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Small and medium business | Business Central, N...
Suggested answer

General Journal Batch Approval

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Posted on by 36

We have clients that typically create one General Journal batch for each user, and the users create their entries over and over in those batches.  I have a client that is doing this but would like to setup an approval workflow on all general journal batches.  The issue we are running into is that once the batch is submitted for approval it cannot be used again until the approval is completed.  Sometimes these approvals may take a few days to get approved so they can get access back to their batch.

 

Has anyone run into this scenario before?  If so, how did you handle it?  Obviously, the users could create a new batch every time they want to post stuff, but I am concerned about performance when their batch list becomes very large.  Any thoughts?

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  • Suggested answer
    YUN ZHU Profile Picture
    92,445 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at
    General Journal Batch Approval
    This is the standard behavior for Batch Approval. If you do not want to lock the batch, use Line Approval.
    This locks the line but not the batch.
     
    Thanks.
    ZHU
  • Suggested answer
    Sumit Singh Profile Picture
    6,786 on at
    General Journal Batch Approval
    Hi,
     
    Agreed with YUN on this.
    Switch to Line-Level Approval
    Instead of approving the entire batch, configure the workflow to approve individual journal lines. This way, the batch remains open for new entries while specific lines are locked during approval. This is the recommended workaround for your scenario.

    Official Documentation

  • Suggested answer
    Valentin Castravet Profile Picture
    29,543 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at
    General Journal Batch Approval
    Your only options are to use line approvals, create separate batches for each user, or speed up the approval process if possible.
     
  • Suggested answer
    RockwithNav Profile Picture
    8,299 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at
    General Journal Batch Approval
    2 Solution which I can think of on top of my head
     
    1 - As community members addressed having a line level approval.
    2 - You need to cancel the approval if its not yet approved and then keep on adding the lines and send it for approval again till then it's got approved and you are eligible to submit another approval as a batch.
     
     
  • Suggested answer
    Rishabh Kanaskar Profile Picture
    4,501 on at
    General Journal Batch Approval
    Hi,
     
    Most community members recommend line-level approval instead of batch-level approval. This avoids locking the entire batch for days and lets users continue working while approvals are processed. You can configure this by enabling approval workflows on individual journal lines rather than the batch header.
    Other options:
    > Separate batches for approvals. keep one batch for daily entries and create a new batch only when ready for approval.
    > Naming conventions or archiving old batches help manage usability if multiple batches are created.
    > Performance impact from many batches is minimal in the latest versions, but usability can suffer, so line-level approval remains the best practice.
     
    Thanks
    Rishabh
  • Suggested answer
    Gregory Mavrogeorgis Profile Picture
    254 on at
    General Journal Batch Approval
     
    Hi, 
    Problem is: when you submit a journal batch for approval, BC lock the whole batch, so user can’t keep working there until approve done. If approvals take days, it block people.
    Ways folks handle it (not super fancy):
    • Two-batch per user flow
      Have USER-WIP (they work here) and USER-SUBMIT (only for approvals).
      When ready, they copy/move lines from WIP → SUBMIT, send for approve. WIP stays open so they keep working new stuff meanwhile.
    • Daily batches
      Name by day like AP-JOHN-2025-10-11. Submit today’s, start a fresh one for tomorrow.
      Add a small cleanup habit/job later to delete empty/old batches. Big list usually ok, but keep it tidy so it don’t get slow.
    • Staging batch via Power Automate (if you use it)
      User keeps a permanent WIP; a flow clones ready lines into a “Submitted” batch and sends approval. Again, WIP never blocked.
    • Line-level approval (if you got an extension)
      Some shops use an app that approves lines, not the whole batch, so nothing else gets blocked. Vanilla BC don’t do that out-of-the-box
    If you find this helpful please mark it as verified answer

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