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What Microsoft's add-in gives you on day one
The add-in has two parts. Contact insights reads the sender's email address and matches it to a contact, customer or vendor. It then shows balances, recent documents and actions in a pane next to the message. Document links spots document numbers in the body of an email, such as a sales order or invoice number. It turns them into links that open the record.
From that pane, a user can create a sales quote or invoice. They can also look up an overdue balance while replying, or check a purchase order a supplier asks about. It uses the same permissions as the user's Business Central login, so nobody sees more in Outlook than they already see in the ERP. An administrator can deploy it to chosen users from the Microsoft 365 admin center. Or people can add it themselves from the assisted setup in Business Central.
That covers a large share of what people mean when they ask for an Outlook integration. The remaining requests usually fall into three groups. Teams want a record of customer email on the account, and documents sent from the right mailbox. They also want to react to incoming mail automatically.
Four jobs email does around the ERP
Answering account questions
Collections and customer service see balances, open orders and recent invoices beside the message, through the add-in's contact insights.
Keeping a history per customer
Email logging copies messages with known contacts into Business Central interactions. So the next person on the account sees the thread.
Sending documents out
Invoices, statements, confirmations and remittances leave through email accounts added in the Set Up Email guide. Scenarios decide which mailbox sends what.
Acting on incoming mail
A Power Automate flow can watch a shared inbox, such as one for supplier invoices. It hands attachments to Business Central or to a capture tool.
Add-in, email logging or a flow: which tool for which need
Rolling Outlook access out to a team without surprises
- 1
Clean the contact emails
Matching depends on the sender's address existing on a contact, customer or vendor. We check how many active accounts have no email, or share one generic address, before anything else.
- 2
Deploy centrally
For a Business Central Outlook integration, push the add-in from the Microsoft 365 admin center. That puts it in front of the chosen users at once, so nobody has to install it alone.
- 3
Pick the sending mailboxes
Decide which documents go from a shared address and which from the user. Then assign scenarios, so statements, invoices and purchase orders each use the right account.
- 4
Train on three real tasks
Build a short session on the team's own daily emails, such as a balance query, a quote request and a supplier chasing a PO. That sticks better than a tour of every button.
- 5
Check back after a month
Look at who is using the pane, which emails fail to match, and whether logging captures the threads people expected to see.
When an Outlook project should not go ahead
- ✓Your real problem is missing or duplicated contact data, which no integration fixes
- ✓The team works mostly in Teams chat, where the Teams integration fits better
- ✓Someone wants free-text customer emails turned into orders with no human check
- ✓Only one or two people would use it, and a saved Business Central view does the job
- ✓You want logging for compliance archiving, which is the job of Microsoft 365 retention policies
- ✓A CRM is already the system of record for customer communication
Outlook and Business Central: what buyers ask
Is the Outlook add-in an extra cost?
No separate charge applies to the add-in itself, because it comes with Business Central and runs under each user's existing licence. You do need Outlook connected to a Microsoft 365 or Exchange setup that supports add-ins. The real effort sits in contact data cleanup and training, which we put in a written scope before any work starts.
Can users create documents from Outlook?
Yes, users can create sales quotes, sales invoices and similar documents from the add-in pane. Their permissions still apply to the matched customer or vendor. The document opens from Business Central inside the pane, so the usual numbering, pricing and approval rules apply. Nothing in Outlook bypasses the controls you already have in the ERP.
Will email logging copy every message in the mailbox?
No, email logging works from your Business Central contacts. It records messages with known contact addresses as interactions. It leaves internal and unrelated mail alone. Setup involves a mailbox the feature reads from and some configuration on the Exchange side. Before we switch it on, we agree with you which conversations count as business records.
More Business Central Outlook integration questions
Can Business Central send invoices from a shared accounts mailbox?
Yes, by adding a Microsoft 365 email account for that shared mailbox and assigning the invoice scenario to it. The people sending documents need permission to send from that mailbox in Exchange. Replies then land in the shared inbox, where the finance team can pick them up instead of chasing a colleague on leave.
Do we need Power Automate for any of this?
Not for the core features, since the add-in, email logging and document sending are all part of Business Central. Power Automate earns its place when incoming mail should trigger an action. Examples are saving supplier invoice attachments, or alerting a rep when a key customer writes in. Flows run under Microsoft 365 or Power Automate licensing, which you can confirm on Microsoft's pricing page.
Talk to us about your project.
Tell us what you run today and what has to change. A senior consultant replies with a written next step.