Bank deposits and cash management in Business Central

Many SMBs still handle physical cash and cheques — retail businesses, restaurants, professional services with cash-on-arrival, charities and clubs. Business Central's cash management features cover the day-to-day handling: receiving payments, batching them into deposits, taking them to the bank, and reconciling against the bank statement.

Cash receipt journal. The simplest path: a sales invoice is paid, the AR clerk opens the cash receipt journal, picks the customer, picks the open invoice to apply against, enters the amount, and posts. The customer ledger entry settles; the bank account ledger is credited.

For multiple payments received in a day, the journal accumulates many lines before a single batch post.

Bank deposits. Bank deposits formalise the "many cheques and cash, one trip to the bank" pattern. Instead of posting each receipt as it arrives, the receipts queue on a bank deposit record:

1. Create deposit — header records the bank account, date, total, and description.
2. Add lines — each cheque or cash payment as a line, with customer reference, amount, applied invoice.
3. Post — when the deposit is taken to the bank, post it. The bank ledger receives one large entry equal to the deposit total; the AR ledger receives the individual applications.

This pattern matches the physical reality: many small receipts go in one envelope to the bank, one bank statement line shows the deposit. Reconciliation is then trivial — the bank statement's deposit ties exactly to the BC deposit posting.

Posted bank deposits. Once posted, the deposit is immutable and archived. Adjustments require credit memos or correcting journals against the AR or bank ledger.

Cash management module. Beyond receipts and deposits, the cash management area in BC handles:

• Bank account cards — each bank account is a master record with currency, posting groups, bank statement format, payment file format.
• Bank account ledger entries — every posting that affects the bank balance.
• Bank reconciliation — matching the statement to the ledger (see the dedicated guide).
• Bank account statements — the historical record of reconciled statements.
• Cash flow forecast — forward view of liquidity (see the dedicated guide).
• Payment journals — outbound vendor payments (see payment terms guide).
• Customer payments — inbound applications.

Reconciliation discipline. The clean pattern:

1. Receive payments → cash receipt journal or bank deposit.
2. Take to bank.
3. Bank statement arrives the next day.
4. Run Bank Reconciliation — auto-match statement lines to ledger entries.
5. Resolve unmatched items (bank fees, errors).
6. Post the reconciliation.

Done daily or weekly, bank reconciliation is a few minutes' work; left to month-end accumulation, it can become an hour or more of detective work.

Multi-currency cash. Bank accounts can be in any currency. Receipts in foreign currency post at the day's exchange rate; revaluation at period-end posts FX gain/loss.

Petty cash. Petty cash is handled either as a bank account (small, low-volume) or as a GL account with manual journals. BC doesn't have a separate "petty cash module" — the bank-account pattern is the standard approach for tracking petty cash float.

Credit card receipts. Customer-paid card payments are typically handled as a separate bank account representing the merchant-services holding account. The card processor settles to the operating bank account days later, and the settlement is reconciled with merchant-fee deductions.

Practical advice. For SMBs taking cash and cheques, configure bank deposits from day one. The discipline of batching receipts before deposit makes reconciliation trivial; the alternative — every receipt posted individually — turns into a forensic exercise at month-end.