Run more than one company, and sooner or later one of them pays a bill that belongs to another. The holding company covers the insurance. The parent buys the software licenses everyone uses. Every one of those transactions has to hit two sets of books, stay in balance, and be traceable later. That’s intercompany accounting — and it’s where multi-entity businesses either save hours or lose them.
Round 33 of our GP vs. BC Functionality Face-Off compares GP’s Intercompany Processing with Business Central’s intercompany partners, journals, and documents. Both keep your companies in balance. The difference is what happens after you post — and how much of your business the feature actually covers.
How you do it in Dynamics GP
GP’s Intercompany Processing is built around “due to” and “due from” accounts — intercompany payable and receivable accounts that keep each company in balance.
Set up the relationships. In the Intercompany Setup window (Tools >> Setup >> System >> Intercompany), you pick an originating company, select a destination company, and assign the Due To and Due From accounts on both sides. Microsoft’s Intercompany Processing manual notes you’ll repeat this for each pair of companies that trade with each other. If the companies use different currencies, both need access to the same currencies and exchange tables first — the same Multicurrency Access windows we covered in our multicurrency round.
Enter the transaction. Intercompany entry works in two places: General Ledger Transaction Entry and Payables Transaction Entry. You mark the Intercompany checkbox, which unlocks a Co. ID column in the distributions window. Enter a destination company on a line, and you can pick accounts from that company’s chart. When you post, GP automatically builds the due to/due from breakout and sends a balanced entry to each destination company. That part is genuinely slick.
Now log into the other companies. Here’s the catch: the destination entries arrive as unposted journal entries. Someone has to log into each destination company and post them before they’re real. And GP’s intercompany support stops at journal entries and payables — receivables, bank transactions, and sales documents aren’t included. Once everything posts, you also can’t drill from the originating entry to the destination entry; each company only sees its own half.
How you do it in Business Central
BC treats intercompany like a small trading network between your companies.
Set up partners once. On the Intercompany Setup page, each company gets an intercompany code, and you add your other companies as intercompany partners. Everyone shares an intercompany chart of accounts — and if your companies use the same account numbers, setup is two actions: Copy from Chart of Accounts, then Map to Acc. with Same No. Dimensions map the same way. Finally, you assign partner codes to the customers and vendors that represent your sister companies.
Enter once, deliver everywhere. Post an intercompany general journal line and BC creates the corresponding line for your partner — you never enter the other company’s offset. But BC goes well beyond journals: intercompany covers sales orders, purchase orders, invoices, credit memos, and return orders. Sell to a sister company and BC builds the matching purchase document on their side, items and all. Your inter-entity billing stops being double data entry.
Check the inbox — or skip it. Transactions travel through an intercompany outbox and inbox. Your partner reviews incoming transactions and accepts them, creating the documents in their company without re-keying anything. If your companies live in the same database and trust each other, you can turn on Auto. Send and Auto. Accept, and the handoff happens by itself — transactions go straight to the handled lists. Partners in a different database entirely? BC exchanges the transactions as files you import into the inbox. Rejected something by mistake? The inbox keeps the full trail.
Side by side
| Dynamics GP | Business Central |
|---|
| Dynamics GP | Business Central | |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | Due To/Due From accounts per company pair in Intercompany Setup | Partner codes, shared intercompany chart of accounts and dimensions, mapped once |
| Transaction types | General Ledger journals and Payables transactions only | General journals plus sales and purchase orders, invoices, credit memos, and return orders |
| What the other company gets | Unposted journal entries — someone logs in to post them | Inbox transactions that create matching documents on acceptance |
| Automation | None — destination posting is always manual | Auto. Send and Auto. Accept toggles for trusted partners |
| Across databases | Same GP system only | Works across multiple Business Central databases via file exchange |
| Traceability | Each company sees only its own half after posting | Inbox, outbox, and handled-transaction lists keep the full trail |
Why BC comes out ahead
GP’s Intercompany Processing earns its keep — the automatic due to/due from breakout has saved GP users countless correcting entries over the years. But its boundaries show up fast in real businesses: journal entries and payables only, unposted entries waiting in every destination company, and no view across the wall once things post. Most GP shops end up with a month-end checklist item that reads “log into each company and post the intercompany batches.”
Business Central widens the feature and closes the loop. Full documents flow between companies, not just GL distributions. The inbox/outbox model gives you either a review step or full automation — your choice per partner. And because the whole thing runs on partner codes and mapped accounts, adding a new company is configuration, not a project. It’s the pattern this series keeps finding, from journal entries onward: BC takes work GP made possible and makes it routine.
Make your companies act like one business
If your month-end includes logging into three companies to post what the first one already entered — or you’re planning a move to Business Central with multiple entities — we can help you design the intercompany setup right. See our services or contact us at (251) 293-0555.
Next up in the Face-Off: company consolidations — GP’s consolidation approaches vs. BC’s business unit consolidations.