Credit card handling in Business Central

Business Central does not natively process credit card payments end-to-end — there's no built-in PCI-compliant card vault, gateway, or settlement engine. Instead, BC provides a payment services framework and a set of integration patterns that let partners and ISVs wire BC into established gateways. Understanding what BC does (orchestrate) vs what gateways do (process) is the first step.

Three contexts for "credit card" in BC.

1. Customer payment on sales invoice — a customer pays an invoice by card.
2. Customer payment at point of sale — used in BC Retail / LS Retail or Dynamics 365 Commerce, not core BC.
3. Vendor expenses on a corporate card — AP-side workflow for capturing card statements.

Each has its own pattern.

Customer card payments — the payment services framework. BC includes a Payment Services entity. Out of the box, the PayPal Payments Standard service is bundled; partners or ISVs add Stripe, Worldpay, Authorize.Net, Adyen integrations. The pattern:

1. The payment service is enabled and configured (account credentials).
2. Sales invoices and quotes include a "Pay Now" link that routes the customer to the gateway's hosted page.
3. Customer pays at the gateway; the gateway charges the card.
4. Payment confirmation either flows back into BC via webhook (auto-applies cash to invoice) or is reconciled manually based on the bank deposit.

PCI scope stays at the gateway; BC never holds card numbers.

Stripe, Adyen, Authorize.Net etc. Each ISV connector follows a similar pattern but with different UX:

• A field on the customer card stores the gateway's customer reference (token).
• Recurring billing scenarios charge the stored token without re-collecting card details.
• Webhook handlers post payment events into BC as customer ledger entries.

For subscription billing, an extension like Continia OPplus or Microsoft Subscription Billing layers recurring billing logic on top of the gateway connector.

Credit card surcharging. Some markets allow surcharges (typically 1.5–3%) added at checkout. The connector or a custom extension adds a surcharge line to the invoice or a fee G/L entry on the payment. Compliance varies by jurisdiction; check local rules before turning on surcharging.

The AP side — corporate card statements. Many companies issue corporate cards (Amex, Visa) to employees and need to record card transactions:

• The employee swipes the card; the merchant processes; the issuing bank statement arrives monthly.
• Statement lines need to land in BC as expenses with G/L coding, tax handling, and approval.

BC doesn't auto-import card statements natively. Options:

• Continia Expense Management — AppSource extension that pulls card feeds, captures receipts via mobile app, and posts to BC.
• Microsoft Expense Management (part of Dynamics 365 Project Operations or F&O) — broader feature set, integrates with BC via dual-write or custom integration.
• Manual import — the bank statement Excel/PDF, parsed into a configuration package or general journal.

Bank Account vs Vendor for the card account. Two modelling choices for corporate card balances:

• Bank Account — the card is treated like a negative-balance bank account. Daily charges reduce the account; monthly payment debits the account back to zero.
• Vendor — the issuer (Amex, Bank) is a vendor; each statement is an invoice that's then paid.

The vendor approach is more common because the monthly settlement is a single AP payment with a clear due date and discount window; the bank approach maps better to corporate cards used by treasury.

Tax handling. Card receipts may carry VAT or sales tax that needs proper capture. The expense management extension handles VAT extraction; manual workflows risk lost VAT recovery. EU operations with significant card spend should automate VAT handling for compliance and recovery.

Reconciliation. Reconciling the card statement against expense entries is essential:

• Charges captured but missing receipts → chase the employee.
• Charges on statement not captured → missed expense, journal correction.
• Captured expense not on statement → likely declined or pending; flag for review.

A reconciliation report comparing statement total to captured expenses is the monthly control.

Common pitfalls.

• PCI shortcuts. Storing card numbers in BC custom fields is a critical breach. Always use tokenisation at the gateway.
• Refunds not handled. Refunds need negative payment lines linked to original; without the link, customer balance is wrong.
• No webhook validation. Gateways send webhooks for charge events; without signature validation, replays or spoofed events cause data corruption.
• Missing surcharge G/L mapping. Surcharges accumulate without clear posting; reconciliation fails.
• Employee onboarding gaps. A new employee with a new card needs system setup; without it, expenses pile up uncategorised.

Choosing the integration. For B2B SaaS billing or service businesses billing on invoice, a Stripe or Adyen connector is sufficient. For higher-volume retail, BC Retail or D365 Commerce. For deeply integrated expense management with cards, the Continia or D365 Expense Management approach.