The Business Central keyboard shortcuts that speed up daily work

Keyboard shortcuts for finding things in Business Central

Alt+Q opens Tell Me, the search box for pages, reports, actions and help. It is the most useful shortcut in the product. Type a few letters of Posted Sales Invoices or Payment Journals and press Enter. Shift+F12 opens the Role Explorer, a map of everything your role can reach.

Alt+T opens My Settings, where you change company, work date and role. Ctrl+F1 opens help for the page you are on. Two pages side by side are easy too. Alt+Shift+W pops the current page into its own window, which helps when you compare an order with its invoice.

Lists, searching and filtering

On any list, F3 toggles the search box and Shift+F3 opens the filter pane. Alt+F3 filters the list to the value in the selected cell. That is the quickest way to see every order for one customer. Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F3 clears the filters again. Alt+F7 sorts by the selected column.

Jump to the first and last row with Ctrl+Home and Ctrl+End. Select every row with Ctrl+A. A click with Ctrl held adds single rows to the selection before you run an action on them. Press F5 to refresh the data. It is worth doing when a colleague has just posted something you expect to see.

Data entry on cards and document lines

Alt+N creates a new record from a list or card. On document lines, F8 copies the value from the cell above, which turns repetitive line entry into a rhythm. To add a line above the current one, press Ctrl+Insert. Remove the current line with Ctrl+Delete. Alt+Down Arrow opens a lookup or drop-down.

F6 moves to the next FastTab or part of the page, and Shift+F6 moves back. Ctrl+Shift+F12 enlarges the lines part of a document so more rows are visible. Enter moves through the fields marked for quick entry. You choose which fields those are by personalizing the page.

Business Central keyboard shortcuts for documents and posting

On sales and purchase documents and in journals, F9 posts. Shift+F9 posts and prints. Ctrl+F9 releases a document so the warehouse can act on it. Posting asks for confirmation. So a stray key press does not write anything to the ledger by accident while you type.

From a customer, vendor, item or account, Ctrl+F7 opens its ledger entries and F7 opens statistics. Alt+F2 shows or hides the FactBox pane at the side. Alt+O adds a note to the record. You can copy rows with Ctrl+C and paste them with Ctrl+V, between lines or out to Excel.

Helping a team adopt Business Central keyboard shortcuts

For administrators and consultants, Ctrl+Alt+F1 opens page inspection. It shows the table behind a page, its fields and the extensions that touch it. That is the quickest way to answer where a value comes from. Ctrl+F12 switches a page between the wide and narrow layout.

People keep shortcuts they learn in the context of their own tasks. Pick five for each role and put them on a card beside the screen. Then use them in training while entering real documents. Microsoft keeps the complete list in its documentation, and Ctrl+F1 on any page takes you to help.

Business Central keyboard shortcuts: questions users ask

Do the shortcuts work in every browser?

Most do, but the browser takes a few key combinations for itself, and that varies between Edge, Chrome, Firefox and Safari. If a shortcut opens a browser feature instead, try the desktop app for Business Central, which avoids several of these conflicts. So test your favorite Business Central keyboard shortcuts in the browser your team really uses.

Are the shortcuts different on a Mac?

Some are. Combinations using Ctrl and Alt generally map to Cmd and Option, and function keys may need the Fn key, depending on the keyboard settings. Microsoft's shortcut list shows the macOS equivalents next to the Windows ones. So a Mac user should check that list first, then note which keys work on their own keyboard.

Can we create our own keyboard shortcuts?

Not through personalization. A developer can assign a shortcut key to an action in an AL extension. That is sometimes done for a custom action used many times a day. For everything else, Tell Me with Alt+Q reaches any action by name. It is fast enough that most people never miss custom keys, and it needs no development.

What is the fastest way to enter many order lines?

Set up quick entry so Enter stops only on the fields you fill. Use F8 to repeat the value above, and keep your hands on the keyboard. For very long orders, copying rows from Excel and pasting them into the lines is quicker still. So combine these Business Central keyboard shortcuts with a tidy spreadsheet when the line count is large.

Is there a shortcut to switch company?

Alt+T opens My Settings, where the company field sits, and from there it takes a couple of key presses. People who move between companies all day often keep each one open in its own browser tab or window instead. That avoids the switch entirely, and the work date stays set for each company.

Related pages for everyday Business Central keyboard shortcuts

Shortcuts are one way to work faster. These pages cover training, personalizing pages and role centers, and good habits that make Business Central quicker for the whole team. Start with the training page, then pick five Business Central keyboard shortcuts for each role. Use them in the first session, so people practice them on their own documents. For the product detail, see Keyboard shortcuts, on Microsoft Learn.