from 12 periods to 15, and checking the year is still open first
• Exchange Rate Adjustment: unrealised forex gain and loss — setting month-end rates and running the adjustment
• Bank reconciliation — bank charges, deposits in transit, unpresented cheques

Foreign currency

• Foreign currency revaluation — why open documents need adjusting, and how Adjust Exchange Rate works
• Processing a foreign currency payment

Fixed assets

• The depreciation amount differs from my own calculation — the usual answer after a migration
• Depreciation keeps creating the same entries again — why running it twice before posting doubles your journal
• Disposing of a fixed asset
• Recording a trade-in — disposal and acquisition at the same time
• Budgeted assets — forecasting next year's depreciation before you buy
• Adding cost to an asset you already have

Intercompany

• Intercompany setup — partner codes and the prerequisites
• Posting an intercompany transaction

Emails and statements

• The statement went to the wrong email address — why Document Layouts beats the Customer Card

Fixing something already posted

• Reversing a posted document — journals and documents are cancelled differently, start here
• Correcting a wrong dimension value — using Correct Dimension rather than a reversing entry

Document numbering

• Why a journal batch needs two number series — the gap-prevention design that confuses everyone
• Choosing which sales invoice number series a sales order converts to

Customers, vendors and recurring entries

• Netting a customer balance against a vendor balance — when the same party is both
• Recurring journals — monthly expenses, allocations by percentage

Please send these to me rather than working around them

These three have workarounds that appear to succeed and quietly cause a problem someone has to unpick later.

"Posting date is not within your range of allowed posting dates." Check the posting date on the document first, because a mistyped year is the usual cause and you can fix that yourself. If the date really is correct, the period has been closed deliberately. Don't shift the date to get past it — that posts into the wrong period.

"You do not have permission to…" Send me a screenshot showing the full message; the object it names is what tells me which permission is missing. Please don't have a colleague post it under their login — it works, and it puts their name on your transaction.

Any number series error. Number series are shared across everyone in the company and break in ways that only surface the following week, usually at month end.

Still stuck?

Send me these five things in one message and I can usually answer without a call:

1. Which company — the entity name shown at the top of your screen
2. What you were doing — the page or document you were on
3. The exact message — word for word, or a screenshot
4. The document number, if there is one
5. Whether it worked before — first time trying, or it worked last week and stopped

Copy the block below into our usual WhatsApp conversation and fill in the blanks. Attach your screenshot with it.

BC issue

Company:
Doing:
Message:
Document no:
Worked before:

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