On the majority of list pages in Business Central you can click “Edit In Excel” to take the data into Excel. Once in Excel you can then delete, modify or add data and “publish” any changes back to Business Central.
The great thing is, as the Excel spreadsheet is a stand alone workbook with a connection back to Business Central via the Excel Add-in, you can save the Excel spreadsheet on your PC, and reopen it without the need to keep clicking “Edit in Excel” to download a fresh workbook.
However, if you inadvertently close the Excel Add-In, how do you get it back? This post shows you how to easily reopen the Excel Add-In in Excel, so you don’t have to click “Edit in Excel” to download a new workbook.
Edit in Excel
If you have the required permissions you can click “Edit in Excel” to download an Excel spreadsheet with a link back to Business Central.
Below I click “Edit in Excel” on the Customer List
Excel Add-In
If you open the workbook the Excel Add-in should open as per below:
As this is a Excel workbook, with a link to my Business Central data via the Excel Add-in, I can click “Design” and just add the columns I want and then save the Excel spreadsheet and use it over and over again to make changes to my Business Central customers. There’s no need to click “Edit on Excel” again on the Customer list whenever I want to edit my Customer data in Excel.
However what happens if I accidentally close the Excel Add-in? How do I get it back?
Recovering the Excel Add-in
I’m sure there are many ways to recover the Excel Add-in pane, however the method I use is to click “Home” on the ribbon and then “Add-ins” and then click the “Business Central” add-in as per below:
Conclusion
This post shows a quick method to reopen the Business Central Excel Add-in if its accidentally closed. Its something I’m constantly forgetting so hopefully this will help others 😊.
I also wanted to highlight how cool it is that you can save the Excel spreadsheet and reuse it over and over again 😊.
Personalisation is a great feature that allows users to add and remove fields on pages in Business Central. (assuming the role the user is assigned allows it). However sometimes there might be a field you wish to add that’s not available when you try and add it via personalisation.
In this post we’ll go through why the field isn’t available and also how you still add it by customising the role.
Why do we only get certain fields in Personalisation
Every page in Business Central is based on a table, which you can verify using the “Page Inspector” tool. For instance, on the Customer List page, pressing CTRL+ALT+F1 reveals that it is built on the “Customer” table.
However, if I try and personalise and add the “City” field, its not available?
I’m fairly confident the “City” field is part of the “Customer” table, so why isn’t it available to add through personalisation?
This is because, while the “City” field exists in the “Customer” table, and the “Customer List” is based off the “Customer” table, it hasn’t been included in the “Customer List” page object.
Adding Fields by Customising the Role Centre
So, how can you add a field that isn’t available through personalisation, but exists in the table?
The answer is to customise the Role Centre! 😊 By using the “Customise” feature on the Role Centre, you can access all the fields in the table that the page is based on.
For example, to add the “City” field to the Customer List page, I just need to determine which Role Centre I’m using and customise the page from there.
When checking, I found that my current Role Centre is “Business Manager Evaluation”.
I can then locate that Role Centre on the “Profiles (Roles) page and click “Customise pages”
This opens another Business Central session that I can browse to the “Customer List” page and add the additional fields in just the same way as if I was personalising
Once this has been added to the page, the City field will be available for everyone using that Role Centre (any users not wishing to see it use “Personalisation” to remove it).
Conclusion
This is one simple method you can use to add fields to a page that aren’t available via Personalisation.
In this post, we’ll explore the various options available when running the “Close Income Statement” routine in Business Central, and we’ll also look at the outcomes of running each option.
This routine is used to close the income statement General Ledger accounts and transfer the balances to the retained earnings account as part of the General Ledger year end routine.
Depending on your needs, Business Central offers several ways to customise how these accounts are closed, and in this post, we’ll walk through each of these options, showing the results when the routine is run using the different settings.
Please note this post assumes you have followed any year end processes such as ensuring all General Ledger accounts are correctly set as either Income Statement or Balance Sheet and the Financial Year has been closed via the “Accounting Periods” page.
Option 1 – Post to Retained Earnings in Summary with no Dimensions
With option 1 we select the following options in the “Close Income Statement” page
Post to Retained Earnings Acc. = Balance
Dimensions = None Selected
Using the options above the system closes each income statement at GL account level, without any breakdown by dimension. Therefore is I were to have multiple postings to an income statement GL account, and each posting had different dimension analysis, I’d just get one entry in my closing journal for the total balance of the income statement account, rather than a posting per dimension combination.
Additionally, as we have selected “Balance”, the system will make a single entry to the retained earnings account, consolidating all income and expense balances into one summarised posting.
The outcome of using these options in my demo data is shown below.
Option 2 – Post in Detail to the Retained Earnings but no Dimension Analysis
With option 2 we select the following options in the “Close Income Statement” page
Post to Retained Earnings Acc. = Detail
Dimensions = None Selected
When you run the “Close Income Statement” process in Business Central and select “Detail” rather than “Balance,” the system posts an entry to the Retained Earnings account for each individual income statement GL account its closing. I’ll therefore get multiple entries (“Detail”) to the retained earnings account rather than a “Balance”.
However, as I’ve still not selected “Dimension”, I’d still only get one posting per income statement account, regardless of any dimension postings.
The outcome of using these options in my demo data is shown below.
To highlight the additional “detail” posting to the Retained Earnings account, if I preview post this journal I can see the 5 posting to the Retained Earnings account rather than one entry.
Option 3 – Post in Summary to Retained Earnings and close by Dimension
With option 3 we select the following options in the “Close Income Statement” page
Post to Retained Earnings Acc. = Summary
Dimensions = All Selected
With “Balance” and dimensions enabled as per the above screen shot, we are now back to posting a summarised entry to retained earnings account, however we will now have breakdown of the GL posting by dimension for each income statement, creating separate entries per dimension.
The outcome of using these options in my demo data is shown below.
There are now multiple entries to the GL accounts per dimension combination all balanced to one entry to the Retained Earnings account
Option 4 – Post in Detail to Retained Earnings and close by Dimension
With option 4 we select the following options in the “Close Income Statement” page
Post to Retained Earnings Acc. = Detail
Dimensions = All Selected
The final option we’ll look at when running the “Close Income Statement” process is to select “Detail” and tick “Dimension” as per the screen show above.
Having these options selected will post a separate entry to the retained earnings account for each income statement GL account (Detail) and further breaks down for each entry by dimension. (as we have ticked the Dimensions). This provides the highest level of detail.
The outcome of using these options in my demo data is shown below.
Conclusion
As we can see the “Close Income Statement” routine in Business Central offers several options to customise how income statement balances are posted to retained earnings.
Whether you choose to post a single summarised entry to the Retained Earnings account, or want more detailed posting, each method allows for different levels of analysis and reporting.
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