Get started as a reseller of Business Central online

If you want to build your business on Dynamics 365 Business Central online, you must get set up as a reseller in the Microsoft Partner Center. In this article, we take you through the first steps in your journey.

Step 1: Become a partner

Becoming a Microsoft partner gives you access to the Microsoft resources needed to sell solutions. The steps in this section below are required to gain access to the programs that enable are intended to help you get set up to sell Business Central.

In order to be able to service Business Central licenses and provide help and support to your customers, your company must have a Microsoft Partner ID (MPN ID), and you must enroll in the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program.

Join the Microsoft Partner Network

Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) membership unlocks our best resources to differentiate your business, take your product to market, and sell your solutions. To become a partner, you must join the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN), at which time you will be assigned an MPN ID. MPN membership is free to all partners; you can enroll in the MPN here.

Once signed up, you will get an MPN ID – your gateway to access all the membership resources and benefits for your partnership with Microsoft. There is no cost to obtain a MPN ID as a Network member, and with options to upgrade to an Action Pack subscription or work toward a competency, you can access even more benefits.

Set up your Partner Center account

Once you have joined the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN), you can set up your Partner Center (PC) account. The Microsoft Partner Center is a generic portal where partners can sell and manage customer subscriptions for Microsoft services, such as Microsoft 365, Azure, Dynamics 365, and others, as well as for some third-party products. For more information, see the Partner Center documentation.

Your Partner Center account provides you with access to pricing information, tools and services, and enables you to manage admin credentials for your company's work account. Partner Center is also where you can purchase or renew subscriptions to Microsoft Action Packs, create a business profile to receive and manage sales leads from Microsoft, and see if you qualify for co-selling opportunities.

Enroll in the CSP program

The Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program helps your company to be more involved in your customers' businesses, beyond reselling licenses. In CSP, you can choose to enroll as an indirect reseller or a direct bill partner.

In most cases, you enroll as an indirect reseller and then work with an indirect provider, also referred to as a distributor, who then manages all interaction with Microsoft in terms of licensing and technology, so that you can focus on sales and support. If you decide to enroll as a direct bill partner in order to fully own the end-to-end relationship with both customers and Microsoft, make sure that you meet the eligibility requirements. For more information, see Enroll in the Cloud Solution Provider program in the Microsoft Partner Center content.

The Microsoft Partner Center is a generic portal where partners can sell and manage customer subscriptions for Microsoft services, such as Microsoft 365, Azure, Dynamics 365, and others, as well as for some third-party products. For more information, see the Partner Center documentation.

Some indirect providers (distributors) provide their resellers with a custom portal that optimizes and enhances the experience beyond the Partner Center. They can also provide indirect resellers with an API to automate some of the customer onboarding steps. Contact your indirect provider to find out more.

Both indirect resellers and direct bill partners can access and support their customers' Business Central by setting up a reseller relationship with them.

To sell to customers in a specific country, your partner company's Microsoft Entra tenant and CSP account must be registered in the regional CSP market that covers that country. For more information, see Cloud Solution Provider program regional markets and currencies.

In the Microsoft Partner Center documentation, you can learn how to request a reseller relationship with customers, assign licenses to users, and create new subscriptions. Business Central is one of the subscriptions that you can create.

Add users from your own organization

Typically, a partner organization includes employees with different responsibilities. You can assign different roles to users in your Partner Center environment depending on their responsibilities. Learn more in Roles, permissions, and workspace access for users.

Employees in your partner organization can access Business Central environments in your customers' tenants if they are a member of a security group that is assigned an Entra role that allows for administration and access of Business Central in a granular delegated administration privileges (GDAP) relationship set up with the customer. These partner users in a customer tenant are called delegated administrators in daily shorthand. For more information, see Delegated Administrator Access to Business Central Online.

For more information, see Delegated Administrator Access to Business Central Online.

Step 2: Go to market

When you become a Microsoft Partner Network member, you gain access to membership benefits that can help you build and grow your business. For more information, see Explore your Go-To-Market with Microsoft offers in the Partner Center docs.

As a Dynamics 365 reseller, you benefit from Microsoft's investments in an always up-to-date modern platform, you can bundle recognized apps from the Microsoft commercial marketplace into an offering that fits the needs of your customers, reach more customers by using Microsoft's commercial marketplace to promote your packaged consulting service offerings or customization services, and streamline your own processes and build tools with Power BI, Power Automate, and Power Apps connected to Business Central.

