The Business Central integration enables Alvys to automatically export accounting transactions (including customer invoices (sales invoices), carrier purchase invoices, and driver purchase invoices) to your Business Central environment. Alvys serves as the system of record for all exported transactions. Changes must always be made in Alvys and then synchronized to Business Central through regeneration; edits made directly in Business Central can cause data inconsistencies.

This article covers:

Synonyms used throughout: BC, Business Central, accounting export, transaction sync, invoice export, bill export, purchase invoice, sales invoice.

When configuring the Business Central integration, each Alvys subsidiary is linked to a specific company connection. This routing logic determines which connected Business Central entity receives exported invoices and bills.

Routing works differently depending on your organizational setup:

The Invoice As field on a load represents the billing subsidiary responsible for issuing the customer invoice. It determines the legal entity name displayed on the invoice. All Accounts Receivable (AR) transactions exported to Business Central are linked to the subsidiary mapped to the Invoice As field.

For example, if a load's Invoice As field is set to Alvys Inc:

For example, if a load’s Invoice As field is set to Alvys Inc, upon invoice generation:

The Tender As field identifies the subsidiary responsible for dispatching the load and paying the carrier. It also determines the trip type: if the selected subsidiary is set up as a broker, the trip type is Brokerage; if set up as a carrier, the trip type is Carrier.

For example, if a load's Tender As field is set to Alvys Brokerage:

The Tender As field identifies the subsidiary responsible for dispatching the load and paying the carrier. It also determines the trip type. If the selected subsidiary is set up as a broker, the trip type is Brokerage. If the selected subsidiary is set up as a carrier, the trip type is Carrier. For example, if a load’s Tender As field is set to Alvys Brokerage, upon exporting the external carrier bill/Purchase Invoice:

For carriers operating with dual authority, the operational mode is automatically determined based on the Tender As subsidiary. Users can manually change the operational mode to Carrier or Broker. The chosen operational mode affects how bills are categorized and exported to Business Central.

Each driver profile includes a Subsidiary field representing the business unit to which the driver is assigned. When generating driver statements, the resulting Vendor Bill is exported based on the driver’s assigned subsidiary:

The status of a transaction in Business Central determines what modifications are possible:

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The customer's External Accounting Name is used to identify a customer or broker in Business Central. When exporting an invoice, Alvys first searches for an exact match in Business Central using this field.

The customer’s External Accounting Name is used to identify a customer or broker in Business Central. When exporting an invoice Alvys first searches for an exact match in Business Central using this field.

The External Accounting Name always takes priority. If it differs from an existing Business Central customer name, even if the Customer Name in Alvys matches, a new customer will be created using the External Accounting Name.

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The Invoicing Name (previously called Billing Name) determines how the customer or broker appears on invoices generated in Alvys. It does not affect the customer record created in Business Central.

When creating customers in Business Central, Alvys uses the following fields from the customer or broker profile:

Alvys is the source of truth for these fields. If a user later updates this information directly in Business Central after Alvys has created the customer record, those changes will be overwritten the next time an invoice is synced from Alvys. All updates to these fields must be made within Alvys to ensure data consistency.

The Payment Terms field specifies the agreed-upon period within which a customer must pay an invoice, calculated from the invoice date. In Alvys, this can be set to any value between 0 and 365 days within the customer profile.

Payment Terms determine the due date for the load as well as the invoice due date and payment terms exported to Business Central on the sales invoice. When Alvys creates a new customer in Business Central, it attempts to match the customer's payment terms to existing Payment Terms Codes in Business Central. If no exact match is found, Alvys defaults the customer's terms to 30 Days. Also, when Alvys creates a new customer in Business Central, it attempts to match the customer’s payment terms to the Payment Terms Codes existing in Business Central. If no exact match is found, Alvys defaults the customer's terms to 30 Days.

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The carrier's External Accounting Name is used to identify a vendor in Business Central. When exporting a purchase invoice, Alvys first searches for an exact match in Business Central using this field.

