How do backups work in Business Central?

By Oscar Geurtsen

Why backups are important

When switching to Business Central in the cloud, most people want to be sure of one thing: will my data remain safe?
Luckily, with Microsoft you don’t have to lose any sleep over that. The system automatically creates backup copies of your environment, without you having to do anything. Still, it’s useful to know how often that happens, what exactly is stored, and how you can recover data if something goes wrong.

Automatic protection of your environment

One of the biggest advantages of Business Central Online is that Microsoft itself takes care of the technical side of backups. So you don’t need your own servers, external drives, or manual settings.
In the background, copies of your data are constantly being made, allowing you to go back to an earlier moment whenever something goes wrong.

When are backups created?

Your data is stored via the Azure cloud, which runs a smart schedule that continuously makes copies:

A full copy of the database is made once per week.
Intermediate copies are made every 12 to 24 hours.
Transaction data is secured approximately every ten minutes.

Thanks to this combination, you can return to any point in the last 28 days. So you don’t need a new full backup every day to be sure you can restore recent data.

What exactly is stored?

Backups are made of your entire Business Central environment. That means:

all companies within that environment are included,
settings, extensions, and transactions are also saved,
but it’s not possible to restore just one element – for example, a single table or company.

A backup always covers the entire environment at once.

Restoring a backup

You can’t download or store a backup locally. Restoring is done through the Business Central Admin Center, where you can easily choose which environment you want to restore and from what point in time.

Here’s how it works:

Go to the Business Central Admin Center.
Select the environment you want to restore.
Click Restore.
Choose the desired point within the last 28 days.
Indicate whether it should be a production or sandbox environment.
Enter a name for the new environment and start the process.

After completion, check whether everything works correctly. Only when the restored environment is fully functioning should you start using it in place of the old one.

Important points to note

You can restore an environment up to ten times per month.
During a restore, the number of environments may temporarily exceed your license limit; this is allowed for up to 30 days.
Links with other systems (such as Power Automate, email, or webhooks) must be reactivated manually.
Apps from AppSource are restored to the most recent update, not necessarily the version active at the time of the backup.
Extensions you published yourself from Visual Studio Code are not automatically restored.

In short

Microsoft manages the complete backup structure of Business Central. You don’t need to install or maintain anything yourself, but it’s still wise to understand how it works. If something ever goes wrong, you can return to a previous moment with just a few clicks.

This way, you combine the power of the cloud with the assurance that your data is always protected.