This article is part of the In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Administration), how do I… series and of the wider In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, how do I… series which I am posting as I familiarise myself with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

In the previous article in this series, I explained that relationships between number series could be defined, and in this article I will show how this is done.

If we take an example of projects, then we might want to have one number series for UK-based projects and one for EU-based ones.

In the No. Series (456) page, create an additional number series for JOB-EU:

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This article is part of the In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Administration), how do I… series and of the wider In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, how do I… series which I am posting as I familiarise myself with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

One feature of Number Series I forgot to mention when introducing them the other week, is the ability to create relationships between different number series.

The reason for this is to allow for different numbering ranges for the same type of record. For example, if we were working with job, we might want to use different number series depending on the type of job, or for vendors we might be paying employee expenses through the purchase ledger and want to give them different numbers to the vendors.

There is no limit to the amount of number series which can be linked with relationships, but, as always, the recommended approach would be to keep it simple, in order to avoid problems in future.

When a relationship has been defined, you can click the ellipsis button next to the record number and select from the list of related number series for the one which should be used for the record.

In the next article of this series, I will explain how to define the relationship between number series.

This article is part of the In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Administration), how do I… series and of the wider In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, how do I… series which I am posting as I familiarise myself with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

When Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 1 was announced, one of the included features was Set Up And Sync Master Data Across Companies I said it sounded interesting, but I needed to get hands on with it.

Well, I’ve recently had the opportunity to do this on a client project.

It is reasonably easy to configure and the data flow from parent to child companies is quite quick, although I’m not sure I would say it is immediate which was the Microsoft claim.

I was also surprised to discover that, despite the name, it allows you to not only synchronise master data, but also setup data, which means that as well as allowing item, vendor or customers to be synced, you can also sync the Inventory, Purchasing and Payables and Sales and Receivables Setup as well.

Fortunately, it is very flexible, allowing you to not only select the tables to sync, but also which fields within the table should be synced and also apply filters to limit the data which is to be synced. So, for example, I might want to limit items to a particular set of inventory posting groups or only customers from a specific region to be synchronised.

With master data management comes great capabilities for synchronising data, but also great risks; a lot of records in Business Central use an id field as the key, but this isn’t generally exposed to users and must never be synchronised, as synchronised records will be assigned a unique key in the child company, meaning another record being synchronised with the original id field will be looking at the wrong record.

This article is part of the In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Sales), how do I… series and of the wider In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, how do I… series which I am posting as I familiarise myself with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

I explained Number Series in a recent article; creating the number series is a required step, but all that does is create the umber series; it doesn’t tell Business Central what to do with it.

Each module has a required step of configuring the number series which will be used for the master record and each type of transaction. In Sales this is maintained in the Sales & Receivables Setup (459) page, on the Number Series fasttab:

Continue reading “In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Sales), how do I… Assign Number Series in Sales”

This article is part of the In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Purchasing), how do I… series and of the wider In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, how do I… series which I am posting as I familiarise myself with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

I explained Number Series in a recent article; creating the number series is a required step, but all that does is create the umber series; it doesn’t tell Business Central what to do with it.

Each module has a required step of configuring the number series which will be used for the master record and each type of transaction. In Purchasing this is maintained in the Purchases & Payables Setup (460) page, on the Number Series fasttab:

Continue reading “In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Purchasing), how do I… Assign Number Series in Purchasing”

This article is part of the In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Purchasing), how do I… series and of the wider In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, how do I… series which I am posting as I familiarise myself with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

when entering a purchase invoice, you need to match the values entered into Business Central with those on the invoice received from the supplier. In most cases, they will be the same, so you can simply enter the transaction, but at times there will be a difference in values, most commonly in the VAT figure where the suppliers system is rounding differently to Business Central.

Fortunately, you can override the VAT calculation and change the vat amount on the invoice.

If we take the below example, where £22,018.40 of tax has been calculated, and need to reduce the VAT by a penny for a rounding difference:

Continue reading “In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Purchasing), how do I… Override VAT on a Purchase Invoice”

This article is part of the In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Purchasing), how do I… series and of the wider In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, how do I… series which I am posting as I familiarise myself with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

When dealing with purchase invoices there are a few date fields on the record and I have fielded a few queries from users to clarify exactly what they are and how they should be set.

The Document Date is the date on the suppliers invoice; you should always set this field correctly when entering a purchase invoice and is used to calculate the Due Date.

Oddly, there is both an Invoice Receipt Date and an Invoice Received Date field, which appear to be intended for the same purpose; recording the date you received the invoice from the supplier.

Posting Date is the date the transaction will be posted to the general ledger; usually set to the same value as the document date, you may need to change this when entering invoices after month end when the invoice is dated before month end; this allows you to enter the invoice with the correct Document Date, but keep the financial postings in the current month.

The Due Date is the date by which the invoice should, according to the payment terms, be paid.

The VAT Date is the date upon which VAT is payable.

This article is part of the In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Administration), how do I… series and of the wider In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, how do I… series which I am posting as I familiarise myself with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

There is four main types of data in Business Central; master data, transactions before posting, transactions after posting and ledger entries.

I was surprised to learn that all of this data, excepting the ledger entries, can, by default, be deleted.

Just in case you’re not aware, the flow of a transaction, such as a sales invoice, would be from the transactions before posting tables (such as Sales Header (36) / Sales Line (37)) to the transactions after posting tables (such as Sales Invoice Header (112) / Sales Invoice Line (113)) when the transaction was posted. At the same time, entries will be created in the ledger entries table (such as Cust. Ledger Entry (21)).

So when a transaction is deleted, which can be done through the relevant list page, it is only deleted from the transaction before/after posting tables, but will still remain on the ledgers.

There are a couple of caveats to deleting master data. You cannot delete the master data if there are unposted transactions or if there are ledger entries in an open financial year.

When you delete a master re cord, the ledger entries in closed years remain behind, but are in effect “orphaned” records which relate to a record which no longer exists. This means you need to be careful how you create reports; for example, no inner joins between the transaction and master record tables, as this would exclude transactions not in the master record table.

As I said at the start of the post, the data can by default be deleted, as the permissions sets which Business Central ship with allow for deletion. The way to prevent users from deleting master records or posted transactions is to create and assign custom permission sets which prevent data being deleted.