Pay 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, or purchase credit memos when a line's liability nets negative. Each document is posted only through the standard purchase posting routine, Purch.-Post, and is linked back to the settlement line it pays. You can also start from the vendor's own invoice and add the commission lines to it.

Before you start

• The participant version uses the Accounts Payable payment method and has a vendor: a Vendor No. or an effective vendor link. See Participants.
• In a pay group, the group's Payment Method is Accounts Payable. See Settle commission.
• The settlement is Frozen or Posted.
• For purchase invoices, the settlement's accrual proposal is posted, because the invoices are built from the posted liability. See Commission accruals.
• You need the finance-all security scope.

How the vendor is chosen

When the settlement selects its balances, each Accounts Payable line freezes the payee's vendor as its payment target. The payee is the participant, or the consolidated payee of a payee mapping. The Vendor No. on the participant version wins, then the effective vendor link. Without a vendor, the settlement is refused 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

1. Open the frozen settlement on Commission Settlement and choose Create AP export.

2. The app writes an immutable set of vendor lines and opens Commission AP Exports. A settlement can have one AP export.

3. Choose Vendor lines to review Commission AP Export Lines, or Download AP CSV for the file.

Field	What it shows
Vendor No.	The vendor that receives the payment.
Document Date	The as-of date of the settlement, proposed for the vendor document.
Amount / Currency Code	The payable amount. Blank currency means local currency.
Description	"Commission" with the pay period and the settlement number.
External Document No.	The settlement number and line number, which keep 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 each vendor is owed. Use the file in your own payment process, or continue with step 2.

Step 2: Create and post purchase invoices

1. Post the settlement's accrual proposal. Then open the posted proposal on Commission Accounting Proposal and choose Create AP invoices.

2. On Commission Posting Details, enter the Posting date and choose OK.

3. The app creates one purchase invoice per vendor-linked settlement line from the posted liability, and a Settlement Document Links entry for each. A line whose posted liability nets negative, for example because an agent's returns exceed new sales, becomes a purchase credit memo instead, with the output kind AP Credit Memo. A message reports how many documents were created.

4. Open Settlement document links and select an AP invoice or AP credit memo link with status Created.

5. Choose Preview AP document posting to run the standard purchase posting preview.

6. Choose Post AP document. The invoice or credit memo posts through the standard purchase posting routine, and the link records the posted document number and the vendor ledger entry.

You can also post the purchase invoice or credit memo from the purchase document page or in a batch. However it is posted, the app checks the document first and marks its links Posted in the same transaction as the posting, so a posted document never leaves its link open.

Lines are skipped when they already have an active invoice or credit memo link, were relieved by a payroll clearing journal, or have a recorded payment. One settlement line is paid through one channel. Purchase invoice opens the unposted invoice and Purchase credit memo the unposted credit memo.

Before preview and posting, the app checks that the purchase document still matches the settlement amounts it was created from. A changed document is refused with BAA-ACC-AP-INVOICE-CHANGED.

Get commission lines on a vendor's invoice

If you prefer to start from the vendor's own invoice, for example an agent firm that bills you monthly:

1. Post the settlement's accrual proposal.
2. Create a purchase invoice for the vendor in Business Central and fill in the Posting Date.
3. Choose Get Commission Lines. The page lists the frozen settlement lines that pay this vendor in the currency of the invoice and are not invoiced or paid yet, with the settlement, participant, currency and the posted liability each line relieves. A negative amount reduces the invoice.
4. Select the lines and choose OK. Each line adds its posted commission liability as G/L account lines and a Settlement Document Links entry.
5. Post the invoice. Posting settles the selected settlement lines.

The invoice can carry other lines as well, for example the vendor's own charges. Before posting, the app checks only the lines that Get Commission Lines added: they must still be G/L account lines with quantity 1 and the same total. If a line was invoiced or paid in the meantime, or pays another vendor or currency, the app refuses it with BAA-ACC-AP-GET-LINES.

Find commission documents

Purchase invoices and credit memos created or filled from a settlement carry a read-only Commission Settlement field, which stays on the posted documents. It is shown on the Purchase Invoice and Purchase Credit Memo pages and as a hidden column on the purchase invoice and credit memo lists, posted and unposted. Filter on it to find commission documents, or use it in security filters to hide them.

Agent remittance

Commission Agent Remittance prints the settlement lines grouped by payee, with the payee's vendor and a total per payee, to send to agents with their payment. Run it from Tell Me.

Settlement Document Links

Settlement Document Links is the register of documents created from frozen settlements. Each link is the idempotency record that prevents a settlement line from being invoiced or cleared twice.

Field	What it shows
Output Kind	AP Invoice, AP Credit Memo or Payroll Journal.
Status	Created, Posted or Cancelled.
Settlement Line No.	The line paid. Zero means the whole settlement.
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 entries the posting created.
Entry Hash	The seal of the link.

To recreate an invoice, select a link with status Created and choose Cancel link. The settlement line can then be invoiced again. The purchase document itself is not deleted: remove the line's G/L lines from it, or delete it. A posted link cannot be cancelled, and neither can a link whose purchase document was already posted (BAA-ACC-AP-LINK-POSTED).

Paying outside purchase invoices

If an Accounts Payable line has no AP invoice, for example because you paid it from the AP export file, choose Record payment on the settlement line. An invoiced line refuses this with BAA-SETTLE-PAYMENT-AP-INVOICE: post or cancel the invoice first.

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.
• No invoices were created. Check that the accrual proposal is posted and that the lines are not already invoiced, cleared by payroll or paid.
• No lines in Get Commission Lines. Lines come only from frozen settlements whose accrual proposal is posted, for the vendor and currency of the invoice, and only until they are invoiced or paid.
• BAA-ACC-AP-INVOICE-MISSING. The purchase invoice was deleted. Cancel the link and create the invoice again.

What the AP integration does not cover is listed in Known limitations.

What's next

Post the accrual and the follow-on entries: Commission accruals.