Setting Up Purchasing
Before you can manage purchase processes, you must configure the rules and values that define the company's purchase policies.
You must define the general setup, such as which purchase documents are required and how their values are posted. This general setup is typically performed once during the initial implementation.
A separate series of tasks related to registering new vendors is to record any special price or discount agreements that you have with each vendor.
Finance-related purchase setup, such as payment methods and currencies, are covered in the Finance Setup section. For more information, see Setting Up Finance.
| To | See |
|---|---|
| Create a vendor card for each vendor that you purchase from | Register New Vendors |
| Enter the different discounts and special prices that vendors grant you depending on item, quantities, and/or date | Record Purchase Price, Discount, and Payment Agreements |
| Prioritize vendors | Prioritize Vendors |
| Set up purchasers | Set Up Purchasers |
| Specify default reports to be used for different document types. | Report Selection in Business Central |
[!TIP] Depending on your geographical location, some pages can contain fields that are not described in the articles that are listed here because they apply to local functionality or customizations. Hover over a field to read a short description.
External document number
--- author: edupont04
ms.topic: include ms.date: 05/27/2021 ms.author: edupont
On purchase documents and journals, you can specify a document number that refers to the vendor's numbering system. Use this field to record the number that the vendor assigned to the order, invoice, or credit memo. You can then use the number later if, for some reason, you need to search for the posted entry using this number.
The Ext. Doc. No. Mandatory field in the Purchases & Payables Setup page specifies whether it is mandatory to enter an external document number in the following situations:
In the Vendor Invoice No. field, Vendor Order No. field, or the Vendor Cr. Memo No. field on a purchase header
In the External Document No. field on a general journal line, where the Document Type field is set to Invoice, Credit Memo, or Finance Charge Memo, and the Account Type field is set to Vendor.
If you select this field, it will not be possible to post an invoice, a credit memo, or the type of general journal line described above without an external document number.
The external document number is included in posted documents where you can search by the relevant number. You can also search using the external document number when navigating on vendor ledger entries.
A different way to handle external document numbers is to use the Your Reference field. If you use the Your Reference field, the number will be included in posted documents, and you can search by it in the same way as for values from External Document No. fields. But the field is not available on journal lines.
See Related Training at Microsoft Learn
See Also
Purchasing
Work with Business Central
--- author: edupont04