Dynamics Community Forum Thread Details

Using different GL Accounts for revenue related to the same product (inventory item)

Our company would like to separate non-commercial income from commercial income by using different G/L accounts so we can better track margins and other performance metrics.

In our business we have:

Items that are solely non-commercial
Items that are sold both commercially and non-commercially
Customers that are solely non-commercial
Customers that buy on both a commercial and non-commercial basis

My understanding of Business Central is:

Sales revenue is driven by the combination of the General Product Posting Group and the General Business Posting Group.
On the item card, you assign a General Product Posting Group, and (when the General Business Posting Group is blank) this determines the G/L revenue account used.
On the customer card, you can assign a General Business Posting Group, which will override the “blank” business posting group and therefore drive a different revenue account when posting sales for that customer.

Based on this, I see two possible approaches for separating commercial vs non‑commercial revenue:

Create new item numbers for non‑commercial sales, each with its own General Product Posting Group that points to a separate non‑commercial revenue account.
Create separate customers for non‑commercial sales (for example, “Customer X” and “Customer X – Non‑Commercial”) and assign a different General Business Posting Group to the non‑commercial customer that points to a different revenue account.

To me, option 2 seems easier to manage than creating and maintaining duplicate items.

My questions to the community:

Are these the only practical ways to separate commercial vs non‑commercial revenue accounts, or are there other preferred patterns in BC (for example, posting setup variations, dimensions, or something else I am overlooking)?
Is my understanding of how General Product Posting Groups and General Business Posting Groups drive revenue postings correct?
Am I missing anything important in my analysis, especially for scenarios where both items and customers can be mixed commercial/non‑commercial?
Any additional advice or “lessons learned” from implementations where you needed this kind of revenue separation would be greatly appreciated.

Categories:

Dynamics 365 Business Central

Are these the only practical ways to separate commercial vs non‑commercial revenue accounts, or are there other preferred patterns in BC (for example, posting setup variations, dimensions, or something else I am overlooking)?
- Your concept is correct. That’s how the system determines the G/L accounts based on the combination of those two posting groups. So, whether you choose to use multiple items or multiple customers depends on your preference. However, the general recommendation is to use alternative items instead of creating multiple customers. Dimensions are a powerful feature, but keep in mind they do not change the G/L accounts. Instead, they help segment (bifurcate) your data. You can then use reporting to easily extract both commercial and non-commercial information from the ledgers. I will definitely suggest to go through Dimension once.
Is my understanding of how General Product Posting Groups and General Business Posting Groups drive revenue postings correct?
- In short, the system always determines the G/L accounts based on the combination of these two posting groups. For example, if you post a positive inventory adjustment, the system uses a combination of a blank Gen. Business Posting Group and the Item’s Gen. Product Posting Group, since no customer or vendor is involved in that transaction.
Am I missing anything important in my analysis, especially for scenarios where both items and customers can be mixed commercial/non‑commercial?
- Nothing as such but there's many more possibilities, if you wish to discuss then have those questions and we will answer.
Any additional advice or “lessons learned” from implementations where you needed this kind of revenue separation would be greatly appreciated.
- Normally Dimension comes as a rescue always. :)

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