Email setup and outgoing email in Business Central

Business Central sends a lot of email: posted invoices to customers, payment reminders, statements, approval requests, document attachments to vendors. The configuration that makes this work — and works reliably, with the right from address per situation — is more nuanced than a casual user might assume.

Email accounts. An email account in Business Central is a configured outgoing email channel. Each account has a name, an email address, a description, and a provider. Multiple accounts can be configured — common patterns: a general account (info@company.com), an AR account (ar@company.com), an AP account (ap@company.com), a sales account (sales@company.com).

Email providers. Business Central supports several providers:

• Microsoft 365 — the recommended provider for tenants on Microsoft 365. Uses the signed-in user's mailbox (or a shared mailbox) via Graph API. No SMTP setup required.
• Microsoft 365 (Shared Mailbox) — sends from a shared mailbox the user has access to. The pattern for departmental email (ar@company.com sent on behalf by individual users).
• SMTP — for tenants using non-Microsoft mail (Google Workspace, on-premise Exchange, generic SMTP). Requires server, port, authentication.
• Current User — uses whoever is signed in.
• Custom email connector apps — partners ship AppSource extensions for additional providers (SendGrid, Mailgun, third-party SMTP relays).

Email scenarios. Each email-sending situation in Business Central is a scenario — Posted Sales Invoice, Posted Sales Credit Memo, Statement, Reminder, Posted Purchase Order, Approval, etc. Each scenario can be mapped to a specific email account. The wiring lets posted invoices go from ar@, purchase orders from buyer@, statements from accounts@.

Email body templates. A body layout is a Word-based template that defines the email body when a document is sent. Templates can be:

• Default — used when no specific template is configured.
• Per scenario — specific template for invoices, separate for statements.
• Per language — Swedish-language invoices use the Swedish body; German-language invoices use the German body.

Templates support merge fields (customer name, document number, due date, total amount) that resolve at send time.

Attachments. Posted documents are attached as PDF. Multiple attachments can be added — a cover letter PDF, a logo, an additional information sheet — through the configured email layouts.

Email logs. Every sent email is logged with timestamp, sender, recipient, subject, attachments, and status (sent, failed, queued). The log retains for the configured retention window and is the audit trail for "did the customer get this invoice?".

Send Later. Posted documents can be queued in Send Later rather than sent immediately, with a single batch send at end of day. Useful for organisations that want invoice sends bundled into one outgoing flow.

Email Inbox (incoming email). A separate, opt-in feature reads a configured shared mailbox for incoming documents. AP teams use it to flow vendor invoices into the Incoming Documents queue without manual upload. See the Incoming Documents guide for the deeper flow.

Common pitfalls.

• Send-as permissions on shared mailboxes — must be granted in Microsoft 365 admin centre, or sends fail mysteriously.
• DKIM / SPF / DMARC — wrong DNS for the sending domain lands invoices in customer spam folders. Verify with the tenant admin.
• Single hard-coded sender — every email leaves the same address regardless of context. Customer service responses to ar@'s reminder go to a noise inbox. Configure scenarios deliberately.

Best practice. Three to five email accounts mapped to scenarios is enough for most SMBs. Test sending to a real customer mailbox during go-live; don't trust internal test loops alone.