The carrier’s External Accounting Name is used to identify a vendor in Business Central. When exporting a purchase Invoice, Alvys first searches for an exact match in Business Central using this field.

The External Accounting Name takes priority. If it differs from an existing Business Central vendor name, even if the Carrier or Driver Name in Alvys matches, Alvys will create a new vendor using the External Accounting Name.

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Drivers, including company drivers and owner-operators, may operate as 1099 drivers. These drivers have additional tax detail fields on their profiles:

When generating driver statements, if these fields are set and the Business Central integration is configured to create vendors using 1099 details, Alvys will create the vendor using the tax information (company name and address). If this setting is not enabled, the vendor will be created using the driver’s name.

For external carriers, the purchase invoice due date is determined using the Carrier Payment Terms from the company profile of the subsidiary specified in the Tender As field on the trip.

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Generating a customer invoice from the Load Details page triggers its export to Business Central. Before generating the invoice, verify the following:

Generating a customer invoice from the Load Details page triggers its export to Business Central. To ensure a successful export, all relevant configurations and data must be verified before the invoice is generated.

Verify that the customer being invoiced is correct. Ensure the External Accounting Name is properly configured on the customer profile. If no External Accounting Name is set, the standard customer or broker name must exactly match the corresponding customer record in Business Central.

Verify the customer’s invoice settings for the subsidiary used as the Invoice As entity on the load. The Invoice As subsidiary must correspond to the subsidiary configured within the Business Central integration. This alignment determines which specific Business Central company or entity dimension receives the transaction data.

If the invoice was not exported due to an error, the issue can be reviewed on the Error Transactions page (https://app.alvys.com/#/accounting/error-help). See the Business Central: Identifying and Resolving Failed Transactions article for guidance (https://help.alvys.com/en/articles/13841602-5-business-central-identifying-and-resolving-failed-transaction).

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The Batch Invoicing page is located at Accounting > Invoice in the left navigation menu (https://app.alvys.com/#/accounting/invoicing). This page allows users to create invoices for multiple loads across one or more customers simultaneously. Each selected load is processed as an individual invoice, and the export to Business Central is triggered automatically when the invoices are generated.

Once exported, invoices are recorded in Business Central under the corresponding customer and can be located by navigating to the Sales dropdown menu and selecting Sales Invoices.

If an invoice was not exported due to an error, review the issue on the Error Transactions page (https://app.alvys.com/#/accounting/error-help). See the Business Central: Identifying and Resolving Failed Transactions article for guidance (https://help.alvys.com/en/articles/13841602-5-business-central-identifying-and-resolving-failed-transaction).

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Summary invoicing consolidates multiple loads for a customer into a single invoice. The Summary Invoicing page can be accessed at Accounting > Summary Invoicing. For information on configuring customers for summary invoicing, see the Summary Invoicing article (https://help.alvys.com/en/articles/12159947-summary-invoicing).

The invoice export is triggered when the consolidated summary invoice is generated, creating a single invoice reflecting the total amount for all included loads. Only customers configured with the summary invoice type will appear when selecting a subsidiary. The subsidiary selection determines the Business Central subsidiary to which the invoice will be linked.

Once exported, the invoice is recorded in Business Central under the corresponding customer and can be located by navigating to the Sales dropdown menu and selecting Sales Invoices.

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External carrier bills can be exported directly from individual loads based on the configured external accounting settings. The export is triggered when the customer invoice is generated.

Before generating the invoice, verify the following:

For tenants operating in dual-authority mode, an additional validation is required: the operational mode must be set to Brokerage. If the operational mode is set to Carrier, the external carrier bill export will not occur.

When an external carrier is assigned and the trip is released to billing, the system evaluates the Generate Carrier Invoice Separately setting:

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In Alvys, the carrier invoice number is entered when uploading a document of the type Carrier Invoice to a trip. When the carrier purchase invoice is exported to Business Central, this number is automatically populated in the Vendor Invoice No. field. This allows accounting teams to quickly locate purchase invoices within Business Central by searching the Purchase Invoices list using the specific carrier invoice number.