The Dynamics 365 Business Central Partner Portal landing site has plenty of material to help you build a practice, go to market, drive readiness, and keep track of upcoming events (requires a partner account).

Marketing assets

Microsoft provides marketing assets that you can use to build a business based on Microsoft. For more information, see the following sites:

• Partner Network resources
• Brand and trademark basics for partners
• Go-to-market with Microsoft

Specifically for going to market with Business Central, Microsoft provides resources and guidance on the Business Applications for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) site. For more information, see Business Central Go-To-Market resources.

Step 3: Give powerful demos

You can create a trial environment based on content in cdx.transform.microsoft.com.

For more information, see Preparing Demonstration Environments of Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Step 4: Help your customers get started

When you onboard customers to Business Central, you have access to their account as a delegated administrator and can help them get things set up. For more information, see Administration of Business Central Online.

Connect with customers

As a CSP partner, you can manage a customer's subscriptions and services on their behalf in the Partner Center by establishing a reseller relationship with your customers. If they already have an account, such as if they currently use Microsoft 365, other Dynamics 365 apps, or PowerApps, for example, you can send them an invitation straight from the Partner Center. For more information, see Connect with customers in Partner Center (indirect providers/distributors) and Connect with customers (indirect resellers).

When the customer's internal administrator receives the invitation link and navigates to it, they must acknowledge that they have read the Microsoft Customer Agreement and that they can authorize you as their reseller on behalf of their organization. For more information, see Confirm customer acceptance of the Microsoft Customer Agreement.

In addition to a reseller relationship, partners may want to set up a GDAP relationship to access and administer the customer's Business Central environments. For more information, see Delegated Administrator Access to Business Central Online.

If you are working as an indirect reseller, your indirect provider (distributor) must associate your customers with you in their Partner Center.

The customer can decide to remove their partner's delegated admin privileges from their tenant, but still retain the relationship with their partner for subscription and license renewal purposes. Removing delegated admin privileges will block the partner's access to the customer's Business Central. The access can be restored if the partner sends the reseller relationship request to the customer again.

If the customer wants to cancel their relationship with their partner, the partner must remove the relationship in Partner Center.

Get Business Central right for the customer

The default version of Business Central is just that - a default version. In many cases, you'll enhance the default version with apps from the Microsoft commercial marketplace. But you can also customize pages for a profile and change which UI elements are visible. For more information, see Customize Business Central in the business functionality content.

If your customer wants more tweaks, you can create customizations of profiles and pages in code. For more information, see Customizing the User Interface for User Roles in the developer content.

You can also use configuration packages to quickly apply the same settings as usual to new environments.

Move the customer from a trial to a paid subscription

If your customer decides to start using Business Central to run their business, they must switch to a paid subscription. Both the internal admin and the delegated admin can assign licenses to users in the Microsoft 365 admin center. For more information, see Buy or remove licenses in the Microsoft 365 content.

If the customer has tried out Business Central using a pre-configured demonstration company that you have prepared in other ways, they can now sign up for Business Central using their own work or school account so that you can assign the Business Central license to their Microsoft 365 tenant.

You can help them migrate their data from their legacy system. For more information, see Migrate On-Premises Data to Business Central Online.

Step 5: Configure the support experience

As a Business Central reselling partner, you are an administrator of your customers' Business Central tenants, and you are the first line of support. This means that you will get requests for support from your customers that you must triage, investigate, and either resolve or escalate to Microsoft.

Your company must be registered as a Microsoft partner, and it must have the Advanced Support for Partners (ASfP) or Premier support plan. Your service account manager can get you more information about getting the ASfP. If you already have a support plan, the Technical Benefits tab in the Partner Center lists the contract ID and access ID that you must specify when you submit a new support request on behalf of your customer. If you're not sure how to find the information, the service account manager can get the information for you.

For more information, see Technical Support for Business Central and Managing Technical Support.

Step 6: Maintain your customers' Business Central

As a Business Central reselling partner, you are the administrator of the Business Central tenants of your customers. You are expected to help your customers maintain their solution, including setting the upgrade window, monitoring telemetry, updating customizations, and managing apps.

For more information, see Administration of Business Central Online and The Business Central Administration Center.

Preparing for Business Central online

If you’re a partner on Business Central on-premises preparing to move to Business Central online, the following sections are some of the things to keep in mind. The sections describe the most important differences between Business Central on-premises and online customers.

