Import Data Templates

Imports

Import vendor payments into the Business Central payment journal

Payments made outside Business Central, entered in the payment journal and applied to their invoices in one import.

Vendor payments are not always made from Business Central. Some are released in the bank's online portal, some by a payment service or by the group's treasury, some by a shared service center on behalf of the company. What comes back is a list of the payments made, and each one has to be entered in the payment journal and applied to the invoice it pays.

With Import Data Templates, the list becomes payment journal lines in the batch you choose when the import starts. Each line carries the vendor, the amount and the invoice it applies to, and the bank account is asked once when the import starts and written as the balancing account of every line.

What the file can look like

One row per payment: the posting date, the vendor, a payment reference, the amount and the number of the posted invoice it settles. A vendor paid for several invoices appears on several rows, which can share the same payment reference. Values the file does not carry, such as the account type, the document type or the applies-to document type, are set by the template.

The sample below is the example shipped with the app. Before importing it, replace the invoice numbers with posted purchase invoices of your company.

Sample file: EX-VENDOR-PAYMENTS.csv

How the import works

  1. Load the template

    Create EX-VENDOR-PAYMENTS from the Template Examples page, or describe your own file in a template: fill it in from the structure of the file, use Read Structure from File to build it from the column headers, or let Copilot propose it from a sample file and review it before keeping it.

    Import Template card EX-VENDOR-PAYMENTS in Business Central: posting date, vendor number, document number, amount and invoice number from the file; account type Vendor, document type Payment, applies-to type Invoice and balancing type Bank Account as default values
    The EX-VENDOR-PAYMENTS template: five columns from the file, the rest set as default values.

  2. Start the import from the payment journal

    Open the Payment Journal, pick the batch, choose Import Template, then the template and the file, and select the bank account when asked. The check step validates vendors, amounts and the invoices to apply to, and lists every problem with the line of the file before any line is written.

    The flow on the Payment Journal: Import Template, the template, the file, the bank account.

  3. Review and post

    The payment lines are in the batch, each with its Applies-to Doc. No., ready to be reviewed and posted like payments entered by hand; posting applies them to the invoices, which close when fully paid. The import history records the file, the user, the date and the number of lines created.

    Payment Journal in Business Central after the import: two vendor payments balanced against the bank account, each applied to a posted purchase invoice
    The batch after the import: each payment balanced against the bank account and applied to its invoice.

Beyond the basic file

Questions

What if a payment has no invoice number?

The line is created without an application and can be applied in the journal with Apply Entries, as for a payment entered by hand.

Which invoice number does the file need?

The number of the posted purchase invoice in Business Central, the one Applies-to Doc. No. expects. If the file carries the vendor's own invoice numbers instead, they have to be replaced with the posted numbers before the import.

Can the same template post customer receipts?

Customer receipts belong in the cash receipt journal; the cash receipt journal page covers them with a template of the same layout.

Import Data Templates is available on Microsoft AppSource with a one-month free trial. Licenses are assigned per user in the Microsoft 365 admin center.

Try it free on AppSource Read the documentation

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