Warehouse Logistics in Business Central – Your Solution for SMB
Use Dynamics 365 Business Central to cover all processes from goods receipt, through transfer and order picking, to goods issue. Seamlessly, without system breaks or information loss!
Everything in View with Navision Warehouse:
Warehouse Management in Dynamics 365 Business Central
An efficient inventory management significantly contributes to a company’s success. Not only because the warehouse is a very cost-intensive part of the business, but also because the company’s delivery capability is directly related to its competitiveness.
Have you already been impressed by Microsoft Dynamics NAV inventory management or the warehouse management system in Navision? Dynamics 365 Business Central supports you in managing and optimizing your warehouse even more comprehensively and clearly.
Navision Warehouse Management System:
Your Functions for Warehouse Management
Efficient inventory management and a structured warehouse organization are crucial for smooth processes and low storage costs. Dynamics 365 Business Central supports companies with functions such as real-time inventory overview, flexible management of storage locations and bins as well as customizable inventory processes. This means you always have an overview and can optimally control your stock levels.
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Comprehensive master data management ensures that all relevant information on items and storage locations is maintained centrally. This includes, for example, dimensions, weights, minimum stock levels and storage locations. This data forms the basis for all further warehouse processes and evaluations.
Creating an item cardYou can also save an article as an article template. This saves you valuable time when creating new articles and increases the consistency of your data.
Let’s take a closer look at two fields on the item card. Firstly, the article type: You can use different article types. The options are
- Inventory indicates that the item is a physical unit that you manage and track in the warehouse
- Non-stock items are physical units that you neither manage nor track in inventory
- Service items are a labor unit, typically used to register sales or purchases of services
- Catalog items are similar to non-stock items. They are items that you offer to customers but do not manage until you sell them.
Secondly, the item attributes: Assigning item attributes gives you an overview of your item structures and makes it easier to sort and find items. Item attributes also simplify the search for customers in your online store.
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Dynamics 365 Business Central supports the management of batches and serial numbers to ensure the traceability of items. This is particularly important for companies with high quality requirements or legal specifications. If necessary, individual items or entire batches can be quickly identified and traced.
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The software allows the mapping of multiple storage locations and their internal structure down to individual storage bins. This means that even complex warehouse structures, such as main and external warehouses or different zones, can be precisely mapped. This ensures optimal organization and quick retrieval of goods.
Storage bins represent the basic warehouse structure and are used to create suggestions for storing items.
- At least one fixed storage bin for an item.
- Storage bins for specific operations, e.g. a shipping storage bin or a production issue storage bin.
- Storage bin capacity and weight restrictions (only for controlled putaway and picking).
- Storage bin valuation (only for controlled putaway and picking).
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Storage class codes can be used to classify areas, bins or items according to specific criteria. This simplifies the control of warehouse processes, such as the allocation of fast access bins for high-turnover items. It also enables targeted evaluation and optimization of warehouse organization.
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Dynamics 365 Business Central provides a complete overview of all stock levels in real time. This allows companies to view the current stock of individual items at any time and identify bottlenecks at an early stage. Inventory tracking includes both physical and booked stock and supports planning and reordering.
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The ERP solution offers various options for carrying out stocktaking, such as key date, permanent or cyclical stocktaking. Automated inventory suggestions help to minimize effort and avoid errors. The results are recorded directly in the system and can be used for evaluations.
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The warehouse processes are fully linked to the modules for purchasing, sales and production. Purchase orders, sales orders and production orders automatically trigger the corresponding stock movements. This avoids media disruptions and the processes run consistently and efficiently.
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Dynamics 365 Business Central supports all important warehouse movements such as putaway, stock removal and stock transfer. These processes can be initiated manually or automatically. Every movement is documented in the system so that the location of an item can be tracked at all times.
Automated suggestions for stock movements
The system automatically suggests stock movements based on stock levels, orders and predefined rules. This applies, for example, to the optimal storage of new goods or the most efficient picking method. This reduces errors and speeds up work processes in the warehouse.
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In Dynamics 365 Business Central, there are various ways in which companies can optimally compile goods for shipping. The system helps to make order picking clear, fast and error-free. Regardless of whether a few or many orders are processed at the same time – the system adapts to the company’s requirements and provides optimum support for warehouse staff.
- Create picking list: The system can automatically create a so-called picking list. This list contains all the items that need to be retrieved from the warehouse for an order. The list also shows where the items are located in the warehouse.
- Individual or collective picking: It is possible to either pick each order individually or combine several orders. With collective picking, all the items required for several orders are retrieved from the warehouse at once. This saves time and travel.
- Digital support: the picking lists can be printed out or displayed digitally on a mobile device. This allows warehouse staff to confirm directly in the system when an item has been picked.
- Flexibly adaptable: Depending on the size and organization of the warehouse, picking can be kept simple or designed in great detail. The system supports both small warehouses with few shelves and large warehouses with many storage locations.
- Automatic storage location suggestions: The system suggests from which storage bin the items are best picked. This ensures that work in the warehouse runs as efficiently as possible.
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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.
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Packaging processes can also be mapped and documented in Dynamics 365 Business Central to ensure smooth shipping.
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.
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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.
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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.
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Dynamics 365 Business Central offers you powerful functions for evaluation and cost management in the warehouse – for full transparency and well-founded decisions. This allows you to precisely track and evaluate warehouse costs, e.g. according to FIFO, LIFO or average price, and thus flexibly adjust your pricing.
