Manage Inventory in Business Central

You can easily create and manage new items via item cards. There, in addition to the name, you can provide the following information:

• Inventory
• Inventory flow method
• Item attributes (e.g., dimensions or model year)
• Unit cost
• Sales price

Creating an item card

Item attributes
Assigning item attributes gives you an overview of your item structures and makes sorting and finding items easier. Additionally, item attributes simplify the search for customers in your webshop.

Item attributes in Dynamics 365 Business Central

Item references
You also have the option to establish cross-references between

• the item description you use for an item and
• the item description the supplier uses for this item.

Filling out the cross-reference number automatically inserts the supplying company’s item description into associated purchase documents.

Safety data sheets as items (customization)
Previously, the company manually packed safety data sheets with its shipments. During picking, warehouse personnel had to know whether and which safety data sheets had to be included for which risk items. There was no system-level control to verify whether the safety data sheets were actually packed. Through our work, safety data sheets are now stored as separate items in Microsoft Dynamics NAV and assigned to the corresponding items. They are physically stored in a separate location in the warehouse, allowing them to be picked like a “normal” item and not forgotten.

Using item tracking, it’s possible to trace the serial or batch number through a sequence of posted warehouse transactions forward or backward.

You can see how and when an item was

• received,
• produced,
• moved,
• sold,
• consumed, or
• returned.

Item tracking is particularly helpful for quality assurance. For example, if you need to find out who received products of a specific serial and/or batch number or from which batch a defective component originated.

Displaying current item availabilities (also by location, e.g., location “BLUE” and location “YELLOW”) is supported.

Item availability in Dynamics 365 Business Central

You can reserve items – for example, for sales orders, purchase orders, service orders, assembly orders, or production orders.

Item reservation in Dynamics 365 Business Central

You can lock an item to prevent it from being entered in lines of sales or purchase documents and booked in a transaction. This is useful, for example, if an item has a known issue. If someone selects a locked item in a sales or purchase document, they will be notified with a message that the item is locked.

Inventory data complements item cards. With inventory data, you can differentiate information about items by locations (e.g., warehouses and distribution centers) or variants (e.g., different bin numbers or reorder information). This is useful for items stored in more than one physical location.

There is a function called “Calculate Inventory Value.” The purpose of this function is to calculate the inventory level of a specific item at a specific start date. The system proceeds by adding the value of inventory receipts and subtracting the value of inventory issues until a specific end date. The end result is then the inventory value at the end date.

Bin locations represent the basic warehouse structure of a company. In the system, you can easily manage your multi-warehouse and therefore multiple locations. When creating bin locations, it’s possible to define very specific contents that you place on each bin location.

Based on this, suggestions for item placement are made.

Tasklet Factory enables mobile data collection and warehouse management on-site by scanning product barcodes and synchronizing warehouse data in real-time in Dynamics 365 Business Central and Dynamics NAV.

Serial or batch numbers can be assigned to any incoming or outgoing document. They are often assigned during receipt. This creates a link between item ledger entries and serial or batch numbers.

By the time of outbound or consumption, the respective serial or batch number must be explicitly selected to retrospectively trace the lifecycle of these items. That is, only then can you track your items, including serial or batch numbers, in warehouse activities.

If you collaborate with specific companies for delivery, it’s possible to set them up including their own code and detailed information.

If the delivering company offers online package tracking, you can also set up automatic package tracking. When you add delivering companies to your sales orders, you can also set up the transportation methods each offers. For each delivering company, you can set up an unlimited number of transportation methods and also set a transportation time for each method.

Continuous inventory (customization)
During date-based inventories, business operations are often closed for hours or days. Additionally, external service companies are hired for counts. This effort can be minimized through continuous inventory.

With our custom development, inventory can be continuously recorded parallel to daily operations. The respective inventory personnel receive a personal stack of counting lists (exported from the system) yet to be processed. After counting – for example, using a scanner – the data is registered and imported back into the standard.

Snapshot inventory
Through the inventory journal, it’s possible to conduct a count of all items at a fixed point in time.

Cyclic inventory
Inventory valuation can be done through cyclic inventory. With cyclic inventory, certain items are counted multiple times a year to ensure and enhance data reliability.

Setup is done at the item or inventory data level.

Picking encompasses several functions that vary by complexity and warehouse location, such as:

• Picking by order
• Internal picking (e.g., production requires a specific component)*
• Picking multiple orders
• Planning picking instructions

Even multi-order picking can be fulfilled with the standard version.

*Internal picking and put-away request
There is a function for internal picking and put-away request.

This function is necessary, for example, when an item is intended for demonstration purposes. This item remains in the possession of the company and is part of the inventory, but it’s not available for picking.

In other situations, production might unexpectedly need some parts for an order. You can then pick items for production warehouse locations using the internal picking request.

With internal put-away requests, you can perform put-aways without referencing a specific source document.

For ecological reasons, companies should or must be able to prove which packaging they put into circulation. The Packaging Act (VerpackG) legally requires the material recycling of the vast majority of sales packaging. As a result, manufacturing companies and other distributing companies (or trading companies) are obligated to participate in a dual system for packaging they issue.

In some cases, we have extended the system standard to allow the necessary data for packaging to be captured directly in the system. Additionally, we have programmed an evaluation in Dynamics 365 Business Central or Dynamics NAV that provides all delivered packaging with date, weight, and packaging type as a table. With this data, reporting to the “DerGrünePunkt” system can be performed.

Goods are returned in various scenarios. You can map all processes related to this, such as:

• Creating a complaint (return of incorrect items)
• Shipping replacement items
• Calculating a restocking fee
• Returning an item to a vendor for repair

Returns processing for defective items (customization)
For our clients, we have integrated a custom development within the goods return booking process.

Previously, the company had to manually remove defective goods returned from inventory. Microsoft Dynamics normally handles a return so that an inventory is automatically created. However, in this particular company, returns were only rarely usable because they were only sent back when irreparably damaged, and refurbishing them for resale would be too labor-intensive. Consequently, the goods did not return to inventory but were scrapped directly.

Through our custom development, this process is now directly booked in Microsoft Dynamics.

Transfer of items to other warehouse locations is handled through a transfer order.

With transfer orders, you send the outgoing transfer from one location and receive the incoming transfer at the other location. This allows you to manage the involved warehouse activities and provides more assurance that inventory quantities are correctly updated.

Goods receipts can be easily booked via the corresponding business document (e.g., purchase order, transfer order, or sales return).

Handling of over/under receipts
For goods like sand and foil, delivery quantities sometimes vary. Therefore, it’s possible to vary the delivery quantities in your ERP system within certain limits (e.g., 10%). An imaginable example would be if instead of 1.5 tons of sand, 1.55 tons of sand are delivered.

Items can be shipped either through a sales order or a warehouse shipment document. You can easily prioritize shipping carriers and provide shipping confirmations including tracking information.

Shipping processing and label printing – including dangerous goods (add-on)
For optimal shipping processing and label printing, we offer an interface to the Comsol Multiship add-on. The add-on also helps fulfill all EU transport regulations for the transport of dangerous goods. Thus, the carrier is provided with the necessary information and documents as part of the shipping process.

Customs declaration (add-on)
You can easily handle customs declarations through the Comsol Exposys Customs Atlas AES add-on.