Checking posting rules as you type

Many of you know that Dynamics 365 Business Central checks its posting rules at time of posting. For example, a staff member could have entered many lines into a journal only to find out at the time of posting that the Posting date is not allowed. Or it may be useful to know that the journal is out of balance while each line is being entered.

There is a system switch within Business Central which executes many of the posting checks while each journal line is being entered. This can provide your users with more timely feedback about their input.

Enable Data Check

In General Ledger Setup, there is a system-wide switch called Enable Data Check.

If this switch is turned on and (for example) you're on a journal page, you can see the "Journal Check" Fact Box by clicking on the icon. The Tiles will update as you enter the journal and inform you of possible posting errors.

For example, in the picture below, the Posting Date is 12th December 2023, which according to the General Ledger Setup, is not within a valid posting range. And to compound this, this one-line journal is not yet balanced.

Once the Posting Date is corrected, and a second line is entered to balance the journal, the Fact Box shows no errors (see the picture below)!

Note that even though business/configuration rules were checked at the time of data entry, Business Central will still check them all again when the journal is posted.

So why isn't it turned on by default?

Checking each line as it’s being entered can slow down the processing unnecessarily. Experienced users will not want to know that the journal is unbalanced while it’s being entered. And many journal lines may be entered even before some other business rules are set (for example, a future-dated journal may be entered before the month is “opened”).

And importantly, response times may be negatively affected if the system is constantly checking and validating the business rules against each journal line at the time of entry. Regardless of how Enable Data Check is set, the system will always check all the business rules at the time of posting.

Speak to one of the Professional Advantage team to see if turning on Enable Data Check could benefit your organisation.