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The Carrier Settlements module provides brokers with tools to generate transparent and accurate carrier statements and settlement bills. This page is accessible from Accounting > Carrier Settlements. For additional details, see the Carrier Settlements article (https://help.alvys.com/en/articles/11634577-carrier-settlements).

When carrier settlements are used, the carrier bill is exported when a carrier statement is generated. To allow this export, the Carrier Statements External Accounting setting must be enabled for the subsidiary. If this setting is not enabled, no carrier bill will be exported when the statement is generated.

If this setting is enabled and a user generates a customer invoice for an individual load with an external carrier, the carrier bill will not be exported from the load. In this scenario, the system expects the bill to be exported from the Carrier Settlements module when the statement is generated.

If a carrier bill requires modification after export, see the Modifying Previously Exported Transactions section below.

Carrier Settlements Module: Payment Sync Limitation

The current version of the Carrier Settlements feature does not support payment synchronization. While carrier bills are exported from the Carrier Settlements module to Business Central, payments applied in Business Central do not automatically sync back to Alvys. Payments must be recorded manually within Alvys for external carriers.

If an error occurs while exporting a carrier purchase invoice from the Carrier Settlements module, the error details are displayed directly within the module. Carrier statements cannot be re-sent from the Error Transactions page. All corrections must be made within the Carrier Settlements module, and the statement must be regenerated there.

For tenants that use the Carrier Settlements module but prefer carrier bills to export when the carrier invoice is uploaded on the trip, it is recommended not to enable the Carrier Statements External Accounting setting. In this configuration, enable the Generate Carrier Invoice Separately setting, upload the carrier invoice to the trip, and then generate the customer invoice to trigger the carrier bill export.

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Driver statements (purchase invoices) can be exported from either the legacy Pay Drivers page or the Driver Settlements module. The export behavior is governed by your specific driver billing configuration.

Single Bill Export (Recommended)

The recommended configuration is Single Bill for Driver Statement Export. When enabled, all trips, deductions, and credits included in a driver statement are consolidated into a single bill for export to Business Central. This approach is ideal for tenants operating on weekly or biweekly pay cycles.

The subsidiary used for exporting driver bills is determined by the subsidiary assigned on the driver profile in Alvys.

Pay Drivers Page (Legacy)

For tenants using the legacy Pay Drivers page, generating a driver statement automatically triggers the export of the purchase invoice to Business Central.

If an error occurs while exporting a carrier purchase invoice from the Carrier Settlements module, the error details are displayed directly within the module. Carrier statements cannot be re-sent from the Error Transactions page. All corrections must be made within the Carrier Settlements module, and the statement must be regenerated there.

For tenants that use the Carrier Settlements module but prefer carrier bills to export when the carrier invoice is uploaded on the trip, it is recommended not to enable the Carrier Statements external accounting setting. In this configuration, enabling the generate carrier invoice separately setting and uploading the carrier invoice to the trip then generating the customer invoice will trigger the carrier bill export.

If a correction is needed, driver statements generated from this page can be reverted. To revert, navigate to the driver profile, click the three dots next to the statement in the right-hand corner, and select the Delete option.

Reverting a driver statement in Alvys automatically deletes the corresponding purchase invoice from Business Central, provided the bill remains unposted and no payments have been applied to it.

Driver Settlements Module

The Driver Settlements module replaces the legacy Pay Drivers page and introduces advanced features such as draft statements, predefined pay periods, and bulk actions. For additional details, see the Driver Settlements article (https://help.alvys.com/en/articles/11943598-driver-settlements).

For statements generated via the Driver Settlements module, reverting the statement from the Statements tab automatically removes the associated driver bill from Business Central. This synchronization is successful provided the bill remains unposted and no payments have been applied.

