Aviation ERP Case Study: Business Central Billing

Aviation • Ground Handling • ERP Integration

Aviation ERP Integration: Ground Handling Billing in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

Baltic Ground Services moved its service billing into Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central - without replacing the operational platform its teams already run. Agmis designed and built the bridge: fuelling, ground handling, de-icing and unforeseen services now reach the ERP through one controlled, traceable flow.

Modules Delivered in Sequence

Service Types Billed in One Flow

Live

In Daily Use Since the Start of the Year

About the Client

An Aviation Ground Services Provider Moving Its Finance to Business Central

Baltic Ground Services (BGS) is an aviation ground services provider whose operations cover fuelling, ground handling and de-icing for airlines on the apron. Services are recorded operationally as they happen; finance then has to turn those records into invoices that an airline will pay and an auditor will accept. That handover - from operational record to ERP - is the problem this project solved.

Client Baltic Ground Services

Industry Aviation - ground handling, fuelling and de-icing

Target Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

Source The client's existing operational platform

Scope Core integration, fuelling, ground handling, de-icing, unforeseen services

Status Live and in daily use since the start of the year

Agmis role Design and implementation of the integration and the billing processes around it

The Challenge

The Hard Part Was Not Connecting Two Systems

Connecting an operational platform to an ERP is a known engineering problem. The difficult part here was making every invoice correct and trustworthy on top of years of legacy service logic - and keeping it that way once finance and auditors started looking at it.

Legacy Complexity in the Source System

The operational platform carried a large amount of historic, complicated business logic built up over years of operation. A standard, off-the-shelf connector could not handle it, so the integration had to be designed and implemented specifically for this environment.

Many Service Types, Each With Its Own Rules

Fuelling, ground handling, de-icing and unplanned services are each priced and confirmed differently. Treating them as one generic line item would have produced invoices that did not match how the business actually sells its services.

Corrections Are Normal in Aviation

Operational data often changes after the fact. But once an invoice has reached the ERP, silent changes are not acceptable to finance or to auditors - so corrections needed a defined, visible path rather than a quiet overwrite.

A Pricing Gap Becomes a Wrong Invoice

A fuelling record without an assigned price list must never reach the ERP. Without a control at that point, an unpriced delivery could slip through and become an invoice that has to be found and fixed later.

Finance Wanted Control Before, Not Cleanup After

The finance team wanted to review service data before it was sent to the ERP - not discover problems afterwards and clean them up. That meant the workflow, not just the data feed, had to change.

Live Operations Could Not Be Disturbed

Billing runs alongside 24/7 apron operations. The integration had to be introduced around live services without disrupting the operational system the teams depend on day to day.

What Was Delivered

Five Modules, Delivered in Sequence

Each module built on the one before it, so the client gained a working, controlled billing flow for one service category before the next was added - instead of a single high-risk switchover.

Core Setup

Secure Business Central login, an API structure, a sales order request object, and Business Central and client codes mapped per customer - with the connection verified before any service data moved.

We built a secure, reliable bridge between their operational system and Business Central.

Fuelling Invoicing

Fuelling data mapped and sent to Business Central as sales orders, with records locking automatically once the data has been sent.

Fuel invoices flow into Business Central automatically, and nothing goes out without a price.

Ground Handling Invoicing

A new screen where staff select clients and a period, generate a confirmation, review it and then send it to Business Central. Data locks once sent, and the flow is built on the client's existing reports.

Staff review a period, confirm with one step, and it's locked once sent.

De-Icing

De-icing services mapped and sent to Business Central through the same controlled flow, with related records locked - so winter operations are billed through the process finance already trusts.

Winter operations are billed through the same trusted process.

Unforeseen Services

Unplanned and unforeseen services mapped, locked and sent to Business Central - giving work that previously had no defined billing path a structured route to an invoice.

Even the unexpected has a structured path to an invoice.

How the Flow Works

Controlled Billing, Not an Automatic Data Dump

The integration was designed around control rather than throughput. Service data reaches Business Central only through a sequence that finance can review, and once it is there it does not change quietly.

A pricing gate before anything moves. A fuelling record without an assigned price list is stopped and the responsible people are notified. Nothing unpriced reaches the ERP, so a pricing gap cannot become a wrong invoice.

Human approval before sending. Ground handling and de-icing work like a price confirmation: generated for a period, approved by an employee, and only then sent to Business Central. Finance reviews the data before it is posted, not after.

Automatic locking after sending. Records lock once they have been sent - and fuelling records lock after a set time - so operational data cannot be altered silently behind a posted invoice.

Corrections with a full audit trail. When locked data is corrected, the original record is cancelled and the new one references it. Both old and new values stay visible. For fuelling, the delivery note number stays the same across the correction.

Clear status across every module. Users see unambiguous status indicators - for example sent or disabled - so it is always clear which records have already reached Business Central and which are still in the client's hands.

Legacy respected, not rebuilt. The integration reuses the client's existing reporting structures instead of replacing the operational system, so years of embedded service logic - and the teams who rely on it - keep working as before.

Service recorded in the operational platform

Pricing assigned - or the record is stopped

Period generated and reviewed by staff

Approved and sent as a sales order

Locked in Business Central

Corrections cancel and reference, with a full trail

Systems & Scope

What the Integration Connects

A bridge between the platform that runs the apron and the system that runs the books - built as a custom software development engagement, with the client's operational logic left intact.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Client operational platform Secure API connection Sales order request object Customer and service code mapping Fuelling invoicing Ground handling invoicing De-icing billing Unforeseen services billing Pricing and price-list control Approval workflow Automatic record locking Audit-trailed corrections Status tracking

Results & Client Value

What the Client Has Today

Since the start of the year, the client has had a structured, clear billing process in Business Central. The benefits below are qualitative - the result of the design decisions above, reported from the client's own teams.

