When customers want one invoice covering multiple deliveries, combine shipments in Business Central is the right approach – a single sales invoice can cover any number of shipped sales orders using the Get Shipment Lines function. This guide covers how to configure sales orders to allow combining, how to use Get Shipment Lines, and what the resulting invoice contains.
Why Customers Ask You to Combine Shipments
Some customers want their delivery notes to travel with the goods. Each shipment arrives with a packing slip. However, they prefer one invoice at the end of the month. The billing interval depends on what suits their accounts team. Instead of one invoice per delivery, they want a single document that covers all the goods delivered in that period. Business Central lets you combine shipments from multiple orders into one invoice to meet this need. Your customer gets one clear document to approve and pay. Your team sends one email instead of several.
The period is flexible – weekly, monthly, or any schedule the customer requests. You can combine shipments on whatever cycle works best. Your back office controls the timing. When the agreed date arrives, they pull all open shipments for that customer into one invoice. So, the customer gets one clear document instead of a stack of individual invoices to process and pay and approve.
This workflow also suits teams that run a warehouse with shipping documents. The warehouse ships the goods and prints the delivery note. The back office invoices later, when the billing cycle ends. Also, the two teams work separately – no one has to wait on the other to do their part. Notably, this separation also means the warehouse team can ship as fast as orders come in, without pausing for billing.
How Sales Orders Enable You to Combine Shipments
The process starts on the sales order. The warehouse posts shipments against it. Each shipment creates a posted sales shipment document. The order line then shows a shipped amount but no invoiced amount. So the order stays open and ready for billing. This split between shipping and billing is what makes it possible to combine shipments later.
A customer may have several sales orders in progress at the same time. Each order can have one or more shipments. For instance, if one item was on back order, it may ship in two separate stages. Each stage produces its own posted shipment document. Moreover, different orders for the same customer each add their own shipment documents. All of these are ready to pull into one invoice when the billing date arrives.
Specifically, any line where shipped amount exceeds invoiced amount stays ready to combine shipments into the next invoice. This gives your back office full control over which deliveries to include and when to run the invoice. In practice, your team decides at billing time – not shipping time – what goes on the invoice.
Using Get Shipment Lines to Combine Shipments into One Invoice
To combine shipments into one invoice, go to Sales Invoices and create a new document. Select the customer. Then on the invoice lines, use the Get Shipment Lines function. A page opens. It shows all posted shipments for that customer that have not yet been invoiced. The columns show the source amount and what is still open. Select the lines you want and click OK.
Which Shipment Lines to Include When You Combine Shipments
You do not have to select every line. If an item is disputed or the customer asked to defer it, leave it out. Select only the lines you want and click OK. Business Central pulls those lines into the invoice and leaves the rest ready for a future run. Therefore, each billing cycle only includes what is ready.
You can also adjust the invoice amount on a line before posting. If a line shows a amount of two but you only want to invoice one now, change it. The sales order will update to show one invoiced and one open when you post. Specifically, whatever amount you invoice reduces the open amount on the source order line. The rest stays ready to include next time you combine shipments.
What the Invoice Contains After You Combine Shipments
After you confirm the selection, the invoice lines populate. Each line references the source shipment document. The customer already has those delivery notes on file from when the goods arrived. Therefore, the invoice links back to the same shipment references the customer can match against their records. This makes reconciliation straightforward on the customer side.
The invoice itself behaves like any standard sales invoice. You can review the lines, adjust amounts if needed, and post it when ready. When posted, it becomes a posted sales invoice. Then the source sales orders update to reflect the invoiced amounts. Overall, the link between the posted shipments and the invoice gives both sides a clear audit trail for every delivery in that period. Likewise, your team can look up any posted invoice and trace it back to the exact shipments it covers.
Why Sales Orders Remain Open After Posting
In a standard sales flow, Business Central deletes a sales order on its own when it is fully shipped and invoiced. The order disappears because nothing is open. However, this automatic deletion does not happen when you combine shipments via a separate invoice document.
After posting, the sales orders update to show the correct invoiced amounts. They appear fully shipped and fully invoiced. Yet they stay in the sales order list. Indeed, the system updates the orders but does not remove them. They stay visible until you run a cleanup job. This is a known behaviour when you combine shipments via a separate invoice document.
Final Cleanup and Posted Document Review
Finally, Business Central includes a job called Delete Invoiced Sales Orders. Search for it and run it. The job removes sales orders that are fully shipped and fully invoiced. You can apply filters to target specific orders or date ranges if needed. Otherwise, run it without filters and it clears everything that meets the criteria.
Moreover, this job is safe to run regularly after each billing cycle. It only deletes orders where both shipped and invoiced amounts are complete. It does not touch orders with open lines or any open amount. Therefore, you can run it after each billing cycle without worrying about losing active orders. For teams that combine shipments on a regular schedule, running this job after each invoice batch keeps the order list clean and focused on open work.
Wrapping Up: Combine Shipments to Give Customers One Invoice per Period
The ability to combine shipments into one invoice gives your billing team control over the billing cycle. Goods go out with delivery notes and your back office invoices on the agreed schedule. The Get Shipment Lines function collects all open shipments for a customer into one document. After posting, the Delete Invoiced Sales Orders job keeps your order list tidy. Set this up once and it works the same way every billing period, whatever schedule your customers prefer.
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