How to Copy Master Records from One Company to Another in Business Central?

If your organization runs more than one company in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, you already know the pain: the same customer, vendor, item, or G/L account often has to be created and maintained separately in every single company. Add a new vendor in Company A, and someone has to remember to key it into Company B, Company C, and so on. Miss a field update, and your companies drift out of sync.

The good news is that this is no longer a manual, error-prone chore, and it's also no longer something you need a paid add-on for. Since the 2023 release wave 1 update, Microsoft built native master data synchronization directly into Business Central. In this guide, we'll walk through exactly how to copy and sync master records between companies, what's changed recently, and which method fits your scenario best.

(Quick note before we dive in: if you've read older blog posts on this topic, including some from ERP consulting firms, you may have seen references to third-party "master record manager" add-ons. Several of those posts, including the original from the vendor that built one such add-on, have since been updated to say the add-on is no longer necessary because Microsoft now handles this natively. We'll cover the native method in detail below, plus a couple of complementary options for one-off data moves.)

Why Copying Master Data Between Companies Matters?

Multi-entity organizations (holding companies, franchises, businesses with regional subsidiaries, or firms that spin up a new legal entity after an acquisition) run into the same three problems repeatedly:

• Inconsistent master data. The same vendor exists with three different names and two different payment terms across companies.
• Duplicated setup effort. Every new company means re-creating the chart of accounts, dimensions, item catalog, and customer/vendor lists from scratch.
• No single source of truth. Finance can't trust roll-up reporting because the underlying master data isn't standardized.

Business Central's native Master Data Management (MDM) feature was built specifically to solve this, as an ongoing synchronization engine and not just a one-time copy tool.

Two Ways to Copy Master Records in Business Central

Before jumping into steps, it helps to know there are two distinct scenarios, and Business Central has a native answer for each:

We'll cover both, starting with the one most people are searching for: ongoing synchronization.

Method 1: Set Up and Sync Master Data Across Companies (Native, Recommended)

This is Business Central's built-in feature, available at no additional licensing cost since BC22 (2023 release wave 1). It works on a pull model: a subsidiary company "subscribes" to a source company and pulls changes on a schedule via the job queue. It supports hundreds of standard tables, plus custom tables added through extensions.

Step 1: Open Master Data Management Setup

1. In the subsidiary company (the one that will receive data), select the search icon (Alt+Q).
2. Enter Master Data Management Setup and open the page.
3. In the Source Company field, choose the company you want to pull data from.
4. Turn on Enable Data Synchronization, and choose OK on the confirmation dialog.

Business Central will now scan and populate the list of tables and fields available from the source company.

Step 2: Choose Which Tables and Fields to Synchronize

1. From the Master Data Management Setup page, choose Synchronization Tables.
2. Enable or disable individual tables. Common ones include Customer, Vendor, Vendor Bank Account, Item, Resource, G/L Account, and Dimension/Dimension Value.
3. Open a table to control field-level behavior. You can set fields to synchronize, validate, or overwrite local changes made in the subsidiary.
4. Use the Table Filter field if you only want a subset of records (for example, only active items or a specific item category) to sync.

Step 3: Run the Initial Synchronization

1. Back on the Master Data Management Setup page, choose Start Initial Synchronization.
2. On the Master Data Initial Synchronization page, pick a sync type per table:
   • Use Full Synchronization: creates new coupled records in the subsidiary for every record found in the source company.
   • Use Match-Based Coupling: if records already exist in both companies (e.g., you already have "Contoso Ltd." in both), this links existing records instead of duplicating them, based on criteria you define (name, code, email, etc.).
3. Choose Start All to kick off the initial sync and monitor progress on the same page.

Step 4: Let Ongoing Sync Run via the Job Queue

Once the initial synchronization completes, Business Central automatically creates job queue entries that keep coupled records in sync going forward. By default, changes in the source company are picked up roughly every 30 minutes, though you can adjust the schedule.

• To review or change the frequency, open the relevant Job Queue Entry (search for Integration Synch. Job Runner) and update its recurrence, then set its status to Ready.
• To check what's synced and catch errors, review the Integration Synchronization Log and Synchronization Jobs from the Master Data Management Setup page.

