How to Add External Accountants in Dynamics 365 Business Central

To give an external accountant access to your Dynamics 365 Business Central (D365 BC) system, you can use a special type of complimentary license. But the following 6 conditions should be met:

• The external user/accountant is not part of your organization
• They have an external accountant-type license for Business Central
• They have either a user or global admin role in their Office 365/Microsoft 365 account
• Their account email is a work address, based on Azure Active Directory
• Their account email address is enabled to send and receive email, and has enabled authentication for SMTP mail
• Your email setup is already done in D365 BC, because an email needs to be sent from within the system to the external user’s email address. (Here’s how to set up email within D365 BC).

To set up the external accountant, follow these steps:

1. Ask your Dynamics Partner to assign the external user license to the external accountant user. You can have up to 3 complimentary external accountant licenses as of this writing. If your Dynamics Partner has not yet added the external accountant licenses to the tenant, you’ll encounter this error message during the setup process: “No External Account license available.”
   
2. Go to the user’s page. Then, under “Process,” choose the “Invite external accountant” option:
   The following pop-up message will appear to assist in the setup of the external accountant. Click “I Accept” and “Next.”
   
3. Add the email address and name of the external accountant in the next screen. The welcome email will contain the message in the text box. This message may be edited.
   
4. Click “Next.” Below is the success message you’ll see if all went well. If you do see it, the email will then be sent to the external accountant, who can use the link provided to access the system.
   But, if email in D365 BC or the external accountant email was not set up prior to inviting the external accountant, there will be an error. The following failure message will appear: “Inviting the external accountant failed while doing the email.”
   In that case, make sure both email in D365 BC and the external accountant email are set up before restarting the invite external accountant process.
5. Now click “Get New Users” to add the user from Office 365/Microsoft 365.
   
6. Be sure to add the necessary permission sets for the user after adding the external accountant. These will be blank by default.

When that is done, your external accountant will be able to access your system.

Note: The external accountant has the same rights as a standard Business Central Essentials license, except they have no access to user setup and administrative tasks.

If you prefer video instructions, this 3-minute explanation of how to grant external accountant access may help you too:

If you have any questions about Dynamics 365 Business Central, please contact us.