How to Use Filters in Business Central Like a Pro

Learn how to filter lists and reports in Dynamics 365 Business Central using the filter pane, operators, tokens, FlowFilters, and saved views.

If you’re not using filters properly in Business Central, you’re doing admin by endurance. Filters are how you get from “a list of everything” to “the 12 records I actually need” without exporting to Excel and pretending that’s a process.

This guide covers what filters are, where they work, the operators you’ll use daily, and the traps that make people think Business Central has “lost” transactions.

Search vs filter: they’re not the same thing

• Search is broad and simple. It matches across the fields that are visible on the page, it’s case-insensitive, and it doesn’t search numeric fields. Great for “I vaguely remember the name”.

• Filtering is precise and powerful. You filter specific fields (including fields not shown on the page), and filters are case-sensitive by default unless you tell them otherwise.

If you want reliable, repeatable results: filter. If you want a quick rummage: search.

Where filters work in Business Central

1) Lists and worksheets (most common)

Use the filter pane on pages like Customers, Vendors, Sales Orders, Item Ledger Entries, G/L Entries, etc.

Key shortcuts (worth memorising):

• Shift + F3: Toggle/open the filter pane (field filters)

• Alt + F3: Filter to the selected cell value

• Shift + Alt + F3: Add a filter on the selected field (jumps you straight into the filter box)

• Ctrl + Shift + F3: Toggle/open the filter pane (totals filters)

• Ctrl + Alt + Shift + F3: Reset filters

2) Reports / batch jobs

Filters appear on the request page before you run the report. Same operators, same logic.

3) Line items on documents (the bit everyone misses)

When a list is embedded (e.g., Sales Lines on a Sales Order), filtering works best in Focus mode so the filter pane becomes available for that embedded list.

The filter pane: use the right section

The filter pane is usually split into:

• Views (optional): saved variations of a list

• Filter list by: reduces the records shown (your day-to-day filters)

• Filter totals by: changes totals and calculated values (FlowFilters)

The common mistake

People apply a filter under Filter list by and then wonder why the totals don’t change (or vice versa).
If you’re trying to influence totals (especially on pages showing balances/quantities), you often need Filter totals by.

Filter operators you’ll actually use

Here’s the practical cheat sheet. Put this in your internal wiki and look like a wizard.

Two “gotchas” that bite hard

1. Text ranges are alphabetical (lexicographic). If someone stored numbers in a Text field, a “range” filter can pull in weird values you didn’t expect.
2. Filtering values that contain certain symbols needs quotes. If the value itself includes &, (, ), =, or |, wrap your filter in single quotes. Example: 'J & V*'.

Option fields: filtering Status the right way

For option fields (like Status on Sales Orders), you filter by selecting one or more options in the filter dropdown.

If you tick multiple options, Business Central treats them as OR:

• Open or Released (not both at once)

This is one of those rare times the UI actually does what users assume it will.

Filter tokens: the underused superpower

Filter tokens are shortcuts that Business Central replaces with meaningful values. They save time and reduce mistakes.

Common examples:

• %me / %user: records assigned to you (in user-id type fields)

• %mycustomers: customers in My Customers

• %myitems: items in My Items

• %myvendors: vendors in My Vendors

If your team doesn’t use these, you’re doing filtering the hard way for no prize.

A fast, repeatable workflow (mouse optional)

This is how we train users to work quickly:

1. Click the column you care about
2. Shift + Alt + F3 (adds the field to filters and puts you in the filter box)
3. Type your criteria (e.g. @*ltd* or 01/01/26..31/01/26)
4. Ctrl + Enter to jump back to the rows
5. Repeat for the next column

Once you do this for a week, you’ll wonder how you ever tolerated scrolling.

Saving filters as views (stop redoing the same filters daily)

Filters stick around during your session, but the real win is saving them as a View so you can reuse them and switch instantly.

Use saved views for:

• “Open Sales Orders – This Week”

• “Customers – Over Credit Limit”

• “Items – Reorder Required”

• “G/L Entries – Current Month (Operations)”

If your team shares “how to find things” by sending screenshots, you need views. Harsh but fair.

Common problems and how to fix them

“No records found”

• Clear filters and reapply one at a time.

• Check both Filter list by and Filter totals by (people forget totals filters exist).

“Search finds it, filter doesn’t”

• Your filter is case-sensitive (use @ if you want case-insensitive).

• You’re filtering the wrong field (add the exact field via + Filter).

“Totals don’t change”

• You probably need Filter totals by (FlowFilters), not just list filters.

“I can’t filter the lines on a document”

• Use Focus mode on the lines, then filter.

FAQs: Using Filters in Business Central

Next Steps

If you want to level this up further, the next step is setting up a handful of standard views per role (Finance, Sales, Ops) so users spend less time finding data and more time actually doing something with it. That’s where Business Central starts feeling “fast”.

What to get more from Business Central? Get in touch below…