Business Central human resources, used for what it does well

What Business Central human resources keeps on an employee

The employee card holds contact details, job title, employment and termination dates and manager. It also links to a resource and a salesperson record where the person has those roles. Related pages store contracts, qualifications, relatives and alternative addresses. They also list articles issued to the person, such as keys or a laptop.

Confidential information, however, has its own page. Permission sets can restrict it. We decide with your HR lead which lists are worth maintaining. However, we also configure number series and lookup codes. We import current staff from a spreadsheet through a configuration package. For example, nobody retypes the whole company.

Registering and reporting absences in Business Central human resources

You define causes of absence once, for example holiday, sickness or training. Also, each has a unit of measure. HR staff then register absence per employee with from and to dates and a quantity. In addition, standard pages show absences by category and by period, for one person or the whole company.

This is registration after the fact by HR staff. There is no built-in request and approval step for employees. There is no balance of entitlement that counts down either. Where you need that, a Power Apps form with a Power Automate approval can write into the absence table. Or an add-on can take over leave entirely.

Employee ledger entries and expense payments

Employees can have a posting group and a ledger of their own. You enter an expense claim in a general journal against the employee account. That, in turn, creates an open entry. The payment journal then pays employees alongside vendors, by check or electronic file, and applies the payment to the claim.

Therefore, this gives a clean record of what each person is owed without creating them as a vendor. We set up the employee posting group and payable account. For example, we set up the bank details needed for electronic payment. For receipt capture and approval before posting, an expense management add-on feeds the same ledger.

Payroll and Business Central human resources

Business Central does not calculate US payroll. A payroll provider or a payroll add-on handles wages, taxes and filings. The results post to the general ledger as a journal. Also, dimensions for department and project show labor cost where it belongs.

We connect that import, either through the payroll extension point many providers support or through a mapped file. Next, we reconcile the first runs with your accountant. Time recorded on time sheets can flow the other way to the payroll provider. So hours are entered once and used for both job cost and pay.

Growing beyond Business Central human resources pages

Recruiting, onboarding checklists, performance appraisals, training plans and employee self-service are outside the standard pages. Companies that need them have three routes. One is an HR add-on that runs inside Business Central. Another is a separate HR system linked through APIs. The third is light Power Platform apps for one or two processes.

We start from the processes that cause you work today and size the answer to them. For instance, a company that only wants leave requests does not need a full suite. Whatever you pick, the employee record in Business Central stays the link to resources, time sheets and expense payments. So finance data remains in one place.

Business Central human resources questions

Is human resources included in the Business Central license?

Yes. The employee, absence and related pages are part of Essentials and Premium at no extra charge. Team Members users can read the data their permissions allow. Microsoft publishes current license prices on its site.

Does Business Central run payroll?

Not for the United States in the standard product. A provider or an add-on processes payroll. The accounting result comes in as a journal. We set up that import and the mapping to accounts and dimensions.

Can employees request leave themselves?

Not with the standard pages, where HR staff register absences. A small Power Apps and Power Automate solution or an HR add-on adds requests, approvals and entitlement balances. It also writes approved leave back to the employee absence records.

How is sensitive employee data protected?

Permission sets control access. So only HR roles can open employee, confidential information and absence pages. You can classify fields by data sensitivity. The change log can also record who altered employee records.

Should an employee also be a resource?

When the person's time is planned, costed or billed on projects, yes. The employee card links to the resource. The resource carries the cost and price used on time sheets. Staff who are never planned or charged out do not need one.

Related people and payroll pages

Employee records connect to several other areas of the system. These pages cover payroll connections, time capture, expense handling and the resources used on projects. Read them to see how Business Central human resources fits with the rest of your setup. Then contact us with your current HR tools, and we will outline what to keep. For the product detail, see Microsoft Learn: manage human resources.