Business Central Invoices: Posted vs Unposted, Statuses, and the Invoice Number Prefix Filter

Only posted invoices can be paid

Business Central sales invoices go through several stages: Open (a draft you can still edit), Pending Approval, Released, and finally Posted. Only a posted invoice has customer ledger entries, so only a posted invoice can have a payment applied to it.

Benji Pays therefore shows and collects payment only for posted sales invoices with a remaining balance. Draft, Pending Approval (shown as In Review by the API) and Released invoices are not imported, do not appear in the Customer Portal, are not emailed by Invoice Rover and are never auto-processed.

If an invoice you posted does not show in Benji Pays yet, wait a few minutes for the webhook or open the Customers page to trigger a refresh. See How Business Central Data Syncs with Benji Pays.

Number series: S-INV and PS-INV

Business Central uses two number series for sales invoices. Unposted invoices use Invoice Nos. (default prefix S-INV, for example S-INV100234). When an invoice is posted it receives a new number from Posted Invoice Nos. (default prefix PS-INV, for example PS-INV100234). Your company may use different prefixes; check Sales & Receivables Setup > Number Series.

Benji Pays displays the posted number. If an invoice number changes because it was posted, Benji Pays keeps track of the old number so payment history stays attached to the invoice.

The Status column on the Invoices page

For Business Central companies the Invoices page has a Status column. Hover over the badge for details:

Skip Invoices by Invoice Number Prefix (Auto Processing)

Because Business Central uses prefixes to distinguish document types, Benji Pays lets you control which invoices Auto Processing considers by their invoice number prefix. Use it to skip a whole class of invoices (for example a number series used for internal or intercompany invoices) or to process only one series.

1. Go to Settings > Company Settings and scroll to Invoice Skip Settings.
2. Under Skip Invoices by Invoice Number Prefix, turn on Skip invoices by invoice number prefix during auto-processing.
3. Choose a Filter mode: Skip invoices whose number starts with the following prefixes, or Only process invoices whose number starts with the following prefixes.
4. In Invoice number prefixes (matched when number starts with), type a prefix and press Space to add it as a bubble. Repeat for each prefix.
5. Select Save Invoice Skip Settings.

Rules for prefixes: matching is starts with and is applied to the invoice number as shown in Benji Pays; each prefix must be 50 characters or less; you can add up to 50 prefixes; prefixes can only contain letters, numbers, hyphens, underscores, and periods.

When you enable Auto Processing for a Business Central company, Benji Pays shows a warning headed "Action required: review before enabling Auto Processing" reminding you that only posted invoices are processed and pointing you to this setting. Review it before you turn Auto Processing on.

Reference Field Skip

QuickBooks users skip single invoices by putting text in the invoice memo. For Business Central, Benji Pays reads the invoice's Reference field instead (the customer purchase order / external document reference on the sales invoice). In Invoice Skip Settings the section is titled Reference Field Skip.

1. Under Reference Field Skip, choose whether to skip invoices when the Reference field Contains the text below or Does NOT contain the text below.
2. Enter the text, for example *NAP*. Benji searches the entire Reference field, so pick something that would not normally appear there.
3. Select Save Invoice Skip Settings.
4. In Business Central, put that text in the Reference field of any invoice you do not want auto-processed, before it is posted.

Payment Terms and invoice date skip

The other Invoice Skip Settings work for Business Central the same way they do for QuickBooks:

• Payment Terms: turn off the switch next to any Business Central payment terms code to skip invoices that use it during Auto Processing.
• Skip invoices with invoice date prior to: skip everything dated before the day you started using Benji Pays.
• Skip Auto Processing by Amount: skip invoices above or below a balance you choose.

Invoice PDFs

Benji Pays retrieves the invoice PDF from Business Central when you view, email or attach an invoice. The PDF uses the report layout selected in Business Central for posted sales invoices, so change your branding there, not in Benji Pays. Document attachments uploaded to the posted invoice in Business Central can also be included in receipt emails: in Settings > Company Settings turn on "Include any uploaded Business Central invoice attachment(s) in your customer's receipt emails."