Dynamics 365 Business Central extension

Charter billing and APA, tracked to a closeout status.

Trident runs yacht charter finance inside Business Central. Payment schedules become ordinary BC sales invoices, client APA money is reconciled and settled on its own ledger, and each charter carries one status that says whether it can be closed.

Book a 30-minute walkthrough What it needs to run

Pre-release build 0.1.0.26 · per-tenant install · no AppSource listing · zero customers today

The APA Reconciliation page for charter DEMO-APANR, titled Demo: APA Receipt Outstanding. The ribbon offers Mark All Reviewed as Reconciled, Request APA Top-up, and a greyed out Create APA Settlement Document. The Charter group shows Status Completed. The APA Summary group lists APA Estimated 5,000.00, APA Invoiced 5,000.00, APA Received Calculated 0.00, APA Received Manual 0.00, APA Received Used 0.00, Reviewed Expenses 0.00, Variance (Received minus Reviewed) 0.00, Outcome APA balanced, Settlement Status Balanced, Funding Status Awaiting Initial Funding in red, and Outstanding Top-up 0.00. — Fig. 1 APA Reconciliation for charter DEMO-APANR: three ribbon actions, eight figures and three statuses, all computed from receipts and reviewed expenses.

The whole loop

Five steps from signed contract to closed charter

Each step writes to standard Business Central objects where one exists, and to a Trident table only where Business Central has nothing to write to.

Template

A payment template holds the stages you sell on: deposit, balance, delivery fee, APA.

Schedule

Build Schedule dates those stages onto the charter. Rebuild Schedule redoes it when the contract moves.

Invoice

Create Invoice writes a normal BC sales invoice. Sync pulls posted and paid state back to the line.

APA

Receipts, reviewed expenses and variance on one page. Statements are versioned, issued and kept.

Closeout

One status per charter, computed from both ledgers, shown as a column on the charter list.

Schedule

Payment schedules that become ordinary Business Central sales invoices

Create Invoice posts through the same routine your accountant already reconciles and reports on. Trident does not introduce a parallel invoice type.

Charter Payment Schedule · demo company
Charter	Line type	Amount	Status	Invoice
DEMO-APANR	APA	5,000.00	Posted	`DEMO-INV-20865`
DEMO-APASET	APA	5,000.00	Paid	`DEMO-INV-20866`
DEMO-BILL	Deposit	50,000.00	Planned	not invoiced
DEMO-PAYDUE	Deposit	50,000.00	Posted	`DEMO-INV-20864`
DEMO-RTC	Deposit	50,000.00	Paid	`DEMO-INV-20867`

The invoice number stays on the schedule line, so the amount, its state and the document that carries it are one row. Sync Posted Invoices and Sync Paid Invoices refresh that state after posting and after payment application.

A charter is invoiced in stages against dates that move. The client shifts the week, the broker renegotiates the delivery fee, and the schedule you agreed in March is not the schedule you bill in June. Rebuild Schedule discards the planned lines and regenerates them from the template; lines already billed are left alone.

The list you work in day to day is the Charter Finance Workspace: charters down the page with status, APA required and total scheduled amount, and a Commercial Entries factbox that fills in as things happen to the charter.

Every amount change is recorded as a Charter Commercial Entry carrying an evidence origin, a reason comment and a correlation id, so a figure that moved can be traced to what moved it.

The Charter Payment Schedule list with five rows. DEMO-APANR, line type APA, 5,000, Posted, sales invoice DEMO-INV-20865. DEMO-APASET, APA, 5,000, Paid, DEMO-INV-20866. DEMO-BILL, Deposit, 50,000, Planned, with no invoice number. DEMO-PAYDUE, Deposit, 50,000, Posted, DEMO-INV-20864. DEMO-RTC, Deposit, 50,000, Paid, DEMO-INV-20867. The Description, Due Date and Currency Code columns are empty. — Fig. 2 The same five lines in the product. Description, Due Date and Currency Code are blank because the demo seed does not populate them; the product reads those fields. Scroll sideways for the right-hand columns.

