Why Your Current Approach Does NOT Close the Invoice
Key rule in Business Central: Only customer ledger entries (with Customer Posting Group) can settle customer invoices.
Posting directly to a G/L expense does not reduce the customer balance.
What happened with your posting
You posted:
$1,000 → Bank → Customer - (Correct)
$82.50 → G/L Bad Debt Expense → Customer - (Wrong)
Even though:
You applied both lines
Both show “Applied = Yes”
G/L shows the expense
BC still sees only $1,000 posted through the customer subledger.
The $82.50 went around the customer control account, so the invoice remains partially open
Correct & Recommended Ways to Handle This in Business Central
(BEST PRACTICE): Use Customer Payment Tolerance
This is exactly what Payment Tolerance is designed for.
Setup (One-time)
Customer Posting Group>>Set Payment Tolerance Account >>Bad Debt Expense (or Write-Off)
General Ledger Setup Enable
Payment Tolerance
Payment Tolerance Posting
Posting Flow
Post only $1,000 as customer payment
Apply it to the invoice
BC automatically: Writes off $82.50
Posts it to the tolerance account Closes the invoice fully
Bank = $1,000
P&L = $82.50 expense
Customer balance = $0
Invoice = Closed
This is the cleanest and most audit-friendly method
Hope this resolved your Query.
Regards
Tech-Lucky
