Every business moves money through the bank all day long: customer checks get deposited, service fees get recorded, funds hop from one account to another. Your ERP needs a home for all of that activity. In Dynamics GP, that home is the checkbook — a separate bank subledger with its own windows and its own rules. In Dynamics 365 Business Central, the bank account is simply part of your general ledger, and every transaction lands in both places at once. Let’s look at bank transaction Dynamics GP vs Business Central.
Round 29 of our GP vs. BC Functionality Face-Off looks at everyday banking: recording bank transactions, building deposits, and moving money between accounts.
How you do it in Dynamics GP
GP’s banking lives in the Bank Reconciliation module, which is organized around checkbooks. A checkbook is GP’s version of a bank account, and it keeps its own running balance separate from the general ledger cash account it points to. Microsoft’s Bank Reconciliation manual walks through the setup: you assign next numbers for bank transactions, receipts, transfers, and adjustments, then pick a default checkbook.
Recording a bank transaction. For a service charge, a withdrawal, or a manually written check, you open the Bank Transaction Entry window (Transactions >> Financial >> Bank Transactions). You select Enter Transaction, pick the type, and mind the dates — the transaction date and the posting date are two different things, and changing one does not always change the other. Then you enter the checkbook ID, the payee, the amount, and the offset accounts, and post.
Building a deposit. Deposits are a two-step dance. Cash receipts from Receivables land in a holding area first. Then someone opens the Bank Deposit Entry window (Transactions >> Financial >> Bank Deposits), selects the checkbook, and marks each receipt that belongs in today’s deposit slip. Post the deposit, and the checkbook balance finally updates. Until that second step happens, your receipts are in limbo — money you’ve recorded but your checkbook hasn’t seen.
Transferring funds. Moving money between checkbooks has its own window too: Bank Transfer Entry, where you pick the checkbook you’re transferring from, the one you’re transferring to, and the amount.
Each of these is a separate window with separate numbering, and the checkbook subledger has to stay in step with the general ledger. Most days it does. But GP veterans know the classic hiccup: a posting interruption mid-deposit leaves the checkbook locked with a “deposit for this checkbook has already been started” error, and Microsoft’s fix involves deleting stuck records straight out of the SQL work tables. That is not a knock on GP — it’s just what maintaining a separate bank subledger sometimes takes.
How you do it in Business Central
Business Central skips the separate subledger. Each bank account is a card, and it links to the general ledger through a posting group. As Microsoft’s bank account setup guide explains, using a bank account in any transaction automatically creates an entry in both the bank account ledger and the connected G/L account — one action, both books, always in sync.
Recording a bank transaction. A service charge or miscellaneous withdrawal is a one-line general journal entry: account type Bank Account, pick the account, enter the amount and the offsetting expense account, post. The bank account ledger and the G/L update together.
Building a deposit. The Bank Deposits page gives you a single document. Pick the bank account, enter the total deposit amount, then add a line for each check or cash payment — customer payments, vendor refunds, even one-off G/L amounts. Lines can apply straight to open invoices as you go. A Post as Lump Sum toggle lets the whole deposit hit the bank ledger as one amount, which makes the bank statement match up exactly at reconciliation time. Posted deposits are stored on the Posted Bank Deposits page, and if something went wrong, there’s an Undo action — no SQL scripts required.
Transferring funds. A transfer between bank accounts is one journal line: bank account on one side, bank account on the other, post. Different currencies? Two lines and the exchange rates handle themselves.
And because every entry lands in the bank account ledger the moment it posts, the reconciliation we covered back in Round 4 — including Copilot-assisted matching — starts from data that is already complete.
Side by side
| Dynamics GP | Business Central | |
|---|---|---|
| Bank account concept | Checkbook — a separate subledger tied to a GL cash account | Bank account card posting straight into the G/L |
| Service charge or withdrawal | Bank Transaction Entry window, watch two dates | One general journal line |
| Deposits | Receipts wait in a holding area until Bank Deposit Entry posts | Bank Deposit document with lines, lump-sum option, invoice application |
| Fixing a posted deposit | Void, or clear stuck SQL work tables after an interruption | Undo action on Posted Bank Deposits |
| Transfers between accounts | Separate Bank Transfer Entry window | One journal line; two for cross-currency |
| Keeping bank and GL in sync | Your job — the checkbook and GL can drift | Automatic — one posting hits both |
| Reviewing activity | Checkbook inquiries | Bank Account Ledger Entries with drill-down and running balance |
Why BC comes out ahead
The checkbook design made sense when it was built: keep the bank detail out of the ledger and reconcile the two on paper. But it means GP asks you to maintain two versions of the truth — the checkbook balance and the GL cash balance — and to remember the extra step that keeps them matching. Deposits sitting in the holding area, transfers in their own window, and the occasional locked checkbook are all side effects of that split.
Business Central has one version of the truth. The bank account is the ledger. Deposits are documents you can review, apply, post, and undo like any other document. That’s the same modernization story we saw with cash receipts in Round 22 and deferrals yesterday: fewer places for things to hide, fewer steps for people to remember.
Let’s talk about your banking workflow
If your team spends month-end chasing differences between the checkbook and the general ledger, Business Central can take that chore off the list entirely. Aisling Dynamics has guided companies through the GP-to-BC move for years — take a look at our services, or contact us at (251) 293-0555 and we’ll talk through what your banking day could look like.
Next up in the Face-Off: electronic vendor payments — GP’s EFT for Payables vs. BC’s payment journal exports.