Hi Everyone,
Iām looking for guidance on the best way to design a solution in Business Central for a client requirement involving two-stage prepayment control on a Sales Order. Iād like to understand what can be handled in the standard prepayment process and where customization would typically be needed.
Business Requirement
For selected Sales Orders, the client wants the following process:
- When the Sales Order is finalized, the customer must pay 50% upfront.
- Once that first 50% payment is received, the warehouse should be allowed to:
- create warehouse shipment / retrieve source documents,
- create pick,
- print pick ticket,
- pull and verify material.
- However, the warehouse must not be allowed to:
- post shipment,
- print packing slip / shipment paperwork,
- complete dispatch, until the remaining 50% is also received.
- The client does not want to create the final sales invoice before shipment. The final invoice should only be created after shipment.
- Accounting may receive the second 50% payment before the final invoice exists, so they need a way to record that payment first and then apply it once the final invoice is posted.
- Also, this process will require manual coordination between Sales, Warehouse, and Accounting, and this is something the client is aware of and wants to retain. For example:
- Warehouse confirms material readiness,
- Salesperson contacts the customer for the remaining payment,
- Accounting records the payment,
- Warehouse is then allowed to proceed with shipment.
I want to make sure this manual coordination aspect is clearly highlighted as part of the expected process.
My Main Questions
1. Can this be done fully in standard Business Central?
Standard Business Central prepayment functionality supports creating prepayment invoices on sales orders and collecting deposits before final invoicing. It also seems possible to create additional prepayment invoices in certain cases, such as when order values change or additional deposits are needed.
Based on that, I want to confirm whether a 50% prepayment collected in two installments can be handled cleanly in the standard process, or whether a custom approach is usually required for this kind of milestone-based control.
2. Has anyone implemented this with warehouse shipment flow?
The client is currently using the Create Warehouse Shipment process.
From what I understand, standard warehouse shipment flow supports released source documents and pick/ship processing, but I am not seeing a standard setup that specifically allows:
- pick after the first payment is received,
- but blocks shipment until the full required payment is received.
So Iād like to understand how others have handled similar requirements:
- using standard prepayment only,
- using standard functionality plus user/process controls,
- or using a small customization / event subscriber on warehouse shipment posting
3. How should the second payment be recorded if no final invoice exists yet?
A key part of the requirement is that Accounting may receive the second 50% payment before shipment, while the final sales invoice has still not been created.
Standard Business Central allows recording customer payments and leaving them unapplied until a document exists, but I would like to understand the best-practice approach for linking that payment operationally back to the Sales Order until the final invoice is created and applied.
One simple thought is to capture the Sales Order number in the payment description or external document number, but Iām not sure whether that is the cleanest or most auditable approach.
What I Understand from Standard Business Central So Far
My current understanding is:
- Standard sales prepayment supports collecting deposits before shipment and before final invoicing.
- Standard Business Central can create prepayment invoices from the Sales Order, and multiple prepayment invoices may be possible depending on how the order and prepayment amounts are managed.
- Standard Business Central supports recording customer payments and either applying them immediately or leaving them unapplied until a document exists.
- Standard warehouse shipment flow allows source documents to be released to the warehouse and then picked/shipped.
- However, I do not see a standard milestone-based payment gate that says:
- allow pick after partial payment,
- but block shipment until full payment.
- Standard posting behavior also supports the clientās requirement that the final invoice should follow shipment in the normal sales order process.
Our Current Solution Approach
At the moment, we are considering a design that uses standard prepayment accounting as much as possible, and adds custom operational controls only where needed.
A. Use standard prepayment setup / Sales & Receivables-related configuration
We are exploring standard prepayment setup in Business Central for:
- prepayment posting accounts,
- prepayment numbering,
- customer / item / order prepayment percentage,
- and standard handling of prepayment invoices and applied prepayments.
B. Drive the order through 2 payment gates
We are thinking of treating the order like this:
- Gate 1 (50% received): allow release to warehouse / create pick / material preparation.
- Gate 2 (100% received): allow shipment posting and packing slip / final shipment paperwork. But how would the system know this when the payments are unapplied and no invoice is generated unless it is shipped? (Need to think on that as well)
C. Add visibility on the Sales Order
We are considering adding a custom payment status on the Sales Order, such as:
- Prepayment required,
- First 50% received,
- Pick allowed,
- Balance pending,
- Full payment received,
- Shipment allowed.
D. Hard validation before shipment
Because warehouse shipment is part of the current process, we believe the payment validation should happen at the point of warehouse shipment posting (and possibly packing slip printing), and not only at sales order posting.
E. Final invoice only after shipment
After shipment is posted, the final sales invoice would then be created in line with the clientās process, and previously collected amounts would be applied appropriately.
F. Manual coordination remains part of the business process
An important part of this design is that the solution is not intended to fully automate communication across departments. The client expects and wants manual coordination between:
- Warehouse, to confirm material is ready,
- Sales, to contact the customer for the remaining payment,
- Accounting, to record the payment,
- and then Warehouse, to proceed with shipment once payment is complete.
We want the system to control the permitted actions, while still allowing the business users to coordinate manually across teams.
Iād really appreciate input from anyone who has implemented something similar:
- Can standard prepayment handle this cleanly in two stages?
- First 50% at order finalization,
- second 50% before shipment using prepayment
- while still creating the final invoice only after shipment.
- Would you recommend:
- two prepayment invoices in standard Business Central,
- or one prepayment + one unapplied payment/deposit?
- What is the cleanest way to block shipment but still allow pick/material preparation after partial payment?
- If the second payment is received before the final invoice exists, how are you linking that payment back to the Sales Order in a user-friendly and auditable way?
Any recommendations on whether this should stay mostly standard or be handled with a light extension would be very helpful.
Thank you!
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