Troubleshoot Receiving Documents
This article covers documents that never arrive, arrive and will not import, or import into a purchase document that cannot be posted. Start at E-Invoice Inbound Runs, which records every read of the inbox and what happened to each document.
For supplier bank details, see Troubleshoot Supplier Bank Approvals.
Nothing is arriving at all
Cause and solution: Open E-Invoice Inbound Runs and read one row. Three counters explain almost every case.
| Counter | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Skipped - Own Outgoing Post | These were your own outgoing documents coming back | Normal. Never supplier invoices |
| Skipped - Addressed To Another Party | Addressed to a Peppol identifier other than this company's | Usually the company mapping points at the wrong platform company |
| Skipped - Older Than Window | Older than the look-back window | If receiving was off for longer than the window, this is where the missing documents went |
Documents Offered to BC is the counter to read next: it says how many of the returned documents actually reached Business Central after the skips. Documents Returned 12 with nothing visible means something different depending on whether that counter is 0 or 12.
Look-Back Cutoff shows the resolved date the window produced, which answers "why was this invoice too old" without arithmetic. Triggered By says whether the run came from Receive (E-Document Service) or Scan Inbox Now.
If Documents Returned is 0, the platform had nothing for the query. Check Can Receive on Recommand E-Invoicing Companies — if the platform is not the receiving access point for your identifier, the inbox is always empty.
If Asked Only For Unread is set, the run only asked for unread documents. Use Scan Inbox Now on Vendor Bank Approvals, which always reads the whole window regardless.
A row with no Ended At is a run that failed before completing; the counts are whatever was known at that point, and Message says why.
Could not read the inbox from Recommand
Cause: The platform call failed. The platform's own error follows the colon.
Solution: Check the connection with Test Connection, and confirm outbound calls are allowed. See Troubleshoot the Connection and Setup.
Unit of measure code does not exist.
Business Central looks for a Unit of Measure whose Code, International Standard Code or Description matches, and stops the import when none does. Add the unit, or use Add Missing Units on the Recommand E-Invoicing Setup page.
Cause: The supplier used a unit code that nothing in your database answers to. The import stops before it reaches the supplier or the general ledger.
Solution:
- Open Recommand E-Invoicing Setup.
- Choose Add Missing Units. It creates a Unit of Measure for every unresolved code seen on incoming documents.
- Review the result — each new unit takes the code itself as both Code and International Standard Code, and you may prefer to point it at a unit you already have.
Documents that were held up by those codes are no longer blocked once the units exist.
To create or correct one by hand instead:
- Choose the
Search icon, enter Units of Measure, and then choose the related link. - Add a row, or open the unit you already use for this.
- Fill in International Standard Code with the UN/ECE Recommendation 20 code the supplier sends —
C62for a piece,HURfor an hour,KGMfor a kilogram.
Pointing an existing unit at the supplier's code is usually better than creating a second unit that means the same thing.
No G/L account can be found for descriptions
Cause: The line descriptions resolve to no account through text-to-account mapping or the fallback. The import does not stop — it creates a line with no type and no amount, which can neither be posted nor sent for approval.
Solution: See Assign G/L Accounts by Line Description. The short version: add a mapping row with Debit Acc. No. filled in, or set the non-item-lines fallback account on Purchases & Payables Setup.
No vendor could be identified for sender
Business Central cannot recognise a Belgian supplier on its own, so assign the vendor here — the Peppol identity is then registered and later documents match by themselves.
Cause: None of the identifiers on the document resolved to exactly one vendor.
Solution: On Incoming Supplier Recognition, choose Assign Vendor, then answer yes to registering the Peppol address so later documents match automatically.
Where more than one vendor answers, nothing is assigned on purpose — attaching a supplier's bank details to the wrong vendor is the failure the list exists to prevent. Resolve the duplicate vendor records first.
The same document comes back on every run
Cause: Business Central's duplicate detection only works once the vendor is matched. A document from a supplier it cannot recognise gets a fresh e-document on every read of the inbox, and with a scheduled import every 30 minutes that is 48 new rows on Error per day from one document. What makes it recur is that, with Track Which Documents Are Read off, every run reads the whole look-back window again and offers everything in it a second time.
Solution: On Recommand E-Invoicing Setup, turn on Track Which Documents Are Read. A scheduled import then asks Recommand only for unread documents and marks each one as read once Business Central has taken it, so an inbox with nothing new costs one call and creates nothing. The marker is written on Recommand, where other tools reading the same inbox will see it; Scan Inbox Now still reads the whole window. If you know the supplier, also choose Assign Vendor on Incoming Supplier Recognition so later documents match. The copies already created can be deleted.
The import ran but ended in an error.
Open the e-document to see what Business Central logged.
Cause: Business Central's own import failed after the document was handed over.
Solution: Open the e-document and read its error. The cause is usually one of the two above — an unresolved unit or an unmapped account.
The import ran and produced no document yet.
That is what a background run does when it is waiting for a purchase order to match.
Cause: The document was routed to a purchase order that does not match anything open.
Solution: Check the Order Reference (BT-13) column against your open purchase orders, and consider receiving this supplier as invoices instead. See Receive Documents as Invoices or as Purchase Orders.
E-Document number no longer exists.
A failed download and Business Central's duplicate detection both delete the document, which leaves this row behind as the record that it arrived.
Cause: The e-document was removed, but the recognition row remains as the record that something arrived.
Solution: Nothing, usually. If the document really is missing, use Scan Inbox Now to read the window again — duplicate detection will absorb anything already handled.
Actions on Incoming Supplier Recognition that refuse
These are everyday refusals on the list, each meaning what it says:
- This document is status, not Pending Approval, so there is nothing to reopen. — you chose Reopen Stuck Document on a document that is not stuck.
- The purchase document for this row no longer exists. It may have been deleted, in which case the next receive will create it again.
- No purchase document has been created from this e-document yet. — the import has not produced one, or is waiting for a purchase order to match.
- The e-document no longer exists, so there is nothing to open.
- The import created a type, which this action cannot open. Open the e-document instead.
- Assign a vendor before registering the Peppol identity. — choose Assign Vendor first.
- This row did not register a Peppol identity. — there is nothing for Remove Peppol Id to undo.
Could not download document id from Recommand: reason
Cause: The platform would not hand over the document body during import.
Solution: Retry the receive. If it persists for one document, download its UBL from Recommand Documents to see whether the platform holds it at all.
The related Recommand did not supply a document id for this entry, so its content cannot be fetched. means the inbox entry itself is incomplete on the platform side.
The supplier's PDF is missing from the purchase document
See Where Supplier Documents Are Stored. The most common case is a blank preview with a working Open Document, which is a preview limitation with external file storage rather than a lost file.
Still stuck? Send it to support
If none of the causes above match, let the app collect what support needs to see:
- Choose the
Search icon, enter Recommand E-Invoicing Setup, and then choose the related link. - Choose Send to Support. Business Central opens an e-mail to support@vangeldersolutions.be with a support package attached and the environment, version and warnings already filled in. Describe what you did, what you expected and what happened, then send it.
- No e-mail account in Business Central? The package is downloaded instead and your mail program opens - attach the downloaded
RecommandSupport_….jsonto the message.
The support package contains the app's setup without the API secret, the recent log, the job queue state, the e-document services and the warnings the app derived. It contains no document contents, amounts, IBANs or party names; account numbers and e-mail addresses in free text are masked. You can open the file first and read exactly what you are sending.
Prefer to look yourself? Download Support Package on the same page gives you the file without sending anything - the warnings list at the top is the first thing support reads.