What is a Posting Preview in Business Central?

Posting Preview simulates a posting and shows the ledger entries it would create, then rolls everything back so nothing is actually posted.

Posting Preview runs a posting in memory and shows exactly which ledger entries would be created, then rolls the transaction back. Nothing is written: no ledger entries remain, no number series are advanced and no document is printed. It is available on journals and on most documents, such as purchase and sales orders, invoices and credit memos.

Open the journal or the document and choose the preview action, labelled Preview Posting on documents. The preview page lists the entry types that would be created, for example G/L entries, VAT entries, customer or vendor ledger entries and item ledger entries, with a record count you can drill into. How much detail is shown depends on a posting preview setting in General Ledger Setup, which offers a standard and an extended view.

A purchase invoice from vendor Fabrikam for CHF 4,800.00 net at 8.1% VAT is previewed before posting. The preview shows three G/L entries: 4,800.00 debit on the expense account, 388.80 debit on the input VAT account and 5,188.80 credit on the payables account. It also shows one VAT entry and one vendor ledger entry of 5,188.80 with the due date derived from the payment terms, which is enough to confirm that the vendor posting group and the VAT posting setup are right.

Two misunderstandings are common. The first is expecting the preview to catch problems that only appear later, since costs, exchange rates and item availability can change between the preview and the real posting. The second is treating a preview error as harmless: it is the same error the posting would raise, and it has to be fixed. Note also that not every process offers a preview, and that a user needs the same permissions as for posting.

Preview is the cheapest way to validate a new setup: before the first document for a new vendor, a new item or a new VAT rate, preview one document and read the VAT and payables lines instead of posting and then correcting. It is also useful for training, because a new user can inspect the accounting effect of a document with no risk to the ledgers.

Frequently asked questions

Related terms

• General Journal, The General Journal is the Business Central page where you post balanced transactions straight to general ledger, customer, vendor, bank or fixed asset accounts.
• General Ledger, The core accounting record in Business Central where all financial transactions are ultimately posted and stored.
• Purchase Invoice, A document recording a vendor's bill for goods or services received, used for accounts payable processing in Business Central.
• Posting Group, Setup records in Business Central that determine which G/L accounts a transaction is posted to, based on who and what is involved.
• VAT Posting Setup, The Business Central matrix of VAT business and product posting group combinations that determines VAT rates, calculation types, and VAT accounts.

How Zentriq helps

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