Managing Document Posting Rights in Business Central for Sales & Purchases

Hello Readers!

Recently, I received a request from a client who wanted to only display the "Receive" option while hiding the "Receive and Invoice" option on specific transaction pages — as shown in the screenshot below.

The good news? No development or coding is required to achieve this customization. It can be handled entirely through functional configuration within Business Central.

In this blog post, I’ll walk you through how to implement this setup step-by-step. Let’s get started!

Steps:

1. Go to User Setup page and select the users you want to give this restriction and then there are two columns

a. Sales Invoice Posting Policy

b. Purch. Invoice Posting Policy

2. Now here, in the below image as you can see there are 3 options to select.

1. Allow (Default)

   1. Maintains the existing behavior.

   2. Users can select from posting options such as Ship, Invoice, or Ship and Invoice.

2. Prohibit

   1. Prevents the user from posting invoices directly.

   2. Business Central will display a confirmation dialog with only Ship (for sales) or Receive (for purchases) as available options.

3. Mandatory

   1. Requires users to post invoices along with shipments or receipts.

   2. Business Central will display a confirmation dialog with only Ship and Invoice or Receive and Invoice options.

Behavior Across Documents

Here’s how these policies impact different types of documents:

Sales Documents

• Sales Order

  • Allow: Ship / Invoice / Ship and Invoice

  • Prohibit: “Do you want to post the shipment?”

  • Mandatory: “Do you want to post the shipment and invoice?”

• Sales Return Order

  • Allow: Receive / Invoice / Receive and Invoice

  • Prohibit: “Do you want to post the receipt?”

  • Mandatory: “Do you want to post the receipt and invoice?”

Purchase Documents

• Purchase Order

  • Allow: Receive / Invoice / Receive and Invoice

  • Prohibit: “Do you want to post the receipt?”

  • Mandatory: “Do you want to post the receipt and invoice?”

• Purchase Return Order

  • Allow: Ship / Invoice / Ship and Invoice

  • Prohibit: “Do you want to post the shipment?”

  • Mandatory: “Do you want to post the shipment and invoice?”

Warehouse & Inventory Documents

• Inventory Pick

  • Allow: Ship / Ship and Invoice

  • Prohibit: “Do you want to post the shipment?”

  • Mandatory: “Do you want to post the shipment and invoice?”

• Inventory Put-away

  • Allow: Receive / Receive and Invoice

  • Prohibit: “Do you want to post the receipt?”

  • Mandatory: “Do you want to post the receipt and invoice?”

• Warehouse Shipment

  • Allow: Ship / Ship and Invoice

  • Prohibit: “Do you want to post the shipment?”

  • Mandatory: “Do you want to post the shipment and invoice?”

Important Note

These posting restrictions do not apply when invoices are posted directly from the General Journal.

Conclusion

By configuring Sales and Purchase Invoice Posting Policies at the user level, businesses can effectively control how transactions are posted. This ensures better governance, prevents mistakes, and provides flexibility to align posting permissions with organizational processes.

Thank you for reading! I hope this guide helps you set up posting restrictions more confidently in Business Central.