Loading ...

How to Calculate a Customer’s Year-to-Date Invoiced Goods Total in Acumatica Using BQL

When building customizations in Acumatica, it’s common to need a summary value—like the total invoiced goods for a customer during the current year. While it may sound straightforward, using Business Query Language (BQL) to retrieve and aggregate data requires careful handling. One common pitfall for newer developers is attempting to treat BQL like LINQ or SQL directly in code, which can lead to confusing errors or runtime issues.

Let’s walk through a real-world example: summing the CuryGoodsTotal field from the ARInvoice table for a specific customer, filtered by invoices dated within the current year. The goal is to populate a custom field UsrYTDInvTotal on the BAccount DAC.

The Problem

Initially, one might attempt to write BQL that looks logical but ends up being incorrect in the Acumatica framework. For example, you can’t directly assign a BQL query to a variable and expect it to return a simple value or list of decimals. The BQL system is tied closely to Acumatica's data access layer and works best when used through PXSelect, PXSelectGroupBy, or SelectFrom patterns in combination with graph operations.

The Correct Approach

To retrieve a single aggregated value—like the sum of CuryGoodsTotal—you should use PXSelectGroupBy with a proper aggregate. Then, retrieve the result from the PXResultset. Here’s a corrected and working version of the code:

Key Notes

  1. Use PXSelectGroupBy for Aggregates
    When retrieving summary values like SUM, always use PXSelectGroupBy. It ensures proper SQL generation and returns a single record with the aggregate applied.
  2. Result Type Is PXResultset
    The result isn’t just a decimal value—it’s a PXResultset<ARInvoice>, where the aggregate field will be present as a property on the first record.
  3. Use Constants Properly
    When comparing to constant values (like "INV" for the document type), define your own constant classes and use them directly in the BQL. Avoid using .AsString or .AsInt in this context—Acumatica expects properly typed constants.
  4. Check for Nulls
    Always verify the resultset is not null and contains at least one record. Also check the aggregate field for nulls before assigning it.
  5. Triggering Logic at the Right Time
    While this example uses the FieldUpdated event, consider whether a different event or button action would better suit your business flow. You only want to trigger this query when it's necessary.

Final Thoughts

Working with BQL in Acumatica is powerful, but it requires understanding how the framework executes queries and handles results. Rather than trying to treat BQL like SQL or LINQ, it’s important to embrace Acumatica’s data access patterns—using the correct selectors, resultsets, and constants.

By using PXSelectGroupBy to fetch an aggregate, you can cleanly and reliably calculate year-to-date values, such as customer sales, invoice totals, or inventory movement summaries. As your customizations grow more advanced, getting comfortable with this approach will serve you well across many use cases.