Step 5: Repeat for Each Subsidiary, or Save Time with Import/Export

If you're rolling this out to several subsidiaries with similar settings, set it up once, then on the Master Data Management Setup page choose Export to save the configuration as an XML file. Import that file into each additional subsidiary instead of repeating the setup manually.

Method 2: One-Time Data Copy with Configuration Packages (RapidStart)

Not every scenario calls for ongoing synchronization. If you're standing up a brand-new company and just need to seed it once with your chart of accounts, customer list, vendor list, or item catalog, Configuration Packages (the modern name for RapidStart Services) are the right tool.

1. Search for and open Configuration Packages, then choose New.
2. Enter a Code and Package Name.
3. On the Tables FastTab, add the tables you need, for example, table 18 (Customer), table 23 (Vendor), or table 27 (Item).
4. Use Fields to select only the fields you actually need (fewer fields = fewer errors).
5. Use Get Related Tables if the record depends on other setup tables (payment terms, posting groups, etc.).
6. Choose Export to Excel to review and edit data in a familiar spreadsheet, or Export Package to generate a portable .rapidstart file.
7. In the target company, open Configuration Packages, choose Import Package (or Import from Excel), then Apply Data to commit the records.

A couple of important guardrails:

• You can't import into tables that hold posted entries (like ledger entries); use journals to post historical transactions instead.
• Microsoft recommends configuration packages for initial company setup, not for bulk-loading data into a company that's already live and in daily use; for production environments, an XMLport-based import is the safer route.

What Master Records Can You Copy Between Companies?

Both native methods above can handle the master data types most businesses care about:

• Chart of Accounts / G/L Accounts
• Customers
• Vendors (including vendor bank accounts)
• Items (and item variants, units of measure)
• Resources
• Dimensions and Dimension Values
• Contacts
• Plus custom tables added by AppSource extensions or PTEs, once those extensions are installed in the source company

The Master Data Management feature specifically covers hundreds of standard tables out of the box, and you can add more manually.

Important Limitations to Know Before You Set This Up

To avoid surprises, keep these constraints in mind:

• Pull-based, not push-based: Subsidiaries pull from the source company; there's no bi-directional or push sync out of the box.
• Same environment only: Native MDM only works between companies inside the same Business Central environment. Syncing master data across separate environments (e.g., a US environment and a UK environment) isn't supported natively; you'd need to build something with the Business Central APIs or Power Automate instead.
• Runs on the job queue: Because sync jobs rely on the job queue, keep Business Central Online's job queue concurrency limits in mind if you're synchronizing many tables across many companies at once.
• Field-level control matters: Decide up front which fields should be "locked" to the source company versus editable locally, so subsidiaries don't accidentally overwrite intentional local differences (like a locally negotiated payment term).

Best Practices for Copying Master Data in Business Central

1. Test in a sandbox first: Run your initial synchronization and match-based coupling in a sandbox environment before touching production data.
2. Start narrow, then expand: Enable only the tables and fields you actually need rather than syncing every available table by default; it's easier to add more later than to untangle an overly broad sync.
3. Use match-based coupling if data already exists: Skipping this step is the most common cause of duplicate customer, vendor, or item records after a first sync.
4. Monitor the synchronization log regularly, especially in the first few weeks, to catch mapping or permission errors early.
5. Document your field-level rules (which fields are source-controlled vs. locally editable) so future admins understand the setup.
6. Review user permissions: Exporting a configuration package requires read permissions on every included table; importing requires insert/modify permissions.

Final Thoughts

Keeping master data consistent across multiple companies used to mean either painstaking manual entry or investing in a third-party add-on. Today, Business Central's native Master Data Management feature handles ongoing synchronization for free, while Configuration Packages remain the right tool for one-time data loads during company setup. Together, they cover nearly every "copy records between companies" scenario without any additional software.

If you're planning a multi-company rollout, standardizing an acquisition's data into your existing BC environment, or just tired of double data entry, connect with Dynamics Square and consult with Business Central consultants can help you design a synchronization setup that fits your business, from field-level governance to sandbox testing to go-live.

Need help setting this up correctly the first time? Talk to our Business Central experts for a free consultation.