Set up purchase

Path: Business functionality > Set up Business Central > Set up purchase · tier official · system none · narrative reviewed (checked by Opus)

Overview

This section groups the pages needed to prepare Business Central for purchasing. It has no subtopics, so all content is on its own pages. The page “Overview of tasks to set up purchasing” is the natural starting point. It covers payables setup such as posting rules, number series, external document number requirements, exact cost reversing, discount calculation and prepayment checking.

Vendor setup pages cover registering a vendor (manually or from templates), setting up vendor bank accounts with preferred accounts and approval workflows, assigning a priority level to a vendor, and assigning purchasers to vendors for filtering reports and statistics.

Further pages cover pricing and control. They explain recording special purchase prices and discounts, setting up sales and purchase prices and discounts in general, defining invoice posting policies per user, and validating purchase amounts against document totals. A page on updating document dates with posting dates is also included, although its source describes it for sales transactions.

Key points

• Start with the overview of purchasing setup tasks: posting rules, number series, external document number, exact cost reversing, prepayment checking.
• Register vendors manually or with templates; the vendor card can hold remit-to addresses, bank accounts, dimensions and optional self-billing agreements.
• Vendor bank accounts support preferred accounts, IBAN management and approval workflows for new accounts.
• Vendor priority numbers control ranking in payment suggestions and vendor lists.
• Purchaser codes assigned to vendors help filter reports and prepare purchasing statistics.
• Invoice posting policies per user can prohibit, allow or require posting invoices together with receipts or shipments.
• The prices and discounts pages (tagged 2020 release wave 2) cover line discounts, invoice discounts, vendor price groups, discount posting principles, price lists with new and legacy pricing experiences, and automatic best price calculation.
• Total amount validation on purchase invoices and credit memos checks document totals against line totals before posting (2025 release wave 1).

Learn pages

• Assign a priority level to a vendor: Assign priority numbers to vendors or suppliers in Business Central to streamline payment suggestions and manage payables efficiently.
• Define an invoice posting policy for users: Use invoice posting policies to control whether a user can post sales and purchase invoices.
• Overview of tasks to set up purchasing: Describes the tasks to define your company’s procurement policies and set up your purchasing processes.
• Record special purchase prices and discounts: Set up and manage special purchase prices and discounts for vendors, and automatically apply them to purchase documents.
• Register a new vendor: Learn how to register vendors, save vendor cards as templates, and set up vendor-specific number series for self-billed purchase invoices.
• Set up prices and discounts: Describes how to define standard and special price and discount agreements for sales and purchases.
• Set up purchasers and assign purchasers to vendors: Organize purchasers or purchasing agents in your company to enable efficient tracking and statistical analysis.
• Set up validation of purchase amounts: You can validate the total amount on purchase invoices and credit memos before you post the documents.
• Set up vendor bank accounts: Learn how to associate bank accounts to vendors, including contact information, SWIFT, and IBAN codes.
• Updating document dates with posting dates: Learn how to make sure that document dates on sales and purchase documents match their posting dates.

Business Central pages and reports

The pages, reports and queries this hub’s Learn pages name (ms.search.form, API reference), joined to the code by exact object id (data/index/docs-objects.json); a page shows the table it runs on.

• Page 14 “Salespersons/Purchasers” · captioned “Salespeople/Purchasers” · on Table 13 “Salesperson/Purchaser”
• Page 26 “Vendor Card” · on Table 23 “Vendor”
• Page 27 “Vendor List” · captioned “Vendors” · on Table 23 “Vendor”
• Page 34 “Vendor Lookup” · captioned “Vendors” · on Table 23 “Vendor”
• Page 175 “Standard Purchase Code Card” · on Table 173 “Standard Purchase Code”
• Page 176 “Standard Purchase Code Subform” · captioned “Lines” · on Table 174 “Standard Purchase Line”
• Page 177 “Standard Purchase Codes” · captioned “Recurring Purchase Lines” · on Table 173 “Standard Purchase Code”
• Page 178 “Standard Vendor Purchase Codes” · captioned “Recurring Purchase Lines” · on Table 175 “Standard Vendor Purchase Code”
• Page 456 “No. Series” · on Table 308 “No. Series”
• Page 457 “No. Series Lines” · on Table 309 “No. Series Line”
• Page 459 “Sales & Receivables Setup” · on Table 311 “Sales & Receivables Setup”
• Page 460 “Purchases & Payables Setup” · on Table 312 “Purchases & Payables Setup”
• Page 461 “Inventory Setup” · on Table 313 “Inventory Setup”
• Page 786 “Vendor Picture” · on Table 23 “Vendor”
• Page 1346 “Purchases Price and Line Disc.” · captioned “Purchase Prices” · on Table 1315 “Purch. Price Line Disc. Buff.”
• Page 1379 “Select Vendor Templ. List” · captioned “Select a template for a new vendor” · on Table 1383 “Vendor Templ.”
• Page 1385 “Vendor Templ. List” · captioned “Vendor Templates” · on Table 1383 “Vendor Templ.”
• Page 1386 “Vendor Templ. Card” · captioned “Vendor Template” · on Table 1383 “Vendor Templ.”
• Page 1628 “Office No Vendor Dlg” · captioned “Create vendor record?” · on Table 5050 “Contact”
• Page 5116 “Salesperson/Purchaser Card” · on Table 13 “Salesperson/Purchaser”
• Page 5727 “Purchasing Codes” · on Table 5721 “Purchasing”
• Page 5729 “Purchasing Code List” · on Table 5721 “Purchasing”
• Page 7001 “Price List Lines” · captioned “Lines” · on Table 7001 “Price List Line”
• Page 7011 “Purchase Price List Lines” · captioned “Lines” · on Table 7001 “Price List Line”
• Page 7012 “Purchase Prices” · on Table 7012 “Purchase Price”
• Page 7014 “Purchase Line Discounts” · on Table 7014 “Purchase Line Discount”
• Page 7015 “Sales Price Lists” · on Table 7000 “Price List Header”
• Page 7016 “Sales Price List” · on Table 7000 “Price List Header”
• Page 7017 “Purchase Price Lists” · on Table 7000 “Price List Header”
• Page 7018 “Purchase Price List” · on Table 7000 “Price List Header”
• Page 7189 “Get Purchase Line Disc.” · on Table 7014 “Purchase Line Discount”
• Page 7190 “Get Purchase Price” · on Table 7012 “Purchase Price”
• Page 9307 “Purchase Order List” · captioned “Purchase Orders” · on Table 38 “Purchase Header”

Source: Microsoft Learn (CC BY 4.0). Descriptions are Learn’s own.