##a inconsistencies and prevent updates from syncing correctly. Do not delete transactions in Business Central if you plan to edit and resend them.

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The behavior of modifications to previously exported invoices depends on the status of the record in Business Central:

Unposted Invoices (Draft status in BC)

If the invoice remains unposted in Business Central (Draft status), changes made in Alvys will update the existing record upon the next synchronization or invoice regeneration.

Posted Invoices (Open status in BC)

If the invoice has already been posted (Open status), it can no longer be directly edited. Alvys will automatically generate and export a Sales Credit Memo to reverse the original transaction, followed by a new Sales Invoice containing the updated details, once the invoice is regenerated in Alvys.

Closed Invoices (Closed status in BC)

Once a payment has been fully applied and synced from Business Central, the invoice reaches Closed status in Alvys. At this stage, no further modifications are permitted. The reason is that the transaction record is locked once payment is fully reconciled in Business Central. Contact Alvys Support for assistance if a Closed invoice requires changes.

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Certain load invoice fields automatically update the Business Central sales invoice without requiring invoice regeneration. Updates to the following fields are applied automatically when saved in Alvys; refresh the invoice page in Business Central to see the changes:

Other changes require invoice regeneration to sync correctly.

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The customer associated with a load can only be changed while the load is in a status prior to Invoiced (for example, Queued). Queued status indicates that the invoice has been generated in Alvys but has not yet been submitted to the customer. Once the invoice has been submitted, the load status updates to Invoiced based on the invoicing mode, and the customer cannot be changed directly.

If the load is in Invoiced status, contact Alvys Support to revert the load status to Queued, which then allows the customer to be updated and the invoice to be regenerated for synchronization with Business Central.

Sample Business Central Invoice Exported from Alvys

The customer's name displayed on the exported invoice reflects the External Accounting Name.

The customer’s name displayed on the exported invoice reflects the External Accounting Name.

To update the customer on an invoice:

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Fields such as invoicing address, shipping address, customer email, and customer phone are managed in the customer profile.

For these changes to take effect, the load status must be prior to Invoiced. If the load has already been invoiced, contact Alvys Support to revert the status to Queued before making updates.

To update customer fields:

If the Invoice As subsidiary on a load needs to be changed after an invoice has already been exported, the process requires the "Edit Invoice Customer As" permission. Because changing the subsidiary routes the invoice to a different Business Central company or entity, the old invoice cannot be automatically updated or replaced through regeneration. The user must manually delete the old invoice from Business Central before regenerating the invoice with the corrected Invoice As subsidiary in Alvys.

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Modifications to summary invoices that have already been exported depend on the specific scenario.

Adding or Removing Loads from a Summary Invoice

The only supported mechanism for adding or removing loads from a summary invoice is to revert the summary invoice. A summary invoice can be reverted only when its status is Processed. If the invoice has already been Sent or Paid, further modification requires intervention from Alvys Support.

Reverting a summary invoice does not update the original invoice in Business Central. After reverting, the user must generate a new summary invoice in Alvys. This new invoice will receive a new summary invoice number, which will be exported to Business Central. The old summary invoice remains in Business Central unless manually deleted.

Procedure:

Modifying or Adding Charges to Loads within a Summary Invoice

Loads included in a summary invoice can be edited to add charges or make adjustments. Only summary invoices in the following statuses can be regenerated: Pending, Sent, or Partially Paid. If a summary invoice is fully paid, regeneration is not permitted.

Sample Summary Invoice in Business Central

To modify or add charges to loads:

Q: How does Alvys determine which Business Central company or entity receives an exported transaction?

A: Routing is based on the subsidiary connection. In a standard setup, Alvys sends data to the specific Business Central database linked to that subsidiary. In a Multi-Entity Management (MEM) setup, transactions are sent to a shared database but are tagged with the correct Entity Code (Dimension) based on the subsidiary mapping.

Q: What is the difference between the Invoice As and Tender As fields in relation to Business Central?

