Business Central Consultant in the UK

VAT posting setup and the route to an MTD return

In Business Central, VAT is not chosen line by line by the person keying an invoice. It comes from the pairing of a VAT business posting group on the customer or vendor with a VAT product posting group on the item, resource or G/L account. Each pairing in the VAT posting setup carries a rate, a calculation type and the accounts to post to. The VAT statement then sums those entries into return lines.

That design is powerful and unforgiving. If a new product is created with the wrong product group, every sale of it lands in the wrong box until someone notices. So I build the setup as a matrix with your accountant: sales at each rate including zero, exempt income, reverse charge on the domestic supplies it covers for you, imports and postponed accounting where relevant, and purchases where VAT is not recoverable. Each cell is traced to a VAT statement line and a box on the return.

Microsoft's UK localization includes a route for submitting VAT returns under Making Tax Digital. I check who will hold the HMRC connection, how the return is reviewed against the VAT statement before submission and how corrections from a previous period are handled. Liability and the treatment of each supply are questions for your tax advisor; I make sure the configuration reflects their advice.

From Sage nominal codes to a chart with dimensions

A familiar UK pattern is a Sage nominal ledger where the code itself carries meaning: sales for each branch, staff costs for each department, a new range of codes every time the business adds a site. Business Central handles that analysis differently. The chart of accounts stays short, and dimensions such as department, branch, project or product line carry the analysis. Two can be global dimensions that appear on most ledger views, and further shortcut dimensions can be added to journals and documents.

I work through your nominal list with the finance team and decide, code by code, whether it stays an account, becomes a dimension value or disappears. I then define default dimensions on customers, vendors, items and employees, and value posting rules where a dimension must always be present, for example on payroll or project cost accounts.

General and inventory posting groups follow the same thinking. Rather than one posting group per product family, I aim for the fewest groups that still put sales, cost of sales and stock in the accounts your management accounts need. The resulting design is reviewed by your accountant, then attached to the statement of work so the partner configures from a signed reference. My gap analysis service covers the same method across the wider business.

BACS runs, bank statement import and reconciliation

UK businesses rarely pay suppliers one at a time. They run a weekly or fortnightly payment proposal, approve it, send a BACS file or upload a batch to the bank portal and email remittances. Business Central supports payment journals, suggested vendor payments and exported payment files, but the exact export format each UK bank accepts varies and is often delivered through a data exchange definition, a partner extension or an AppSource banking app. I collect the specification from each bank you use and ask the partner to name the mechanism and who maintains it.

On the receipts side, I look at how statements reach the system and how the matching rules in bank account reconciliation and the payment reconciliation journal will cope with your reality: card settlements net of fees, Direct Debit collections, customers who pay several invoices with one reference, and foreign currency receipts.

In UAT I want three things signed off: a payment file accepted by the bank, a full month reconciled from imported statements and a remittance that a supplier could actually read. Those are practical tests that surface problems while the partner is still engaged, rather than after the support clock has started.

Group companies, intercompany charges and migration from NAV or Sage

UK groups often hold a trading company, a property company and one or two acquired businesses, sometimes with a subsidiary in Ireland or elsewhere in Europe. Business Central treats each as a company. I design the intercompany partner setup, which accounts generate intercompany transactions, how management charges and recharges are calculated and how the consolidation company brings the trial balances together with eliminations. Foreign subsidiaries normally run their own localization, so I check which features differ before promising a single process. The multi-company ERP guide explains the general approach.

Migration is the other big structural choice. Older NAV customers sometimes have a technical upgrade path to Business Central, but many find that customizations written years ago no longer earn their keep. I list each one with its purpose and owner and decide whether standard functionality, an app or a process change replaces it. From Sage, the challenge is usually data quality: duplicate supplier accounts, inconsistent stock units and nominal history that needs restating against the new chart.

Whichever source you start from, I agree what converts as open items, what moves as balances and how finance will reconcile it. The data migration page has more detail. All workshops run remotely within the UK working day.

Testing a partner's SOW, and when Business Central is more than you need

UK partner proposals for Business Central can look nearly identical on the summary page. The differences sit further in: whether data conversion includes history or only masters, which banking and VAT tools are assumed, how many UAT cycles the partner supports, whether training is per role or a single overview, and what the first year of support actually covers. I read each statement of work against your requirements and return specific questions, using the method on my vendor proposal review page.

I also say so when Business Central looks like more than the business needs:

• A single company on Xero or Sage with a reporting problem may solve it with better coding and a reporting tool.
• A firm with no stock, no projects and simple invoicing gains little from posting group design it will never use.
• An organization that cannot spare someone to own VAT setup and master data after go-live will struggle with any mid-market ERP.

For the wider picture, see Dynamics 365 in the UK, the UK ERP consultant page or the UK hub. To compare Business Central with other platforms on paper first, use the ERP evaluation service.