Clarity

One structured way to bill every service type - fuelling, ground handling, de-icing and unforeseen work - instead of a different procedure for each.

Control

Staff approve service data before anything reaches the ERP, so finance reviews what is about to be posted rather than repairing what already was.

Trust

Locked data and linked corrections give finance and auditors a clean history: what the invoice was based on, what changed, and what it changed from.

Fewer Errors

Records without pricing are stopped before they can become wrong invoices, and the operational system itself is protected from silent edits behind posted data.

Continuity

The client kept its operational system and still gained a modern ERP. No operational rebuild, no retraining of apron teams, no disruption to live services.

A Foundation to Extend

The core setup, the mappings and the approval pattern are reusable, so additional service categories or locations can follow the same route into Business Central.

Note: this engagement is documented on the confirmed outcome - a live, structured billing process in Business Central - together with qualitative benefits reported by the client. No performance figures (time saved, error rates, invoice volumes) are stated, because none have been verified.

The Bigger Picture

What This Means for Other Ground Handlers and Airline Service Providers

You Do Not Have to Rebuild to Modernise

Ground handlers often assume a move to a modern ERP means dismantling the operational system they have invested years in. This project shows the opposite: the legacy platform stayed, the billing logic was bridged, and finance still got a modern system to work in. If your operational platform has years of custom pricing and confirmation rules, that is a reason to integrate rather than replace.

Corrections Are the Real Test of an Aviation Billing System

Aviation service data changes after the fact - delivery notes are re-issued, quantities are revised, prices are corrected. Any billing integration worth having must handle that without losing the trail. Cancelling and referencing, keeping old and new values visible, and holding the delivery note number stable for fuelling are the mechanics that make an invoice defensible in an audit.

Pricing Control Belongs Upstream

The cheapest place to catch a billing error is before the record leaves the operational system. Stopping unpriced fuelling records at the source and notifying the responsible people is a design choice that removes a whole class of downstream invoice corrections.

It Applies Beyond Ground Handling

The same pattern - operational platform, ERP as the financial system, a controlled bridge with approval, locking and an audit trail - applies to airline service billing, airport service providers and other aviation operations that sell services per flight, per turnaround or per period. For the operational platform side of the picture, see our airport ground handling and fuelling software case study.

Moving aviation service billing to Business Central?

Agmis designs and builds integrations between aviation operational systems and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central - including the pricing, approval and audit-trail controls that make the resulting invoices trustworthy. Let's talk about what applies to your operation.

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FAQ

Aviation Billing and Business Central: Common Questions

What is aviation ERP integration?

Aviation ERP integration connects an aviation operator's operational systems - the platforms that record fuelling, ground handling, de-icing and other apron services - to a financial system such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. The integration carries service records into the ERP as sales orders or invoices, so that what happened on the apron becomes what is billed, without manual re-entry and without losing the link between the operational record and the accounting entry.

How do you integrate ground handling billing with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central?

The work starts with mapping, not with code. Client and service codes in the operational system are mapped to their Business Central counterparts, a sales order request object is defined, and a secure connection is established and verified. Service data is then pushed to Business Central as sales orders in a controlled sequence: records are priced first, reviewed and approved by staff, sent to the ERP, and locked afterwards so nothing changes silently. Where the source system carries years of bespoke business logic, a standard connector is usually not enough and custom integration work is required.

How are invoice corrections handled once data has reached the ERP?

Corrections are treated as a first-class process rather than an exception. When locked data has to be corrected, the original record is cancelled and the new record references it, so both the old and the new values stay visible and traceable. For fuelling records the delivery note number is carried across unchanged. This gives finance and auditors a clean history of what changed, who changed it and when - instead of an invoice that quietly differs from the operational record behind it.

Why bridge into Business Central instead of replacing the operational system?

A ground handler's operational platform usually encodes years of hard-won business logic: how each service type is priced, confirmed and recorded. Replacing it means rebuilding that logic and retraining the people who rely on it. Integrating instead lets the operator gain a modern ERP for finance while keeping the operational system the teams already run. The integration reuses existing reporting structures rather than replacing them, which shortens the project and removes the risk of disrupting live apron operations.

Which ground handling services can be billed through Business Central?

In this project four categories were brought into the same controlled flow: fuelling, ground handling, de-icing and unforeseen or unplanned services. Each has its own pricing and confirmation logic in the operational system, so each was mapped and delivered as its own module. The result is one structured way to bill every service type, rather than a different manual process for each - including winter de-icing operations and unplanned work that previously had no defined path to an invoice.

Why Agmis

Aviation ERP Integration Built Around Finance and Auditors

Connecting an operational platform to Business Central is the easy half. The value is in the billing process around it - pricing control, approval, locking and a correction trail that survives an audit.

Legacy Systems Are the Starting Point, Not the Obstacle

Agmis works with the operational platforms aviation clients already run - including the bespoke logic inside them - rather than requiring a rebuild before anything can improve.

Finance and Audit Requirements Designed In

Approval before sending, automatic locking, cancelled-and-referenced corrections and pricing gates are the controls that make a bridging integration usable by finance, not just feasible for IT.

Delivery in Modules, Not One Big Bang

Delivering core setup first and then one service type at a time gave the client working, reviewed billing in stages - with no requirement to take the operational system offline.

Aviation Domain Experience

Agmis engineers have delivered ground handling and fuelling software for aviation operations, so the per-service-type pricing and confirmation realities are familiar ground.