The Dynamics Explorer

Introduction

This is another blog in a series I’ve been writing comparing functionality in Dynamics GP to Dynamics 365 Business Central.

In this post I’ll compare how purchase holds work in both Dynamics GP and Dynamics 365 Business Central. Both products offer solutions for applying holds at a document and Vendor level, however there are differences which we can explore.

Dynamics GP

In Dynamics GP you apply holds to individual transactions via the “Transactions > Purchasing > Holds” window.

By placing the document on hold you won’t be able to pay this via a manual payment or the automated “Select Cheques” routine (the Dynamics 365 Business Central equivalent being “Suggested Payment” batch job).

Therefore you must remove the Hold via this window in order to pay the document.

You can also produce a list of documents on Hold via a Smartlist prior to creating a payment run to assist with the process.

If you wish to prevent any documents from being paid on a particular Vendor you can tick the “Hold” flag on the Vendor Maintenance window as per below:

Placing the Vendor on Hold will prevent any payments being issued however you will still be able to enter and post transactions other than payments.

Dynamics 365 Business Central

To place a document on hold you go to “Vendor Ledger Entries” and click “Edit List”.

You then enter any 3 characters in the “On Hold” field to indicate the document is on hold. For example below I’ve entered the characters “GW” in the On Hold column.

Although you can use any 3 characters we tend to suggest using users initials as this gives the added benefit of knowing who has placed the document on hold. You can also filter the “Vendor Ledger Entries” either on initials or whether the field is blank or not to identify which documents are on hold (i.e. add a filter for On Hold <>’)

When you add the 3 characters to the On Hold field this excludes the document from being picked up by the “Suggest Payments” batch job in the Payment Journal however you can still pay and apply the document manually. This is different to Dynamics GP which requires the Hold flag to be removed before it can paid.

You can prevent any payment to the Vendor via the “Blocked” field on the Vendor Page.

You can prevent all payments from being made by selecting “Payment” or prevent any transaction from being posted on the Vendor by choosing “All”. This differs to Dynamics GP as even if a Vendor is placed on Hold you are only prevented from posting payments.

Conclusion

Both Dynamics products offer robust solutions for applying document and vendor holds. The main difference seems to be that Dynamics GP gives the user the ability to ensure a single document won’t be paid, even via a manual payment, and Dynamics 365 Business Central gives flexibility to prevent all document types being posted against a blocked Vendor.

Thanks for reading!