Customize Business Central for your team: step-by-step Guide

Every business is unique, and so are the workflows that drive success. That’s why flexibility is one of the biggest advantages of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. Out of the box, it comes with powerful features — but the real value lies in the ability to adapt it to your team’s needs. When you customize Business Central, you empower users to focus only on the data that matters most, streamline daily tasks, and build role-specific views that improve productivity.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to customize Business Central pages and profiles, step by step. You’ll learn how to adjust card and list pages, configure profiles for different roles, and assign them to team members. Beyond that, we’ll explore best practices, limitations, and future-proofing tips to ensure your customizations deliver long-term value. By the end, you’ll see how easy it is to shape Business Central into a platform that truly fits your organization.

What does it mean to customize Business Central?

Before diving into the how-to, it’s important to clarify what customizing Business Central really means.

• Personalization: These are changes that individual users make to their own views. For example, hiding irrelevant fields, reordering columns, or adding new data points to a page.
• Customization via profiles: These are role-based changes that admins can apply to groups of users, ensuring that people in similar roles see the same layouts.
• Extensions and development: This is the deepest form of customization. It involves adding new capabilities to Business Central using extensions from Microsoft AppSource or developing custom modules.

In this article, we focus on personalization and role-based customization, because they’re the quickest ways to make Business Central more user-friendly without development work.

Why customize Business Central?

Business Central is designed for a wide range of industries and roles. But every company has its own way of working. For example:

• Accountants need quick access to financial fields and posting details.
• Sales reps prioritize customer information, contacts, and opportunities.
• Marketers look for campaign or region-specific data.
• Operations managers want fast access to supply chain, item, or vendor records.

Without customization, each role might be overwhelmed by irrelevant fields or miss out on key information. By taking time to customize Business Central, you:

• Reduce clutter and simplify navigation.
• Improve user adoption since each team member sees what they need most.
• Shorten training time by tailoring screens to specific job functions.
• Boost efficiency and accuracy by minimizing distractions.
• Align your ERP more closely with real business processes.

Customizing pages in Business Central

Pages are where users spend most of their time in Business Central. Let’s explore how to tailor both card pages and list pages to better serve your team.

Customizing a card page

A card page displays detailed information about a single record, such as a customer, vendor, or item.

Here’s how you can customize one:

1. Open the card page you’d like to adjust.
2. Click on the gear icon (Settings) in the top-right corner.

3. Select Personalize. A banner will appear at the top of the page.

4. Use the red triangle icons next to fields to hide or remove unnecessary data. For example, if your team never uses “Credit Limit,” you can remove it from view.

5. To add new fields, click + Field in the personalization menu. A panel opens on the right with available fields. Simply drag and drop the ones you need into your page layout.

6. Once satisfied, click Done to save changes.

This simple process lets you adapt each card page so users only see the details that matter to their role.

Customizing a list page

A list page shows multiple records at once, such as all your customers, vendors, or transactions.

To customize it:

1. Open a list page (for example, Customers).
2. Click on the gear icon and choose Personalize.
3. Use the red triangle icons to hide, move, or freeze columns.

4. To add fields, click + Field and drag your preferred column into the list.
5. After completing changes, click Done.

The result is a streamlined list page that helps users scan through large sets of data more efficiently.

How to customize profiles in Business Central?

While page customization tailors views at the individual level, profiles take personalization a step further by defining role-based experiences across your organization.

What are profiles?

Profiles in Business Central are pre-configured roles such as Accountant, Sales Order Processor, or Marketing Manager. Each profile determines how pages look and what features are most prominent for that role. Customizing profiles ensures consistency across teams and aligns Business Central with departmental needs.

How to configure profiles?

To configure a profile:

1. Use the search bar at the top of Business Central and search for Profiles (Roles).
2. Select the profile you want to adjust, such as Accountant.
3. Click Customize Pages within that profile.

4. A new view opens where you can hide, move, or add fields — just as you did with card and list pages.

For example, an Accountant profile might prioritize ledger entries, while a Marketing profile could highlight campaign-related fields.

How to assign profiles to users?

After customizing profiles, you’ll want to assign them to the right people.

1. In the search bar, type User Settings.
2. Open the settings for a user.
3. In the Profile ID field, select the appropriate role (e.g., Accountant, Marketing).

4. Save your changes.

Now, every time that user logs into Business Central, they’ll see a layout optimized for their role.

Limitations of customization in Business Central

It’s important to understand what you can and can’t do when you customize Business Central:

• You can: Hide or add fields, reorder columns, create role-based profiles, and assign roles to users.
• You cannot: Change core system logic, redesign workflows, or add completely new features through personalization.

For more advanced needs, companies often turn to:

• Extensions from Microsoft AppSource.
• Custom development with partners like Gestisoft.
• Integration with Power Automate or Power Apps for workflow automation.

Knowing these limits helps you decide when simple personalization is enough, and when to escalate to more advanced customization.

Benefits when you customize Business Central

Once you’ve customized pages and profiles, the impact on your business can be significant:

• Tailored experiences: Each department sees only the fields and pages they need.
• Faster onboarding: New employees adapt quickly when their screens reflect their tasks.
• Higher adoption: Teams are more likely to use Business Central consistently.
• Better productivity: Less time wasted searching for information means more time spent on valuable work.
• Scalability: Customizations can evolve with your company as your needs change.

Best practices to customize Business Central

While it’s tempting to overhaul everything at once, keep these best practices in mind:

• Start small: Focus on the most important customizations first.
• Test before rollout: Make sure changes don’t disrupt workflows.
• Document changes: Keep a record for training and troubleshooting.
• Avoid over-customization: Too many changes can overwhelm users.
• Review regularly: As your business grows, revisit customizations to ensure they still align with your processes.
• Communicate with teams: Ask users for feedback — what fields help them, what slows them down.

Customize Business Central with Gestisoft

Customizing Business Central is straightforward — but doing it strategically can transform how your organization operates. The right configurations can mean the difference between a system that feels cluttered and one that feels like it was built for your team.

At Gestisoft, we specialize in helping businesses get the most out of Microsoft Dynamics 365. From initial implementation to advanced customization, our experts ensure your Business Central setup reflects your workflows and drives efficiency.

Ready to unlock the full potential of Business Central? Contact us today to learn how we can tailor the platform to your business needs.