The Copy and Paste function for Dynamics 365 Business Central Account Schedules is a huge time-saver and anyone who designs reports for account schedules should know how to use this important feature. Let’s talk about the three main reasons why you would want to copy and paste an account schedule.
Why copy and paste an account schedule?
Creating slightly different versions of a similar column layout. If I create a monthly net change column layout, I can easily create a monthly balance column layout, or a monthly budget column layout, simply by copying the original column layout and changing one variable on the new layout. Copy and paste allows me to create three valuable looks for one report in less than a minute.
Testing or trouble shooting a new schedule. I’ll frequently take an existing schedule and change it to serve a different purpose. When doing this, I’ll copy the existing one that I know works, and then paste it into a new schedule to try what I want on it. This ensures I start with setup information exactly the same as the one I know works, so I don’t have to doubt whether I missed something. I can just change what I need for the new schedule and test the new variables one at a time.
Section replication. If I have a schedule where I need a section to repeat, I can copy the existing one and paste it in the new spot.
How to copy and paste an account schedule
Here are the different ways you can copy and paste with Dynamics 365 Business Central account schedules.
Copy and paste the whole darn thing! If you want to copy an entire row setup or column layout, select the blank gray box on the upper left of the screen (just to the left of Row No. and Description on your column headers) – this will cause your entire selection to turn blue. You can then select the Copy option or use Ctrl-C to copy the material. Go to the place you want to paste the selection and select the Paste option or use Ctrl-V.
Just select a few rows. Maybe you just want to repeat a section instead of the whole thing. You can use your mouse to select the rows you want, then use the same techniques as above to replicate your blue highlighted selection.
Take just a single field. One thing I show people quite a lot is that they can copy an account name when drilling down and paste it into the description field. Doing this keeps you from having to type it, and ensures it appears exactly the same as on your chart of accounts.
Bad news for those of you using NAV2009 RTC – you cannot copy and paste with NAV account schedules. The feature is back in NAV2013, but for those of you using 2009 RTC, you don’t have this time saver available to you and since Microsoft hasn’t issued a hot fix for it, it appears you’ve got to get to the next version to get this back.
This posting is part of the Dynamics 265 Business Central Account Schedules 101 series. Find the entire list of lessons here.
Don’t forget to visit the Account Schedule Formulas and Account Schedule Examples pages if you’re looking for even more ideas on how to improve your financial reporting using account schedules with Dynamics 365 Business Central.