Key takeaways
- Search for Table Information and add the No. of Records of your main ledger tables, such as G/L Entry, Cust. Ledger Entry and Item Ledger Entry; the page's sizes will not match your capacity figure.
- A full export is a BACPAC file written to your Azure storage through Database > Create Database Export, which needs a paid subscription and the D365 BACKUP/RESTORE permission set.
- Each environment allows 10 database exports a month, the SAS must stay valid for at least 72 hours, and a large database can take minutes to hours.
- You don't need to export anything to apply: have your ledger record count, years of history and licensed user count ready, and the data vendor anonymizes the records before any AI lab sees them.
01
What is Dynamics 365 Business Central data, and why do AI labs and data vendors buy it?
The short answer
Business Central data is the financial and stock record of a company that runs on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central: every sale, purchase and inventory movement, each posted as a ledger entry tied to the document that caused it. AI labs (companies that build and train AI models) and data vendors (companies that anonymize business records and package them for those labs) buy a copy because it shows how goods and money moved through a real distributor, manufacturer or services firm, with dates and costs attached.
What a Business Central company records
Business Central is an ERP (enterprise resource planning) system, a single piece of software that handles a company's accounting, sales, purchasing and inventory together. Microsoft sells it as a cloud service, and a company can keep several sets of books, called companies, inside one environment.
Whenever a user posts a document, meaning finalizes it so it can no longer be casually changed, Business Central writes ledger entries. The general ledger gets entries for the accounting side, the customer ledger gets entries for money owed by customers, and the item ledger gets entries for each time stock arrived, left or moved. The source document stays linked to its entries.
Why ledger entries teach an AI model something
An AI model learns by studying a very large number of examples and finding the patterns in them, and those examples are called training data. A Business Central company supplies examples of operations from end to end: a purchase order arrives as stock, the stock is sold, the sale is invoiced, and the customer pays. The item and value entries record how inventory moved and what it cost at each step.
AI labs now want to train AI agents, software that carries out a job step by step, and order handling and bookkeeping are jobs made of steps. A data vendor can turn anonymized chains into worked examples that an agent studies like an answer key, or into a practice copy of the workflow in which the agent is scored on each attempt. AI training data: why AI companies want your company's data explains the mechanism in full.
How Business Central fits into a dataset
Business Central is usually one app among several in a company's dataset, alongside email, documents and support records. Companies are paid $100K to $2M or more per dataset, according to micro1, the data vendor we typically refer companies to. The price covers the whole dataset, not each app on its own, and what your data is worth explains what moves it.
02
Where does Business Central show how much data you have?
The short answer
The Table Information page gives a record count and a size in KB for each table in Business Central. Search for it by name, then add the record counts of the tables that hold your ledgers: G/L Entry for accounting, Cust. Ledger Entry for customer balances and Item Ledger Entry for stock movements. Microsoft's page names no permission for it, so ask your Business Central administrator if it will not open.
How to read the Table Information page
The page lists every system and business table in the environment, so it answers the question without running any report. A table is the database's storage for one kind of record, and the rows are the records.
- Select the search icon, type Table Information and choose the related link.
- If the environment has more than one company, filter on Company Name so you read only the company you plan to license.
- In the No. of Records column, find the rows for the ledgers you are counting: G/L Entry, Cust. Ledger Entry and Item Ledger Entry, plus any document tables you want included.
- Add the counts together. If you also want a size, the Size (KB) column gives data plus index size for each table.
Selecting the number in a row opens the table itself, so you can look at the records behind the count. Microsoft's Table Information page describes each column, including Record Size, Data Size, Index Size and Compression.
What plan and role you need
This page is checked against Business Central online. Microsoft's article names no permission or plan for opening Table Information, so access follows whatever your administrator has granted.
| Figure | Where it lives | Who should read it |
|---|---|---|
| Record count | Table Information, No. of Records column | Any user who can open the page; the administrator if it will not open |
| Size in KB | Table Information, Size (KB) column | The same user |
| Users | Your count of licensed named users | The Business Central administrator |
Why the sizes do not match your capacity figure
Table Information measures the data stored, not the space the database has set aside, and it also skips the indexed views that keep SIFT totals (pre-summed figures that make balance queries fast). The database always reserves more room than it uses, so adding up the table sizes will not reproduce the capacity shown in the administration center.
Deleted data also lingers in the figures. After records are deleted, Business Central runs cleanup steps in the background, and the values on the page do not update until they finish.
03
What should you know about your Business Central data before you apply?
The short answer
Have three facts ready: the sum of your ledger entry tables as records, the years of history and the number of licensed users. They go into the data manifest, the written summary of which apps hold your records, how many years each covers and roughly how much. You don't need to run an export to find them, and applying through micro1 shares no data.
The record count
The unit for Business Central is records, and the number is the sum of the No. of Records values for your ledger entry tables. If you also read other tables, such as sales or purchase documents, keep their counts separate so the buyer can see the ledger entries alone.
The years of history and the users
For years in use, look up the posting date of the oldest G/L entry. For users, count the licensed named users. A company that moved to Business Central from other software may have earlier years held only as opening balances, so say when the detailed history begins.
What you don't need to do first
You don't need to export anything to apply, and you don't need to clean or scrub an export. The data vendor anonymizes the records before anyone else sees them, and nothing moves until a lawyer-reviewed license is signed. The application, the intro call and each later step are laid out in how to sell your company's data.
04
How do you export your full Business Central history?
The short answer
An administrator creates a database export from the Business Central administration center: Environments, then the environment, then Database > Create Database Export. It writes a BACPAC file (a packaged copy of the database) to an Azure storage container. It needs a paid subscription, a user with the D365 BACKUP/RESTORE permission set, and no more than 10 exports per environment per month.
