How LS Central and Business Central actually talk to each other
Most LS Retail confusion comes from a fuzzy mental model of where data lives. Get this right and everything else — statements, replication, posting errors — clicks into place.
One database, not two
LS Central is not a separate system bolted onto Business Central. It is a set of extensions (apps) installed inside your Business Central tenant. The POS transactions, retail item data, and statements live in the same database as your financials. There is no nightly "sync" between two ERPs — the POS writes into BC tables directly (or into staging tables that statements then process).
How the POS connects
A POS terminal talks to Business Central over web services (API/OData). In a cloud setup, each terminal needs a reliable connection to your BC environment. On-prem, the terminals hit your local service tier. Either way: no connection, no live lookup — which is exactly what offline mode exists to handle (see our offline mode guide).
Replication and Data Director
In multi-store setups you don't want every terminal hammering one database for master data. LS Central uses replication to distribute master data (items, prices, customers) out to stores, and the Data Director manages those distribution jobs. Think of it as publish-and-subscribe:
- Head office publishes: items, prices, offers, tender setup.
- Data Director packages and ships that data to each store/location.
- Stores receive and apply it, so the POS has local, fast access.
When "the new price isn't showing on the POS," the problem is almost always somewhere in this chain: it wasn't distributed, the job failed, or the terminal hasn't refreshed.
How sales become financials
The flow is always: POS transaction → statement → posted entries in BC.
- Cashier sells. The POS records transaction lines locally.
- At close, transactions are pulled into a statement in LS Central.
- Posting the statement creates the sales invoices, payments, inventory decreases, and G/L entries in Business Central.
Nothing hits your general ledger until a statement posts. If finance says "yesterday's sales aren't in BC," the statement probably hasn't been calculated or posted yet — not that data was lost.
The one-sentence version
LS Central is Business Central with retail superpowers: one database, POS terminals talking to it over web services, Data Director distributing master data to stores, and statements turning register activity into posted financials.