Indirect reseller

In an on-premises setup, you order licenses for your customers directly from Microsoft. In the online model, in most cases, you become an indirect reseller and must sign an agreement with an indirect provider (under the CSP program). As an indirect reseller, you don’t order licenses from Microsoft directly—instead, you transact with your chosen indirect provider.

Learn more about the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program.

License ordering and customer management

In Business Central on-premises, you use PartnerSource to order new licenses, renumber objects, and include add-ons. After each change, you need to generate a new license file and manually update the license in the customer database. In Business Central online, you place orders through your indirect provider's portal and manage customers in the Microsoft Partner Center. The process is more streamlined—you no longer need to generate license files or renumber objects. Subscriptions or additional users are available to your customers immediately after purchase; which means that no manual license installation is required. You also add apps using Microsoft AppSource.

Learn more and see the examples of what you can achieve on Partner Center.

Microsoft Entra tenants

Business Central online operates within the broader Microsoft cloud ecosystem. Most customers already have a tenant before they adapt Business Central, so you must identify the customer's tenant when assigning new licenses. This way, Business Central integrates with many other apps the customer already uses, like Excel, Outlook, Power BI, or Dynamics 365 Sales.

Learn more about tenants in Infrastructure of Business Central online.

Delegated administration and administration center

In Business Central online, it’s much easier to access and support the customers, mostly due to the two assets unavailable in the on-premises setup; the delegated administration and administration center. Delegated administration allows the partner to access the Business Central environment with the customer's approval. This doesn’t require any special configuration or separate Business Central licenses for your consultants. Administration Center is where you can manage customers' environments, updates, or telemetry.

Learn more about Delegated administration and Administration center.

Multiple licensing partners

In an on-premises model, each customer has one partner who manages its license. The customer can designate additional partners who act as consultants. However, these partners have limited options. The setup in Business Central online is different. The CSP (Cloud Solution Provider) model allows many different Microsoft resellers to sell subscriptions to the same customer. This way, Business Central online customers can have multiple partners providing them with the licenses.

Learn more about trials and subscriptions in Business Central online.

AppSource transactability

Apps that extend Business Central online functionality are published on AppSource. Pay special attention to the AppSource transactability. This is the option to purchase the app directly through AppSource. An increasing number of apps have the transactability option enabled. They can be added to Business Central in two ways:

• Customer purchases the app directly from the ISV.
• Indirect reseller (you) purchases the app from the ISV through the indirect provider.

Both ways are different from the on-premises model, where you act as a managing partner for the customer. In the on-premises model, you usually transact directly with the ISV and then add the application to the customer license on PartnerSource.

Learn more in selling Business Central apps through AppSource.

Regions

The CSP program contains the so-called region availability. This means that based on your company's ___location, you’re part of one of the regions and can sell CSP offers (including Business Central) only within that region. For example, if your company's ___location is in Europe, you can sell to customers in Europe and cannot sell to customers in the United States.

Learn more about CSP regions.

AIM and Bridge to Cloud 2

These are the default programs designed to assist in migrating on-premises customers to Business Central online. Learn more in AIM and Bridge to Cloud 2.

Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA)

Dynamics 365 Business Central on-premises customers are bound by the Microsoft Software License Terms specific to Business Central. Don’t look for special license terms for Dynamics 365 Business Central online. Customers are bound by the Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA), which applies to all Microsoft cloud products and services, including Azure, Microsoft 365, and Dynamics 365.

Learn more in the Microsoft Customer Agreement.

Pricing model differences

The core licensing model is similar in both on-premises and online deployments—customers are primarily charged based on the number of users, the licenses are: Essentials, Premium, Device, or Team Members. However, there are some important differences. In Business Central online, customers don’t pay for objects. In most cases, they don’t need additional licenses for their partners who provide support, because partners can access their environments with delegated admin permissions. Instead, they may incur costs for production environments (Additional Environment Addon) and storage (Database Capacity), which don’t apply to the on-premises model.

Learn more in the Microsoft Dynamics Licensing Guide.

Related information

Administration of Business Central Online
Deployment of Dynamics 365 Business Central on-premises
Trials and sign-ups for Business Central online
Licensing in Dynamics 365 Business Central
Learn how to partner with indirect providers in the Cloud Solution Provider program
Dynamics 365 Business Central Partner Portal