Who can start an export
Only internal and delegated administrators can export a database. In addition to an Entra role (a Microsoft Entra ID role) that grants access to the administration center, the user needs the D365 BACKUP/RESTORE permission set assigned in the environment being exported. Microsoft also requires a paid Business Central subscription, so a company still on an unpaid trial cannot request one.
Step 1: set up the Azure storage account
The export needs somewhere to land, and that place is an Azure storage account (a container of cloud files that belongs to your Microsoft Azure subscription). Business Central writes the file there using a shared access signature, or SAS, a web address that grants temporary permission to write to the account.
- In Azure, create a Standard general-purpose v2 storage account if you do not already have one. Premium and general-purpose v1 accounts are not supported.
- On the storage account, open Shared access signature. Allow the Blob service, the Container and Object resource types, and the Read, Write, Delete and Create permissions, and clear the other options.
- Set an expiry at least 72 hours after you start the export, and allow HTTPS only. Microsoft advises setting the expiry no later than you need, to limit risk if the storage account is compromised.
- Select Generate SAS and connection string and copy the Blob service SAS URL.
Step 2: create the export in the administration center
- In the Business Central administration center, open the Environments list and choose the environment to export.
- On the action ribbon, choose Database, then Create Database Export. The pane shows how many exports remain this month.
- Type a File Name, paste the copied URL into SAS URI, and enter the Container Name. If that container does not exist yet, Business Central creates it.
- Start the export. When it finishes, the BACPAC file is in that container.
What the BACPAC contains, and what it does not
The BACPAC holds the tenant's own business data. Business Central online is a multitenant service, which means each customer has its own business database while the data that defines the application sits in a shared database, and that shared part is not in your file. Microsoft says you can import the BACPAC into Azure SQL Database or SQL Server, but it does not support building a working on-premises Business Central environment from it.
The file is encrypted with the key on the storage account, even when the environment itself uses a customer-managed encryption key. Microsoft's database export page describes the full procedure.
Formats, limits and how long it takes
The only format is BACPAC. Each environment allows up to 10 exports per month, and the Create Database Export pane shows how many remain. Microsoft gives no fixed duration: the export can take several minutes to several hours depending on database size, and you can close the browser window while it runs. The Operations page in the administration center logs every export.
What to settle before customer and employee records leave
Microsoft names no legal prerequisite, but a whole-database export contains customer, vendor and employee names and addresses, which are personal data. That makes the scope a question for the company's lawyer, and the table-level counts above help you decide which ledgers to include. Is it legal to sell company data covers it.
Sources: Microsoft Learn, Viewing table information and Export databases in the admin center. Steps checked against these pages in November 2026.
05
What stays private when Business Central data is licensed?
The short answer
The company decides which ledger and document tables are shared, and the data vendor replaces names and other personal details with consistent stand-ins before an AI lab sees anything. The company keeps ownership of its records, and the license covers defined material for a defined use.
You choose what is in scope
Rather than handing over the whole BACPAC file, the company can limit the share to named ledger and document tables. Tables of customers, vendors and employees can stay out. The data vendor also deletes records too sensitive to clean safely instead of anonymizing them.
Names are replaced before a lab sees them
Anonymization means replacing every detail that identifies a person or a company, such as a name or an email address, with a stand-in that is the same every time it appears. The chain of entries still reads in order, so a lab can learn from it, but it no longer says who the customers and staff are. The diagram below shows one sale before and after.
The method, including what is deleted outright and how you review samples, is in how company data is anonymized for AI training.
Ownership and payment
Licensing gives the buyer limited rights to a copy, while the company keeps ownership of the originals. The terms that matter, such as exclusivity, permitted use and deletion, are covered in data licensing. micro1 pays in full within 30 days of accepting the data, usually as a single payment.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Why don't the Business Central table sizes add up to our capacity figure?
Table Information counts the data stored, not the space the database has reserved, and it omits the indexed views behind SIFT totals. Reserved space is always larger than used space, so the table sizes come out below the capacity figure.
How many times can we export the Business Central database?
Up to 10 times a month for each environment. The Create Database Export pane shows how many exports are left for the current month.
Who can export the Business Central database?
Only internal and delegated administrators. They need an Entra role that opens the administration center, and the D365 BACKUP/RESTORE permission set must be assigned to them in the environment they are exporting.
Can we export our database from a Business Central trial?
No. Microsoft only accepts a database export request when the customer has a paid Business Central subscription, and the export applies to Business Central online environments.
Why does the export fail to reach our Azure storage?
The usual causes are the wrong account type or a SAS that is too narrow. The account must be Standard general-purpose v2, and the SAS must allow Blob, Container and Object, with Read, Write, Delete and Create, valid for at least 72 hours.
Do we need to export Business Central before we apply?
No. The application takes about two minutes and shares no data. You only need your approximate ledger record count, your years of history and your user count for the intro call. The export is needed later, when the records are transferred after you sign the license.
What is Business Central data worth to AI labs and data vendors?
Business Central records are priced as part of a whole dataset rather than on their own. Companies are paid $100K to $2M or more per dataset, according to micro1, and the price depends on the years of history and how completely the records show each job. What your data is worth explains the factors.
Bottom line
Know what is in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, then see what it is worth
You don't need to export anything to apply. Apply in two minutes, describe your records on the intro call, and micro1, the data vendor we typically refer companies to, prices the whole dataset and sends an offer 1–2 days later.
Not legal, tax or financial advice. Figures come from micro1's published pages and public reporting as of November 2026.