Tackling eInvoicing and Payment Reconciliation Scenarios in Microsoft Business Central 365

Finance leaders need to focus on the conversion of pending accounts receivable (AR) into payments to have a clear picture of their cash flow. Accounts receivable management is one of the key finance functions for any organization.

The invoice-to-cash cycle is evolving as a result of rapid technology adoption. In this blog, we explore the common invoicing and payment reconciliation scenarios in Microsoft Business Central 365 and how to tackle them.

4 Key eInvoicing and Payment Reconciliation scenarios

1. Creating invoices for sales orders with multiple shipment requirements:

Microsoft Business Central 365 allows users to create an invoice from a sales order simultaneously or separately. In case of multiple shipments, Microsoft Business Central 365 allows you to create partial invoices for shipments by completing the necessary fields in the individual sales order lines. 

For invoicing shipments, follow the steps below:

1. For invoicing one shipment:

• Post the invoice from the sales order
• Use the “Get Shipment Lines” function in a sales invoice

Note: If you have shipped orders where the sell-to customer no. is different from the bill-to customer no., those orders will not get displayed in the “Get shipment report”.

2. For Multiple shipments:

• Use the Get Shipment Lines function in a sales invoice
• Use the Combine Shipment function.

Before creating a combined shipment, more than one sales shipment for the same customer in the same currency must be posted. In other words, you must have filled in two or more sales orders and posted them as shipped but not invoiced.

2. Send invoices and sales orders electronically:

Business Central 365 allows users to send all documents (invoice, sales order, purchase order, etc.) as attachments to email messages. They can create and send customized emails automatically from the ERP.
Users can send documents directly from the page without having to open an email application. They can also review the posted transactions.

Business Central 365 enables you to set up each customer with a preferred method of sending sales documents so that you do not have to select a sending option every time. 

How to manage?

1. Select the search for page icon
2. Enter document sending profiles

3. On the Document Sending Profiles page and select new action icon.
4. Fill in the fields as necessary

Profiles are assigned to each customer to define how you will be sending them their documents. If a profile is not assigned, then the default profile will be used.

Optimizing eInvoicing with Advanced out-of-the-box solution

Advanced out-of-the-box solutions like Radiusone enable businesses to focus on value-added tasks by automating invoice delivery and correspondence. 

• Enables businesses to automatically send invoices to their customers via email without any external efforts.
• Allows access to a self-service portal for the customer to view and make payments easily.
• Multiple invoices grouped with the same client can be sent as a bulk message via email and AP portals without human intervention.

3. Include payment service links on posted invoices:

Customers can pay you through their account using various payment services. Here are the steps to use this feature.

1. Select the search for the page and enter payment services.
2. On the Payment Services page, select  ‘new action’ to choose the payment service.

3. Fill in the fields as necessary to complete the setup.

Once the payment service is enabled, you’ll get a link to the service on your sales documents that can be emailed to your customers. 

Enabling multiple digital formats can reduce your finance team’s dependency on checks, reducing overheads.

Enabling flexible B2B payment options with out-of-box integration

Advanced out-of-the-box solutions like RadiusOne help enhance the B2B payment capabilities in Microsoft Business Central 365. With the addition of an augmented digital payments solution, businesses can leverage a self-service customer portal. This gives your customers the utmost flexibility to choose between multiple payment options like ACH, debit cards, and credit cards.

4. Payment reconciliation:

The Payment Reconciliation Journal page classifies incoming payments as transactions on your online bank account that can be applied to the related open customer, vendor, and bank account ledger entries.

Users can apply payments recorded in the banks to their related unpaid invoices and other open entries.

You can fill lines in the journal by importing a bank statement as a bank feed or file.

Business Central 365 users can apply payments automatically based on open entries and matching of data on the bank statement line with one or more entries. You can also directly import bank statements into payment reconciliation journals.

Automate Cash Application with out-of-the-box support

Advanced solutions can automatically pull remittance information from various sources like email, EDI, and bank statements. The remittance information is matched automatically with open invoices and customer accounts. It eliminates bank lockbox fees and extra human effort. Faster cash application boosts cash flow, resulting in optimized working capital.

This is why daily cash application is vital to ensure every payment is applied and recorded as cash inflows in the books.

Next Steps: Automate eInvoicing and Cash Reconciliation

Best-in-class AR automation solutions like RadiusOne help boost Microsoft Business Central 365 performance. 

• It includes automation workflows for processes including e-Invoicing, collections, cash reconciliation, and credit risk management.
• Aggregates remittances from various sources, including emails, EDIs, customer web portals, and even non-standardized remittance formats.
• Collects faster with flexible payment options. Accepts payments via ACH, credit card, and debit card channels.
• enables customers to make payments via credit card and save interchange fees by leveraging Level III data.

If you’re looking to enhance your ERP’s functionality with modern accounts receivable automation solutions, schedule a demo with us today to see our AI-based software in action.