Is something not working? Or are you just stuck on a crazy error message you can’t decipher? The error messages in Business Central can seem a little cryptic, but once you understand them, you’ll know exactly what’s going on!
Now this type of info is certainly a little dry, so don’t judge me on that! At Catapult, we have a significant range of support clients. This is the long-term side of our engagements and these clients use our relatively standard support process of logging a ticket in our portal. Trends we’re seeing are clients not knowing how to break down an error message, knowing what they want to find but not knowing where to find it, and finally when they do log a ticket, some information that is missing which could make the whole process a little more efficient. So, we’re going to take a look through common error messages and how to read them. Then we’ll walk through some basic methods to find the information you’re looking for when something goes wrong and finally, what information to give your partner when you need their help.
Dimension Restrictions
Awesome, you have some great financial controls in place, but now you’re getting an error like this:
This message is telling you that you are required to enter a department for the specified G/L Account. This is common when ‘Code Mandatory’ settings are used. If ‘Same Code’ settings are used, this message may tell you specifically what department you must be using.
To fix, simply go back to the header or the lines of the document you are trying to post and populate the required Dimension field.
Permissions
Permissions are common in tiered access organizations. They are great for ensuring segregation of duties. But what happens when you are trying to do something you’re not allowed? You get one of these:
Upfront, this message can look a little cryptic. But when we break it down, it makes a lot of sense. This error is specifying that we do not have ‘Read’ permission for the ‘TableData’ (IE the information within the table) called ‘Purch. Inv. Header’ (IE the header of the associated Purchase Invoice). If this is something we are expected to do, then reach out to your system admin and have you MS Partner add this for you!
Posting Dates
Another great set of internal controls your company is successfully utilizing!
Every month, the Allowed Posting Dates of the company should be set to that new month only. This stops users posting in closed periods or periods too far in the future (exceptions for those running month end close, see our Mastering Month End eBook). This error means you are trying to post on a date you are not allowed. Either your team needs to update the dates to the new period, or you need to adjust your date to fall within the current period you are allowed to post in!
The error message in translation is saying ‘the Posting Date used in the General Journal, Default batch, 2nd line, is not within your allowed posting dates’. In Business Central when referencing which line contains the error, 10000 = Line 1, 20000 = Line 2 etc. This will come up in various messages and is helpful in identifying your issue.
Document is out of balance
So you’re filling out your General Journal and enter your lines, then get this:
This is common. If you are using the Bal. Account Type and Number cells, the function to increment your document number automatically is great. In this case though, we are doing a standard multi line journal entry. When we clicked the second line, the document number incremented. So, we essentially have 2 separate journals with 1 line. You can manually renumber the second line. Or remove the document numbers and click Actions > Functions > Renumber Document Numbers.
What happens when you have a mistake, not necessarily an error message that you need to fix? A common theme for our support clients is issues with tracking the data that is incorrect. Once the information is highlighted, then generally know the entry to resolve it. This is where Ledger Entries and Navigate come into play. The biggest thing is knowing what entries you were expecting. For example, a Sales Invoice should have:
- Posted Sales Invoice (the document)
- General Ledger Entries (number of these depends on the sales invoice)
- Customer Ledger Entry (your entry should hit the Customer subledger to end up in AR)
- Tax Entry (if you used tax on the invoice)
- Detailed Cust. Ledg. Entry
- Value Entry (if using Items)
Knowing what to expect is key in analyzing what actually happened to check what needs fixing. On every entry, you can click Action > Navigate. This will give you a popup with entry counts and you can access all the different types of Ledger Entries from here.
When searching for information, it is also important to remember different information is found in different ledger entry tables. Every type of entity (eg Bank Accounts, Customers, Vendor, Items) have their own Ledger Entries table. For example, exactly what the G/L effect was, can be found by filtering to the document number in the General Ledger Entries. To check what amount hit the Customer card and which Customer can be found in the Customer Ledger Entries. Tracking down the information and matching it to what you expected is key. But if it still doesn’t help you solve the issue, having this information available will most certainly help you MS partner!
If you still need some assistance, providing key information to your partner plays a big part in expediting the process. So, what should you give them?
- Document Number you are having issues with
- Company name (if you are an multi company entity)
- Screenshot of the issue (this could be the incorrect G/L Entries)
- Screenshots of any other supporting information (this could be other types of Ledger Entries)
- A description of the issue, how you think it may have been caused and any steps you took to try and resolve it (we understand sometimes this makes the mess bigger, don’t stress!).
From here, a consultant can quickly navigate through all the information needed and provide you a resolution faster. The majority of our support time is finding the information needed to resolve the case, rather than the actual solution.
If you are currently on Business Central and don’t have a support contract, contact us. today We offer support agreements to our Business Central clients, as well as existing Business Central users. We understand the stress when thing don’t look right, so as always, feel free to reach out anytime!