APA

Client APA money reconciled against reviewed expenses, then settled from an issued statement

The Advance Provisioning Allowance is the client's money sitting in your account for fuel, berths, provisioning and the shore transfers nobody budgeted for. It never becomes your revenue. Business Central has no opinion about it; Trident gives it a ledger.

Received is split three ways because it arrives three ways, and because somebody always keys one of them in by hand after a wire lands on a Friday afternoon. Variance is received minus reviewed expenses. Outcome, settlement status and funding status are read off that number and the amounts behind it.

Read the record beside this text carefully. Variance is 0.00 and outcome says APA balanced, which looks like good news until you notice funding status still reads Awaiting Initial Funding. Nothing has been received and nothing reviewed, so the difference is zero by default. A settled APA and an untouched APA give the same variance. That is why the page keeps funding status separate rather than letting one number speak for the whole position, and why Create APA Settlement Document is greyed out on this record.

The two live actions are Mark All Reviewed as Reconciled, which closes off expenses someone has already been through line by line, and Request APA Top-up, for when the crew has spent past the advance and you need more money before the boat leaves the fuel dock.

APA statements are versioned. Regenerate Draft rebuilds the working version, Issue freezes it, Cancel withdraws it, and every issued version is retained. Settlement is computed from the issued statement, not from whatever the live figures say the moment somebody opens the page. Four months later that is the difference between answering a query and reopening an argument.

APA Reconciliation · DEMO-APANR

APA Estimated: 5,000.00
APA Invoiced: 5,000.00
APA Received Calculated: 0.00
APA Received Manual: 0.00
APA Received Used: 0.00
Reviewed Expenses: 0.00
Variance (Received − Reviewed): 0.00
Outcome: APA balanced
Settlement Status: Balanced
Funding Status: Awaiting Initial Funding
Outstanding Top-up: 0.00

Closeout

One status column resolves nine possible blockers per charter

Closeout status is computed per charter from both ledgers and sits as a column on the charter list. You read a page of charters and see which are genuinely finished, instead of opening each one to find out.

Billing Not Started

The schedule exists and nothing has been invoiced off it.

Billing Not Finalized

Invoices are drafted and not all of them are posted.

Payment Outstanding

Posted, and the money has not all arrived.

APA Reconciliation Pending

Expenses are on the charter and have not been reviewed and reconciled.

APA Receipt Outstanding

The APA has been billed and is not yet in the account.

APA Settlement Required

Reconciliation leaves a balance to return to or collect from the client.

APA Settlement Awaiting Payment

The settlement document exists and has not been paid.

APA Currency Review Required

APA amounts sit in a currency the schedule does not agree with.

APA Statement Required

No current issued statement backs the settlement position.

Ready To Close

All nine are clear. Close is the only lifecycle action left, and Closed is terminal.

The Charters list cropped to five columns. Six rows, all with Status Completed and Preparation Status Committed. The Closeout Status column reads, top to bottom, APA Receipt Outstanding, APA Settlement Required, Billing Not Started, Ready To Close, Payment Outstanding, Ready To Close, each truncated by the column width. — Fig. 3 Six seeded charters, all Completed and Committed, with six different reasons to look at them. Two read Ready To Close; the others are held by billing, payment, APA receipt and APA settlement.

The charter workbench carries the same evaluation as a checklist, so the blocker is not just named, it is broken into rows: billing schedule, invoice posting, payment collection, APA reconciliation, APA receipt, APA settlement and APA statement. A charter blocked on billing that also has an unpaid posted invoice shows both, rather than reporting the first one it hits and calling the rest not applicable.

Lifecycle actions are Confirm, Start, Complete, Close and Cancel. Close is refused while any of the nine still applies, and the refusal names which one.

