Setting up a new company in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is one of the first and most important steps when starting fresh—whether you’re establishing a new business entity, creating a demo environment for learning, or setting up a test company to try out new features safely. Business Central makes this process incredibly simple and flexible through its intuitive interface and the Admin Center, allowing users to create and configure new companies in just a few steps.

In this blog, we’ll walk through how to create a new company using the Create New Company wizard and explore the different types of companies you can set up—whether it’s with demo data, setup data only, or a completely blank configuration. We’ll also discuss how to select modules during creation and share a few best practices to help you get started smoothly. By the end of this article, you’ll have a clear understanding of how to create, configure, and begin working with a new company in Business Central.

Create a new company.

Select the search for page icon in the top-right corner of the page, enter companies, and then choose the related link. Select Create New Company. 

This starts the create new company wizard:

When creating a new company in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, you’ll come across different options in the Create New Company wizard. Each option serves a different purpose depending on how you want to start. Let’s understand them one by one

Create New – No Data

This option gives you a completely blank company — no setup data, no sample data, nothing pre-configured. You have full control to configure everything manually or through the Assisted Setup wizards.

Production – Setup Data Only

This option creates a company with basic configurations (like chart of accounts, posting groups, tax setups, and payment methods) — but no transactional or sample data.
It’s perfect if you want to start with a clean system that already includes standard setups, and then import or create your own customers, items, and vendors.

Evaluation – Contoso Sample Data

If you’re new to Business Central and just want to explore how the system works, this is the quickest way to get started.
This option creates a company that already contains demo data — such as customers, vendors, items, and sample transactions.

You’ll find preloaded invoices, journals, and ledger entries, so you can immediately view dashboards, charts, and reports without doing any setup.

💡 Note:
When you create a new company using the Evaluation – Contoso Sample Data or Production – Setup Data Only options, Business Central also lets you choose which modules to include during setup.

For example, you can select modules like Sales, Purchase, Inventory, Manufacturing, or Service Management based on your business needs.
This makes it easy to tailor the environment — so you only load the functional areas you actually plan to use.

Select the type based on the requirement and then Click on Finish.

New Company Process will be start.

Each of these options takes a few minutes to create, and once the company appears in the Allowed Companies window, you can open it and start configuring based on your needs.

Thanks For Reading...!!

Regards,

Khushbu Rajvi