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Best Approach to Upload Large Volume Vendor Master Data (500K+) in Business Central

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Posted on by Sumit Singh

11,782 Super User 2026 Season 1

Hi Experts,

I am looking for suggestions on the most efficient way to upload a large volume of Vendor Master data (approximately 500,000 records) into Business Central.

Currently, I am using the Configuration Package, but it is quite time-consuming and requires processing data in chunks of around 10,000 records per upload.

Could you please recommend the best approach to handle such high-volume data loads? I am open to:

Standard tools or alternative methods available in Business Central

Performance optimization techniques

Customization or batch processing via technical development

Any external tools or APIs that can help improve efficiency

Thanks in advance for your guidance!

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Dynamics 365 Business Central

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Chris Hansen - RUX 8 on at

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Hi!

If it is a cloud instance I would try one of these tools. The Insight Works one is free and I've used it before. Not with your quantity of entries, but it was very fast

Insight Works Import/Export PowerTool: Import Export PowerTool: Install and Configure - Insight Works Knowledge Base

RUX Data Imports and Migration: RUX

Thanks,
Chris

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AndrewThomas81 684 on at

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Breaking the data in chunks helps, which you have already done.

I would also suggest removing any fields that you have not populated in the configuration package, even if a field is blank, Business Central is still going to validate that blank is an acceptable entry. If you have a few of these per record, it can really add to the application time.

You can also turn off validation per field, this will speed the process up, but have obvious drawbacks.

Kind Regards

Andrew Thomas FCCA MCP
YouTube - Use Business Central
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Valentin Castravet 32,645 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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A developer can create a custom import, such as an XMLport, which is much faster than using configuration packages.

Valentin Castravet
Work: Zander ERP Services
Blog: Dynamics 365 Business Central Insights
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/valentin-c-0500a247/

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Gregory Mavrogeorgis 1,078 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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HI,
For 500k vendors, the Configuration Package is not a good tool. Microsoft says RapidStart is for initial setup, not for big data loads. It will lock the tables and make the system very slow. Here is what I suggest to do:
1. Custom AL Codeunit + XMLport

Read the data from a staging table or blob, and loop with Vendor.Insert(true).

Put it in a Job Queue so it runs on the server during night time.

Put a Commit() every 5,000 records. This way, if there is one error, you don't lose all the other records.

2. API v2.0 with $batch

Send POST to the /vendors API.

Use $batch to send up to 100 operations in one request. If you run 4 to 8 threads at the same time, it can process 50-100 records per second. It will finish in a few hours, instead of days.

Important tips for speed:

Turn off the Change Log for the Vendor table before you start. You can turn it on again after it finishes.

Create all related data first (like Vendor Posting Groups, Payment Terms, Dimensions). If these are missing, the validation makes everything very slow.

Do not use Edit-in-Excel or other UI pages. They run page triggers and are very slow for big volume.

External Tools:
If you don't want to write code, tools like KingswaySoft, Scribe, or Logic Apps are very good for this. Power Automate will be too slow for 500,000 records.

If you found this helpful please mark it as verified

Gregory Mavrogeorgis
Work: GMSOFT Limited
Blog: Inside Business Central
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/gregorymavrogeorgis

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Teagen Boll 2,110 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Configuration packages are going to be incredibly slow. As others have mentioned some alternative methods should be tried.

1. Custom XMLport is the quickest and most efficient but would take help from a developer. You could also use some LLM tools and they would give you a good idea of where to start and what to build.

2. Use an add-in such as others have mentioned. I liked the Data editor myself: Table Data Editor for Business Central - this app is free and easy to use.

Best,

Teagen Boll

Work: Catapult ERP

Social: LinkedIn

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