Setup

Eleven readiness checks, each with the action that clears it

On a fresh company the extension tells you it is not ready and why. The Setup Readiness Center lists every check with its status and the exact step that resolves it, so setup is a list to work through rather than a support call.

Trident Setup Readiness Center · all eleven checks
Area	Check	Recommended action when it fails
Numbering	Number Series	Configure Charter No. Series in Charter Setup.
Charter Billing	Charter Billing Item	Set Charter Fee Item No. or Charter Revenue Account No. in Charter Setup.
Charter Billing	Charter Billing Account	Use a direct-posting, unblocked G/L account in Charter Setup.
APA Billing	APA Billing Item	Set APA Item No. or APA Revenue Account No. in Charter Setup.
APA Billing	APA Billing Account	Use a direct-posting, unblocked G/L account in Charter Setup.
Payment Templates	Payment Template Exists	Create an active payment template in Payment Templates.
Payment Templates	Active Template Lines	Add active lines to the active payment template.
Payment Schedules	Planned Line Currencies	Open Payment Schedules and rebuild or correct the affected planned lines before invoicing.
Pricing Setup	Charter Pricing Setup	Open Charter Pricing Setup and activate a pricing scheme.
APA Setup	APA Expense Categories	Open APA Expense Categories and configure active categories.
Onboarding	Assisted Setup Completion	Open and complete the Trident Finance guided setup.

The Trident Setup Readiness Center list. Eleven rows with Setup Area, Setup Check, Status, Details and Recommended Action. Six rows are Blocked in red: Number Series, Charter Billing Item, Charter Billing Account, APA Billing Item, APA Billing Account and Payment Template Exists. Active Template Lines is Not Applicable with the detail Resolve the Payment Template Exists check first. Charter Pricing Setup, APA Expense Categories and Planned Line Currencies are Ready in green. Assisted Setup Completion is a Warning saying the Trident Finance guided setup has not been completed. — Fig. 4 The readiness list on an unconfigured demo company: six Blocked, one Warning, three Ready, and Active Template Lines held at Not Applicable until the template check ahead of it passes.

Permission sets

Four ship with the extension and are assigned like any other. Nobody needs SUPER for daily charter work, and a user without the right set is told which one to ask for. Object-level detail is in the install notes.

Trident Read MV	70241018	Open the workspace, charters, schedules and APA pages. Run nothing.
Trident Ops MV	70241017	Build and rebuild schedules, create and sync invoices, reconcile and settle APA.
Trident Admin MV	70241000	Everything Ops does, plus setup, templates, readiness and diagnostics.
Trident API MV	70241019	Service accounts. Reads the API pages, nothing on the user-facing ones.

Build under test: 0.1.0.26
Platform: Business Central, minimum application 25.0.0.0
Distribution: Per-tenant extension upload. No AppSource listing.
Install target: Your own tenant, cloud or on-premises
Integration: API pages, read-only, behind Trident API MV
Maintainer: One. Joao Afonso Vaz.
Support: [email protected]
Security reports: [email protected]
Terms: EULA · Privacy

Where the build actually is

0.1.0.26 is pre-release. There is no AppSource listing, installation means uploading a per-tenant extension, and updates are whatever you and I arrange by email. There are no customers. Paid pilots are in preparation; if you are reading this because you are considering one, you would be the first.

One maintainer sits behind the support address, with no rota behind it. If that is a problem for your risk register it should be, and it is better to know now than during a pilot.

Screens on this page were captured on build 0.1.0.2 against the CRONUS demo company, with seeded charters named DEMO-BILL, DEMO-PAYDUE, DEMO-APANR and so on. No client data appears anywhere on this site.

See it against your own charter numbers

Thirty minutes on a demo tenant. I show you the build, walk a charter from schedule to closeout, and tell you plainly what it does not do yet. Then we decide whether a pilot is worth either of our time.

Book a 30-minute walkthrough

[email protected]