What Is Facebook Business Manager? Business Portfolio vs Business Suite

Facebook Business Manager (searched in Thai as "facebook business manager คือ") is Meta's central system for holding business assets such as Facebook Pages, Instagram accounts, ad accounts, the Meta Pixel and apps in one place, and for controlling who can access what. The Meta Business Help Center now calls this a "business portfolio" and manages it through the Settings menu inside Meta Business Suite. Business Suite itself is the tool for posting, replying to messages and reviewing results, which is a different job.

Many people still search for the old name, Business Manager or BM, so this article uses both names and follows the menus and terms Meta uses in its current help pages.

How is Business Manager different from Business Suite?

The easiest way to remember it: the business portfolio (formerly Business Manager) is the "cabinet and the keys", and Meta Business Suite is the "desk" where you work with what is in the cabinet.

Meta describes a business portfolio as the place that brings together Pages, Instagram accounts, Threads accounts, ad accounts, catalogues and other assets, so you can manage both the assets and the people who access them from one place. Meanwhile, the How Meta Business Suite works page says Business Suite is for getting an overview, planning a content calendar, creating and scheduling posts, Stories and Reels, viewing insights, replying in an Inbox that combines Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp, and creating simple ads.

The link between the two is that Meta says you need a business portfolio to use Business Suite, and the Settings menu in Business Suite is where you manage the whole portfolio. On screen, both live on the same site at business.facebook.com, but they work at different layers.

What is a Meta business portfolio and what can it do?

According to Meta's About business portfolios page, a business portfolio lets you:

• View and manage all your assets, such as commerce accounts, datasets and apps, in one place
• Manage many people's permissions so each person only has access to what they need for their work
• Run ads across Facebook, Instagram and Threads
• Collaborate with partners, agencies and consultants
• Add system users and access Meta's APIs
• Identify security risks through the Security Centre

Meta also lists tasks that require a business portfolio: using Meta Business Suite, enrolling in monthly invoicing, running ads about social issues, elections or politics, verifying your domain, and creating a publisher block list.

In Business Suite Settings you will see these main sections, which together map everything in the portfolio:

• Users to manage people, partners and system users
• Accounts to manage Pages, ad accounts, business asset groups, apps, Instagram accounts, Threads accounts, commerce accounts, Meta Pixels and WhatsApp accounts
• Data sources to manage catalogues, Meta Pixels, offline event sets, datasets, custom conversions and shared audiences
• Brand safety to manage domains and block lists
• Payments to manage payment methods and credit lines
• Security centre to require two-factor authentication, add a second person with full control, and start business verification
• Requests and Business info to see invitations sent and received and edit general business details

How to create a Business Manager (business portfolio)

The steps from Meta's How to create a business portfolio in Meta Business Suite page, on desktop, are:

1. Go to business.facebook.com and log in with your Facebook profile or a managed Meta account.
2. Click the drop-down menu below Home in the top left.
3. Click Create a business portfolio.
4. Name the portfolio to match your business's public name, because it is visible across Meta; the name cannot contain special characters.
5. If you are logged in with a Facebook profile, enter your first name, surname and business email address. Meta uses this email to contact you about your business, and customers will not see it.
6. Click Create or Create portfolio, then confirm your business email from the link Meta sends.

Limits worth knowing before you start:

• Each person can personally create up to two business portfolios, but can belong to any number of other portfolios.
• A business asset, such as a Page or an ad account, can belong to only one business portfolio.
• A new portfolio or ad account may not have access to every advertising feature yet. Meta lets you check which features you have and what you need to do next in Business Support Home.

A common mistake is letting a freelancer or employee create the portfolio with their own personal account. When that person leaves, the business owner does not have full control of their own portfolio. The owner should create it and invite others afterwards.

Adding people to Business Manager and setting permissions

According to Meta's Add people to a business portfolio and assign a business asset page, the steps are:

1. Open Settings in Meta Business Suite for that portfolio.
2. Click People in the left menu. If you cannot see it, you may not have full control of the portfolio.
3. Click Invite people in the top right.
4. Enter the email address of the person you are inviting; it must match the email used on their Facebook account. Click Next.
5. Select their business portfolio permissions, then click Next.
6. Select business assets and permissions for each asset, then click Invite.

The invited person must accept, and Meta notes it can take a few days before all features become available to them. To assign someone an Instagram account, you first need to be logged in to that Instagram account under Instagram accounts in Settings.

Portfolio permission levels

Meta's About business portfolio and business asset permissions page splits access into two main levels:

• Full access (formerly full control) can manage everything: settings, people, tools and assets; claim or remove assets and people; see all assets; and delete the portfolio.
• Partial access divides into Basic (formerly the employee role), which can work only on assigned assets and is the default for new people, and Apps and integrations (formerly the developer role), for setting up the Conversions API, monitoring events, editing apps and creating access tokens.

