Business Central resource management for people and equipment

What Business Central resource management keeps on each resource

A resource is either a person or a machine. Its card holds a base unit of measure, usually the hour. It also holds a direct unit cost, an indirect cost share, a unit cost and a unit price. Posting groups send usage and sales to the right accounts. You can link a resource to a time sheet owner and approver.

Resource groups collect similar resources, such as senior consultants or excavators. So you can view capacity and planning for the group before you choose a named person. We agree naming, groups and units with you first, because changing a base unit after entries exist is not possible.

Capacity in Business Central resource management

Capacity is the time a resource can work per day. The Resource Capacity page holds it per period. Work-hour templates fill a standard week for many resources in one action. To reflect company holidays and part-time patterns, you adjust capacity for the dates concerned.

Once you enter capacity, the Resource Availability pages compare it with time already assigned. They check project planning lines, service orders and assembly orders. Therefore a manager sees at once if a person has too much work next month. We load capacity for the planning horizon you use and show administrators how to extend it.

Allocating Business Central resource management data to projects

On a project, a planning line for a resource states the task, date and quantity of time expected. That line is the allocation: it reduces availability and sets the budgeted cost and price. Lines can first name a resource group. Later you switch to a specific person, once you know who does the job.

Resources also appear on service orders and on assembly orders, where labor is part of the bill of materials. We make sure each of these uses the same resources and units, so availability is one picture. For visual drag-and-drop boards, AppSource add-ons for scheduling sit on these standard planning lines.

Rates in Business Central resource management

A single cost and price per resource is rarely enough. Price lists can hold a different price for a resource or resource group. The price can vary per customer, project or work type. Work types such as overtime or travel can carry their own unit of measure and rate.

On the cost side, purchase price lists for resources store alternative costs by work type. We turn your rate card into these lists. After that, we test that a time sheet line for a given person, project and work type gives the expected amounts. Still, actual payroll figures stay in the payroll system. Only costing rates live here.

Recording usage and measuring utilization

Time reaches the system through time sheets, project journals or resource journals. Each posting creates resource ledger entries with quantity, cost and price. In addition, the system tells chargeable and non-chargeable time apart. That is also the basis for any utilization figure you want to report to managers.

From those entries, standard reports and Power BI show used capacity against available capacity. They also show billed against unbilled time. We build the views managers ask for most. They show who has spare time and which group is the bottleneck. They also show whether the price covers the cost of the people doing the work.

Business Central resource management questions

Is a resource the same as an employee?

No. An employee card belongs to human resources and holds personal details. A resource is what you plan, cost and invoice. A person who is both gets two records. You can link them through the time sheet setup and keep them consistent.

Can equipment be managed as a resource?

Yes. A resource of type machine has capacity, cost and price just like a person. So you can plan a crane, a vehicle or a test rig on projects and charge it to customers. However, fixed assets handle maintenance and depreciation.

Which license covers resource planning?

In short, Essentials and Premium both include resources and project planning. Staff who only fill in their own time sheets can often use a Team Members license. Current prices are on Microsoft's site, and we help match licenses to what each person does.

Does Business Central include a scheduling board?

The standard pages show availability and allocation in lists and matrices, not as a graphical board. Companies that schedule many people daily usually add a visual scheduling add-on, which reads and writes the same planning lines.

Can resources be tracked by skill?

Skill codes exist for resources used in service management. There, we match them against the skills a service item requires. For project work, resource groups or a custom field are the common ways to find people with a given qualification. We can set up either one as part of Business Central resource management.

Related project and time pages

Business Central resource management connects to the rest of your project work. You plan resources on projects, and you bill for them through time. These pages cover project setup, time capture and the costing that turns resource usage into margin. Start with the page closest to your daily pain. Then ask our consultants how it fits your resource cards and rates. For the product detail, see Microsoft Learn: set up resources.