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Microsoft Dynamics Business Central

EDI

A purchase order lands in Business Central as a header and a set of lines, and every document that follows has to find its way back to that same record. Business Central throttles API calls at 6,000 per five minute window per user, so a retry storm caused by a mispriced invoice queues behind everything else trying to post. The deduction that sticks is the one where the invoice priced off the item card instead of the PO line Business Central already held.

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Oliver Bonas
Green People
Tatty Devine
Cult

Which deduction category does an invoice end up in?

Most of these start the same way on a Business Central account: an invoice posts at the item card price instead of the price on the purchase order line the partner sent. PO accuracy and invoice discrepancy deductions both trace back to that one habit, and they surface on the vendor ledger months after the order closed. Delivery window and ASN categories depend on whether what got posted against the purchase line matches what the shipment notice said would arrive.

  • PO accuracy
  • Delivery window
  • Invoice discrepancy
  • Late acknowledgement
  • Late ASN
  • ASN non-compliance
  • Routing guide

What do you hand over before Business Central starts invoicing against a PO?

Getting an account trading starts with access, not with a go live date. Three things need confirming before the first invoice posts against a purchase order line instead of the item card.

  • Azure AD credentials and the API scopes the service principal needs
  • The purchase header and line structure for each partner, so invoices post against them
  • Who owns the AL extension or HttpClient integration once it's live

Six documents move through Business Central. What do they actually do?

Each one only holds up if it checks against the purchase line Business Central actually has on file, not whatever the item master says that day.

810

Prices the invoice against the purchase order line Business Central already holds, not the item card.

It posts into the vendor ledger against the purchase line, and if it's built from the item master instead, the mismatch doesn't surface until someone reconciles the vendor statement.

850

Brings the partner's order into the purchase header and lines.

It lands as a purchase document inside Business Central, and the lines are what every later document, invoice included, has to match against.

820

Confirms what the partner actually paid against which posted invoice.

It applies against vendor ledger entries, and a line that doesn't match a posted invoice sits open until someone chases it.

855

Confirms the purchase order back to the partner before fulfilment starts.

Built from the purchase header Business Central holds, it has to go back with the same quantities and dates the partner sent, or the mismatch resurfaces at invoice time.

856

Tells the partner what actually shipped against the order.

It has to reflect what was posted against the purchase line, not what the order originally asked for, because a quantity that drifts between the two is where a delivery window deduction starts.

997

Confirms the transaction itself arrived, separate from anything Business Central records.

It's a receipt for the EDI message, not for the order, and it doesn't tell anyone whether the purchase line actually matched.

A document that doesn't tie back to the purchase header Business Central holds is the one that turns into a deduction later.

How hard does the real limit bite?

Business Central throttles OData, REST and SOAP requests at 6,000 calls in any five minute window per user, and a service principal counts the same as a person. Five requests process at once, ninety five queue behind them, and a request still waiting after eight minutes comes back as a 503 rather than a result. Authentication runs through OAuth 2.0 and Azure AD, and the current API surface is v2.0, with v1.0 already marked deprecated.

  • X12
  • EDIFACT
  • AS2
  • SFTP
  • Cloud storage
Microsoft Dynamics Business Central integration surfaceharvested 2026-08-05
protocols REST, OData, SOAP
authentication OAuth 2.0, Azure AD
webhooks yes
event notifications yes
bulk operations yes
paging Offset-based pagination
rate limits Standard rate limiting applied
versioning API v2.0 current version; v1.0 deprecated

Confirmed against your instance during onboarding.

Who keeps watching Business Central once it's live?

Four things get watched daily on an account trading through Business Central, because each one is where a deduction or a queue backup starts.

Rate limit headroom

Call volume gets tracked against the 6,000 per five minute ceiling so a spike in invoice postings doesn't start queuing or returning 429s unnoticed.

PO line matching

Every invoice gets checked against the purchase line Business Central actually holds before it posts, not against whatever the item card currently says.

Version migration

With v1.0 marked deprecated, the connection gets moved to v2.0 on a schedule, tested against the live endpoints a partner's documents actually use.

Acknowledgement watch

855s and 997s get tracked against partner deadlines, using event notifications rather than someone checking a screen at the end of the day.

Questions we get asked about Business Central specifically

Our order volume spikes hard around a seasonal push. What actually happens when we hit Business Central's API that fast?

Business Central allows 6,000 calls in any five minute window per user, and a service principal counts the same as a person. Five requests process at once and ninety five queue behind them, so a burst of invoice postings during a seasonal spike can back up fast. A request still waiting after eight minutes comes back as a 503 rather than a result, and going over the limit returns a 429, so the queue has to be watched before volume doubles, not after.

A partner's purchase order reaches our Business Central account. Where does it actually sit, and what stops the invoice pricing off the item card instead?

The purchase order lands as a purchase header with its lines in Business Central, and that's the record everything after it has to match against. The invoice needs to post against those lines, at the price and quantity the partner sent, rather than whatever the item card currently says. That check has to happen before posting, because once the invoice is in the vendor ledger the mismatch only shows up when someone reconciles the statement.

v1.0 is already marked deprecated and v2.0 is current. What happens to an EDI connection already running against Business Central?

A connection built against v1.0 keeps working until Microsoft retires it, but deprecated means retirement is the plan, not a possibility. Moving the connection to v2.0 ahead of that date is what keeps invoices and purchase orders posting without a gap, and that move needs testing against the actual endpoints a partner's documents use, not just a version number change in a config file.

Do we need to put an AL developer on the payroll to keep EDI running on Business Central?

Business Central's own integrations are built with the AL language or with HttpClient calls out to external services, and that's development work, not a configuration toggle. Cogent² runs the connection, the mapping and the exception handling so that skill doesn't need to sit on your payroll to keep purchase orders, invoices and remittances moving.

We already use a provider to file EDI for another system. Does moving Business Central's invoices and purchase orders onto Cogent² mean replacing them?

No. Cogent² can run alongside whatever's already filing documents for another account or another system, and where the stack needs a proper integration layer rather than another point to point connection, that's what Patchworks is for. Nothing about bringing Business Central's invoices and purchase orders under Cogent² requires switching what's already working elsewhere.

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