A: The Invoice As field determines the subsidiary responsible for the customer invoice (Accounts Receivable). The Tender As field identifies the subsidiary paying the carrier (Accounts Payable) and determines the trip type (Brokerage vs. Carrier).

Q: Is External Accounting Name the same as the Invoicing Name?

A: No. The External Accounting Name is used solely to match the record in Business Central. The Invoicing Name controls how the name appears on invoices generated in Alvys. Changing the Invoicing Name does not affect the Business Central link as long as the External Accounting Name remains unchanged.

Q: Which field takes priority when linking an Alvys customer or carrier to a record in Business Central?

A: The External Accounting Name always takes priority. Alvys searches for an exact match in Business Central using this field first. If it is not set, Alvys defaults to matching by the standard Customer or Carrier Name. If no match is found, a new record is created in Business Central using the External Accounting Name (or the Name if the External Accounting Name is blank).

Q: What happens if I update customer information (address, phone, or terms) directly in Business Central?

A: Alvys is the source of truth for these fields. Any changes made directly in Business Central will be overwritten the next time an invoice is synced from Alvys. All updates should be made within the Alvys profile to ensure data consistency.

Q: How are Payment Terms handled if an exact match isn't found in Business Central? A: Alvys attempts to match the customer’s payment terms to existing Payment Terms Codes in BC. If no exact match is found, the system defaults the customer's terms to 30 Days.

Q: Where do exported customer invoices appear in Business Central?

A: Invoices are exported as Unposted Sales Invoices. This allows the accounting team to perform a final review of amounts and tax codes before posting them to the General Ledger. Navigate to the Sales dropdown menu in Business Central and select Sales Invoices to locate them.

Q: When exactly is an external carrier bill exported to Business Central?

A: The timing depends on your settings. If Generate Carrier Invoice Separately is disabled, the bill exports automatically when the customer invoice is generated. If it is enabled, the system waits until a document of type Carrier Invoice is uploaded to the trip before exporting the bill.

Q: Does the carrier invoice number appear in Business Central?

A: Yes. When a document of the type Carrier Invoice is uploaded to a trip in Alvys and the invoice number is entered, that value is automatically populated in the Vendor Invoice No. field within Business Central.

Q: Can I sync carrier payments from Business Central back to the Alvys Carrier Settlements module? A: No. The current version of the Carrier Settlements module does not support payment synchronization. While bills are exported to BC, payments applied in BC must be recorded manually within Alvys for those external carriers.

Q: What happens in Business Central if I delete or revert a driver statement in Alvys?

A: Reverting or deleting a driver statement in Alvys automatically deletes the corresponding purchase invoice in Business Central, provided the bill is still unposted and no payments have been applied to it.

Q: How do I modify an invoice that has already been posted in Business Central?

A: Since posted invoices cannot be edited directly, Alvys will automatically generate and export a Sales Credit Memo to reverse the original transaction, followed by a new Sales Invoice with the updated details, once you regenerate the invoice in Alvys.

Q: Which load fields can be updated in Business Central without needing to regenerate the invoice in Alvys?

A: Updates to the Customer Linehaul amount, Fuel Surcharge, Accessorial charges (added, edited, or removed), Invoice Date, and Invoice Due Date sync automatically to the Business Central sales invoice upon saving the change in Alvys and refreshing the Business Central page.

Q: How do I change the customer on a load that has already been invoiced?

A: Once a load is in Invoiced status, the customer cannot be changed directly. Contact Alvys Support to revert the load status to Queued, which then allows you to update the customer and regenerate the invoice for Business Central.

Q: What is the process for adding or removing loads from an exported Summary Invoice?

A: Revert the summary invoice in Alvys (only available when the status is Processed), which allows you to adjust the loads. Reverting in Alvys does not delete the old invoice in Business Central. Manually delete the old summary invoice in Business Central and then generate a new summary invoice in Alvys; the new invoice will receive a new invoice number.