Automatically Create Contacts for Customers, Vendors, and Bank Accounts in Business Central
Inkey Solutions, May 29, 202644 Views
Introduction
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central tightly integrates master data with its marketing and relationship management features. One built-in capability is the automatic creation of contact records when users create customers, vendors, or bank accounts.
Many users notice this behavior but are unsure why it happens or where it can be controlled, as the option is not available in Sales & Receivables Setup or Purchases & Payables Setup. This blog explains how this functionality works and where it is managed.
Business Value
Automatically creating contacts ensures that relationship data stays consistent across Business Central modules. This helps organizations maintain accurate communication records without manual effort.
Key benefits include:
- Centralized contact management linked to customers, vendors, and bank accounts
- Reduced manual data entry and duplication
- Better readiness for marketing, communication, and interaction tracking
- Improved data integrity across master records
This feature is especially useful for organizations that actively use Business Central’s marketing and contact management capabilities.
Requirement
How can you control whether contacts are automatically created when creating customers, vendors, or bank accounts in Business Central?
Prerequisites
- Access to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
- Permissions to modify Marketing Setup
Solution (Configuration Steps)
- By default, if Marketing Setup is not configured, when a user creates a new Customer, Vendor, or Bank Account card in Business Central, the system displays a notification suggesting the creation of a contact using the suggested action “Create Contacts from Customers”.
If Marketing Setup is configured, when a user creates a new Customer, Vendor, or Bank Account card, Business Central automatically creates a related Contact record in the background without any user prompt or manual action. - To configure Marketing Setup, the first step is to create Business Relation Codes. Use the Search (Tell Me) icon, search for Business Relations.
- Open the page, and create the required business relations for Customers, Vendors, and Bank Accounts.
- Next, use the Search (Tell Me) icon to open the Marketing Setup page. Locate the Interactions section.
- In the Interactions section, user will find Bus. Relation Code for section that control whether contacts are automatically created for Customers, Vendors, and Bank Accounts.
- Assign the appropriate Business Relation Codes created in the Business Relations page.
- Once the setup is complete, whenever a user creates a new Customer, Vendor, or Bank Account card, the system will automatically generate a corresponding Contact record.
- If user do not want contacts to be created automatically, clear the relevant options in the Interactions section and save the changes. After disabling these options, creating new customers, vendors, or bank accounts will no longer generate contact records automatically.
Additional Notes
- If Business Relation Codes are configured, contacts will be created automatically for customers, vendors, employees, and bank accounts.
- For existing records, you can still generate contacts using batch jobs such as:
- Create Contacts from Customers
- Create Contacts from Vendors
- Create Contacts from Bank Accounts
- Deleting a contact does not delete the linked customer, vendor, or bank account.
- Deleting a customer, vendor, or bank account does not remove the associated contact.
Conclusion
The automatic creation of contacts in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is a standard feature driven by Marketing Setup—not sales, purchase, or finance configurations. By understanding and adjusting these settings, organizations can decide how tightly they want to connect master data with contact management.
This small configuration plays a significant role in maintaining clean, consistent relationship data and supporting long-term business communication strategies.
