A Business Central health check with a ranked fix list

Signs you need a Business Central health check

Systems rarely fail all at once. They drift. Month end takes longer each quarter. Inventory value stops matching the general ledger. Users share logins because nobody finished the permissions. Nobody remembers why a certain extension is there. None of this looks urgent on a single day, which is why it lasts.

A check also makes sense at a handover. Perhaps a new controller arrives, or the original partner has moved on. Perhaps the company will add an entity or a warehouse. Knowing the state of the foundation before building on it saves rework. It is a modest step before a large one.

Finance and costing checks in a Business Central health check

We go through posting groups, general posting setup, number series, accounting periods and dimension rules. Gaps here cause quiet errors. Entries land in a default account. Some documents lack the dimension a report needs. To test this, we trace sample documents through to their ledger entries.

For inventory, we confirm that the cost adjustment routine runs on schedule. Then we compare inventory valuation with the ledger accounts. We also look for items with negative stock, and for open item entries that block correct costing. Finally, we reconcile bank and receivables accounts to their ledgers.

Technical checks: extensions, jobs and speed

We list every installed extension with its publisher, version and purpose. We flag those with compiler warnings for the next release, those that overlap and any with no known owner. Next, we check job queue entries for failures, overlaps and tasks that run mid-day.

We measure speed and never guess. With telemetry sent to Azure Application Insights, we can see long-running queries, slow pages and lock timeouts. Then we trace each one back to the extension or report that caused it. Where telemetry is off, we help you switch it on and collect data first.

Permissions and controls in a Business Central health check

We list each user, their license type and their permission sets. A common finding is the SUPER permission set given far more widely than intended. It was the quick fix during go-live, and nobody returned to it. We compare each person's access with the work they really do.

Next, we look at controls around money. Who can change vendor bank details? Who can post and approve the same payment? Are approval workflows active? Does the change log record edits to sensitive fields? We write findings so that an auditor can follow them.

The Business Central health check report

The report is a ranked list, not a thick binder. Each finding states what we saw and why it matters. It also says what fixing it involves and whether your own team can do it. High-risk items sit at the top. Quick wins carry a mark, and nothing is padded.

We walk through the report with your system owner and finance lead on a call. We answer questions and agree an order of work. You are free to fix the list yourselves or hand it to your current partner. You may also ask us to do it. The report is yours to use.

Business Central health check questions

What access do you need to carry out the check?

We need a user account with read access to setup and ledgers. We also need delegated admin or an admin center invitation for environment details. If telemetry is switched on, we need access to it as well. We do not need to post anything, and we change nothing during the check.

Will the health check disrupt our users?

No. The inspection is read only, and much of it happens in a sandbox copy. We ask for a few short conversations with key users and the system owner. We arrange them around their schedule and keep them away from month end.

Our current partner is still engaged. Is that a problem?

Not at all. An outside opinion is common, and a good partner will welcome it. We report to you and keep the tone factual. We describe what we found without guessing at who caused it or why.

Do you also fix what you find?

If you want us to. The report stands on its own, and each finding says whether your team can handle it. Work we take on afterward is scoped and agreed separately. So the check never commits you to anything further.

Does a health check apply to on-premises systems too?

Yes. On-premises systems add server items to the list. These are SQL maintenance, backups, the version and update level, and how web and service tiers are set up. The application checks for finance, costing, extensions and permissions are the same.

What usually follows a health check

A Business Central health check produces a list, and the list leads somewhere. These pages cover the services companies most often ask for once they have read their report. They include cleanup, support, upgrades and training. Read them to plan what comes next. Then contact us with your main symptoms, and we will outline how a check would work. For the product detail, see Monitoring and analyzing telemetry in Business Central.