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A business portfolio is the top-level container Meta uses to hold all of your business assets in one place: Facebook Pages, Instagram accounts, ad accounts, your WhatsApp Business Account, and the team members who manage them. Meta renamed this from “Business Manager” to “Business portfolio” in 2024, and the URL was renamed from business.facebook.com to the same domain but with new path patterns. Most pages and tutorials still use the older name. You need a portfolio before you can do anything else in the Meta setup sequence. This page covers what a portfolio is, how to create one, and the common pitfalls.

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Do you already have one?

Many teams already do without realising. You have a portfolio if:
  • You’ve run a Facebook or Instagram ad in the last few years
  • You manage a Facebook Page that has more than one admin
  • You’ve ever clicked through to business.facebook.com and seen any business assets
To check, go to business.facebook.com and sign in with the Facebook account that you’d use for work. If you see a business name at the top-left and a list of assets, you have a portfolio. Skip to Provide official business information.

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What a portfolio holds

Think of the portfolio as the root of an organisation chart for your Meta assets. Below it sit:
  • Pages — Facebook Pages your business owns
  • Instagram accounts — Instagram profiles linked to those Pages
  • Ad accounts — the billing/budget containers for Facebook & Instagram ads
  • WhatsApp Business Accounts (WABAs) — the WhatsApp-specific containers that hold phone numbers and templates
  • Apps — anything you build on Meta for Developers
  • People — the team members granted access, with their roles and permissions
  • Partners — other portfolios (typically agencies) granted access to your assets
All of these live in the same portfolio so you can grant your team access to everything at once rather than asset by asset.

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Creating a portfolio

1

Sign in to Meta Business Suite

Go to business.facebook.com with the Facebook account that will be the primary admin of the business. Use a personal Facebook account that belongs to a long-term employee, not a shared address.
Avoid using a brand-new Facebook account for this. Meta flags brand-new accounts that immediately create business assets as suspicious, which can slow down verification later.
2

Open the portfolio creation flow

Click your profile picture at the top-right, then Create a business portfolio. If you already manage portfolios, click the portfolio switcher at the top-left, then Create new.
3

Enter the business details

Provide:
  • Business and account name — the trading or brand name customers know
  • Your name — the primary admin
  • Business email address — a real, monitored address on the business domain (name@yourcompany.com is much better than a Gmail)
These are administrative details, not the legal business information needed for verification. You’ll add those separately later.
4

Confirm via email

Meta sends a confirmation email to the address you provided. Click the link to verify it. The portfolio is created and you’ll land on the Meta Business Suite home for it.
5

Record your portfolio ID

After creation, find the business portfolio ID (a 15- or 16-digit number) in Business Suite → Settings → Business info. Save it somewhere; you’ll be asked for it during Flowella onboarding and any future Meta support tickets.

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Common pitfalls

The Facebook account that creates the portfolio is the original admin. If that account is later deactivated (employee leaves, account hacked, etc.) you’ll have access problems. Either use an account on a long-term employee’s name, or immediately add at least one other admin so the portfolio doesn’t depend on a single person.
Some teams accidentally end up with two portfolios for the same business because different people set things up at different times. Meta verification is portfolio-specific, so a second portfolio means a second verification, second WABA, and split assets. Try to consolidate before getting too far.If you need to merge two portfolios, Meta has a request form, but it’s slow and not guaranteed. Better to pick one portfolio and migrate assets to it manually.
Don’t put assets that genuinely belong to a different business in your portfolio. Meta verification will check that the assets and the legal business match. If the portfolio contains a Page or ad account that’s clearly someone else’s, verification can fail.
The portfolio name should be the legal or trading name of the business, not a product name. If your business is “Acme Marketing Ltd” and you sell a product called “Flowmaster”, name the portfolio “Acme Marketing”, not “Flowmaster”. Product-named portfolios cause confusion in verification because they don’t match Companies House (or equivalent).

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Adding people to the portfolio

Once the portfolio exists, grant your team access:
1

Open Users

Settings → Users → People → Add.
2

Invite by email

Enter their work email. They’ll get a Facebook notification to accept.
3

Pick a role

Meta has two role tiers: Full control (admin of the whole portfolio) and Limited access (specific roles like Manage business finances, Manage WhatsApp Account, Manage Pages, etc.).For the person who’ll add the WhatsApp payment method, grant Manage business finances. For the person who’ll send WhatsApp messages via Flowella, grant Manage WhatsApp Account on the specific WABA.
4

Assign assets

For limited-access users, pick which Pages, ad accounts, WABAs, and other assets they can see and the role they have on each.
Grant the minimum role each person needs to do their job. Full-control admins can transfer business ownership, delete the portfolio, and remove other admins, so it’s a powerful role.

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What’s next

With the portfolio created and populated: