Vendor payments through Payables

Agents, brokers and other external salespeople are usually paid as vendors. For these participants, Bitta Commission turns a frozen settlement into vendor lines and standard Business Central purchase invoices, posted through the normal purchase posting routine. Every invoice is linked back to the settlement line it pays.

Before you start

• The participant's version must use the Accounts Payable payment method, and the participant needs a vendor: either a Vendor No. on the participant version or an effective vendor link. See Participants and payees.
• If the participant belongs to a pay group, the pay group's Payment Method must be Accounts Payable. See Settlements and pay groups.
• The settlement must be Frozen (or Posted).
• For purchase invoices, the settlement's accrual must be posted, because invoices are created from the posted liability. See Accounting and posting.
• You need finance-wide access. The Participant and Auditor roles cannot create AP exports.

How the vendor is chosen

When a settlement is frozen, each Accounts Payable line records the vendor as its payment target. When invoices are created, the app uses:

1. The vendor frozen on the settlement line, if present.
2. Otherwise the vendor of the payee: the participant, or the consolidated payee when a payee mapping applies. The payee's Vendor No. on the participant version wins, then the effective vendor link.

If no vendor is found when the settlement is refreshed, the app refuses with BAA-SETTLE-VENDOR. A missing or blocked vendor at invoice time is refused with BAA-ACC-AP-VENDOR.

Step 1: Create the AP export (vendor lines)

1. Open the frozen settlement and choose Create AP export.
2. The app writes an immutable vendor line set and hashes it. A settlement can have one AP export.
3. Choose AP exports to open Commission AP Exports, then Vendor lines to review them, or Download AP CSV for the file.

Each vendor line on Commission AP Export Lines shows:

Field	What it shows
Vendor No.	The vendor that receives the payment.
Document Date	The date proposed for the vendor document.
Amount / Currency Code	The payable amount. Blank currency means local currency.
Description	For example "Commission" with the pay period and settlement number.
External Document No.	Keeps vendor documents unique per settlement line.
Pay Period Code, Participant ID, Settlement Line No.	Where the amount came from.
Trace Key / Entry Hash	The frozen settlement line hash, and the seal of the line.

The CSV has the columns batchReference, vendorNo, documentDate, externalDocumentNo, amount, currency, description, payPeriod, participantId and traceKey. Lines paid in another currency or with a guarantee top-up add paymentAmount, paymentCurrency, paymentExchangeFactor and guaranteeTopUp.

The AP export is the reviewable record of what is owed to each vendor. You can use the file with your own payment process, or continue to step 2 to create purchase invoices in Business Central.

Step 2: Create purchase invoices

1. Post the settlement's accrual proposal first.
2. On the posted accounting proposal (Commission Accounting Proposal), choose Create AP invoices and enter a posting date.
3. The app creates one purchase invoice per vendor-linked settlement line, from the posted liability, and a Settlement Document Links entry for each one.

Lines are skipped when they already have an active invoice link, were already relieved by a payroll clearing journal, or already have a recorded payment. One settlement line is paid through exactly one channel.

Step 3: Preview and post the invoices

Open Settlement Document Links (or the invoice from the settlement) and select an AP invoice link.

• Preview AP invoice posting runs the standard purchase posting preview.
• Post AP invoice posts the invoice through the standard purchase posting routine and records the posted document number and vendor ledger entry on the link.
• Purchase invoice opens the unposted invoice.

Before posting, the app checks that the purchase invoice still matches the settlement amounts it was created from. If someone changed the invoice, posting is refused with BAA-ACC-AP-INVOICE-CHANGED.

Settlement Document Links

Settlement Document Links is the register of every document created from a settlement:

Field	What it shows
Output Kind	AP Invoice or Payroll Journal.
Status	Created, Posted or Cancelled.
Settlement Line No.	The line paid. Zero means the whole settlement (payroll journal).
Vendor No., Document No., Posted Document No.	The vendor and the purchase documents.
Posting Date, Amount	When and how much.
G/L Register No., Vendor Ledger Entry No.	The ledger entries the posting created.
Entry Hash	The seal of the link.

Links cannot be deleted, and posted links cannot change.

Cancel an invoice link

If you need to recreate an invoice, select a Created (unposted) link and choose Cancel link. The link is cancelled so the settlement line can be invoiced again. The purchase invoice itself is not deleted. Delete or keep it as you see fit. A posted link cannot be cancelled.

Paying outside purchase invoices

If an Accounts Payable line has no AP invoice, for example because you paid it from the AP export file through another process, record the payment on the settlement line with Record payment. An invoiced line cannot record a payment this way (BAA-SETTLE-PAYMENT-AP-INVOICE). Post or cancel the invoice first.

Adjustments after posting

If an earning on an AP-paid settlement line changes after the accrual was posted, the accrual adjustment posts only the delta against the original lineage, and the posted adjustment is paid through the original settlement line's AP documents. See Accounting and posting.

Troubleshooting

• BAA-AP-EXPORTED. The settlement already has an AP export. Open it from AP exports.
• BAA-AP-NO-PAYABLE. The settlement has no payable vendor lines, for example because they are all deferred or routed to payroll.
• No invoices were created. Check that the accrual proposal is posted and that the lines have not already been invoiced, cleared by payroll, or paid.
• BAA-ACC-AP-INVOICE-MISSING. The purchase invoice was deleted. Cancel the link and create the invoice again.

Related pages

• Settlements and pay groups
• Accounting and posting
• Payroll export
• Reconciliation