There is also finance access as an advanced option, for viewing or managing financial information such as transactions, invoices, account spend and payment methods. Temporary access is available too: it grants Basic access only, for a minimum of 3 days and a maximum of 75 days, after which the person is removed from the portfolio automatically. That suits freelancers working on a project basis.

Asset-level permissions

Asset permissions are separate from portfolio permissions. Someone can have full access to a single Page without full access to the portfolio. Partial access to an asset is split by task, such as creating content, managing ads or responding to messages. Meta's guiding principle is to give people only the permissions they need to do their work.

Adding an agency as a partner

Adding an agency is not the same as adding a person. Meta treats it as adding a partner, which works in two ways: giving the partner access to your assets, or asking the partner to share their assets with you. If an agency runs your ads, the first way keeps your business as the owner of the ad account and the Pixel. When the engagement ends, you can remove the partner's access.

Connecting ad accounts and the Pixel to Business Manager

Ad accounts, Pages and Instagram accounts sit under Accounts in Settings, while the Meta Pixel and datasets sit under Data sources. A safe order of work is:

1. Add the business's Facebook Page and Instagram account to the portfolio first.
2. Under Accounts, in Ad accounts, add an existing ad account the business owns or create a new one inside the portfolio.
3. Under Data sources, create or add the Meta Pixel and dataset, then assign them to the ad accounts that need that data.
4. Under Payments, set up the payment method for the ad account.
5. Assign permissions on each asset to the people or partners who need them.

Remember that an asset can belong to only one portfolio. If an ad account or Pixel was created inside an agency's or freelancer's portfolio, you cannot add it to your own portfolio as the owner; you can only receive it as a shared asset. Before a campaign starts, check who owns each asset as well as who can access it.

Setting up portfolio security

Meta's Best practices for making a business portfolio more secure page includes steps you can act on right away:

• Remove people who have not logged in to the portfolio in the past 90 days, especially those with full control.
• Close ad accounts you no longer use, because accounts that have not run ads in the last year are more likely to be targeted, and ad accounts cannot be deleted from a portfolio, only closed.
• Remove people who have not set up passkeys or two-factor authentication.
• Remove users with public email domains that are not related to your business.
• Limit the number of people with full control; Meta suggests ideally ten or fewer.
• Have two active people with full control, which enables second admin approval for sensitive actions.
• Export a file of everyone's permissions from the People tab in Settings and review it regularly.

What to do when Business Manager is restricted

Following Meta's Troubleshoot a disabled or restricted account page, on a computer:

1. Go to Meta Business Support Home.
2. Under Account overview, click the restricted account.
3. Look at the What you can do section and follow the recommended steps, which may include confirming your identity, completing verification, securing your account or requesting a review.

Only an admin on the account can request a review. Meta also states that if an ad account is disabled for a policy violation and remains ineligible for reinstatement for six months, any unused prepaid services may be forfeited where allowed by law, and after that period the account cannot be reinstated.

Before requesting a review, open the relevant advertising policy and fix the cause first, for example by removing the violating ad or correcting the landing page. If the restricted account is an admin's personal account, that person cannot add anyone to the portfolio, which is another reason to keep two people with full access.

Facebook Business Manager for businesses in Thailand

Many Thai businesses start by letting a Page admin or an agency set everything up, so ownership of the ad account, Pixel and Page ends up spread across several portfolios. If you are reviewing your setup, use Settings to check which portfolio owns each asset, and move the core assets into the business's own portfolio.

The portfolio name must match the business's public name and cannot contain special characters, so if your Thai brand name uses symbols, drop them from the portfolio name. Use a company-domain email as the business email, since Meta's best-practice page recommends removing users whose public email addresses are unrelated to the business.

If the company plans to use monthly invoicing or needs to verify its domain, Meta says both go through the business portfolio, so get the portfolio in order before launching Facebook ads or Instagram ads.

FAQ about Facebook Business Manager

Does Facebook Business Manager still exist?

Yes, but Meta's current help pages call it a business portfolio and manage it through Settings in Meta Business Suite. Its core function is unchanged: holding business assets and managing people's permissions.

Do I need a personal Facebook account to create a business portfolio?

You need one of two things: a Facebook profile or a managed Meta account. With a managed Meta account you also need organisation management permissions in Organisation Manager.

How many business portfolios can I create?

Each person can create up to two personally, but can join any number of portfolios created by others.

How should I give an agency access?

Add the agency as a partner and assign only the assets it needs, rather than letting the agency create the ad account or Pixel inside its own portfolio. Your business keeps ownership of the data and can remove access when the work ends.

If you would like a team to review your portfolio structure, permissions and Pixel connections before a campaign starts, see Relevant Audience's social media advertising service.