Analysis functions and individually configurable dashboards provide you with real-time insights into stock turnover, stock range and shortages. This allows you to identify bottlenecks, excess stock and optimization potential at an early stage.
Automated price rules based on current stock data ensure market-driven calculations, while intelligent tools such as reorder suggestions and safety stocks help you to manage stock levels efficiently, reduce capital commitment and increase security of supply.
Navision Warehouse:
Your Benefits through Our Warehouse Management Functions
More Accurate Planning
Reliable information about stock levels allows you to plan orders better.
Reducing Costs
Plan better, automate processes, tie up less capital in the warehouse and reduce your costs along the way.
Fast Execution
Process your orders faster and more smoothly. You also reduce errors.
Better Overview
You have an overview of all items in your warehouse at all times (e.g., quantity, storage location).
Meet Deadlines
Your customers benefit because they can rely on your delivery date commitments.
From Theory to Practice:
Tutorial: Warehouse Management with Dynamics 365 Business Central
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Warehouse locations, in conjunction with storage bins, reflect the basic warehouse structure of a company. Within the system, it is possible to classify storage bins according to their usage. This is done using storage bin classes (e.g., antistatic or heated areas). Zones can also be used to define areas or their purpose within a warehouse. Examples of zones include picking areas, goods receipt, or goods issue.
Controlling the use of storage bins in the system (chaotic warehousing) is also possible, as is receiving suggestions for storage bins based on previous transactions.
Overview of storage locations 
Overview of warehouse locations -
In addition, it is important for warehouse management to be able to map and track material flows. Generally, using item tracking, you can track when an item is:
- received,
- produced,
- relocated,
- sold,
- consumed, or
- returned.
Item tracking is particularly helpful in terms of quality assurance, for example, when you need to find out which customer received products from a specific batch number or which batch a defective component originated from.
On the item tracking page, you can track the serial and/or batch number forward or backward through a sequence of posted warehouse transactions.
Goods receipt and inbound storage
After inspecting the new items for quality and integrity, you can receive the new items at any warehouse set up for goods receipt in Dynamics 365. If you use multiple storage bins, you can either accept the default storage bin entered or, if the item has never been used in this warehouse before, enter the storage bin where the new item should be stored.
The ERP solution supports you by providing intelligent storage suggestions when using chaotic warehousing.
Regardless of which bin you choose, you need to enter the quantities of the items received and book the goods receipt.
If overages occur, it may be cheaper to keep the excess inventory than to return it. Your supplier may offer you a discount for storing it. In that case, simply set up an overage.
*Item setup
If an item does not exist yet, you can assign it, including all units of measure (e.g., inventory posting groups, unit costs, and prices), other characteristics and properties (e.g., color, country of manufacture, size, or dimension), and create item tracking numbers or serial or batch numbers. The system also supports cross-referencing information from customers, shipping companies, and manufacturers and maintains substitute items, allowing you to offer alternatives to sold-out products.
Item setup This way, you have an overview in the system of all your items along with detailed data such as acquisition prices.
Item overview Relocation
Relocating items to other warehouse locations generates item entries to sustain item movement and must therefore be done based on a transfer order or an item transfer journal.
With transfer orders, you send out the outgoing transfer from one warehouse location and receive the incoming transfer at another warehouse location. The document level of the transfer order additionally allows you to use the warehouse activities set up for the respective warehouse location (e.g., goods receipt, goods issue, etc.) and provides more certainty that warehouse inventory quantities are correctly updated.
With the item transfer journal, you simply fill out the fields from warehouse code and to warehouse code. When you post the journal, the item entries at the relevant warehouse locations are adjusted.
Relocation Picking and packing
You can easily pick one or more items (basic warehouse configuration or advanced warehouse configuration), including picking components for production or assembly.
Special case: Spare parts
The production may unexpectedly need some components for an order. You can pick items for production warehouse locations using the internal picking request. If some items are not used after all, they need to be returned to the warehouse location. With internal put-away requests, you can perform put-aways without having to reference a specific source document.
Shipping
Items can be shipped either via a sales order or via an outbound transfer order.
If you are shipping items from a warehouse that is not set up for processing outbound orders, you can simply record the outbound shipment in the associated business document (e.g., a sales order, a service order, a purchase return, or an outbound transfer order).
If you are shipping items from a warehouse that is set up to require processing outbound orders, you can only record the outbound shipment based on source documents released by other departments of your company for processing.
Assignment of serial and/or batch numbers
If warehouse items do not yet have serial and/or batch numbers in the sales document, warehouse personnel must reassign them during outbound activities. These can be selected from the pool of available inventory.
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To free up space for strategic activities, it makes sense to automate administrative tasks. Using the combination of Dynamics 365 Business Central and the Microsoft Power Platform, you can automate individual warehouse and related processes. One application example would be for Microsoft Power Automate to automatically send a shipping confirmation to the customer as soon as the desired item has left the warehouse.
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You can organize your inventory counting project entirely through the system. For this purpose, the report Inventory Counting can be printed with empty quantity fields for entering the counted inventory. Once employees have finished counting and entered the quantities on the Inventory Counting page, the quantities will be transferred to the corresponding lines of the Inventory Order page.
Multiple records can be created for an order. For example, different employees could count different item groups.
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Setting up warehouse staff
All employees performing warehouse activities must be set up in the system as warehouse staff and assigned to a default warehouse location or multiple non-default warehouse locations. Through this user setup, all warehouse activities within the database are filtered according to the employees’ warehouse location, allowing employees to only perform warehouse activities at the default warehouse location.
Management of a business calendar including work shifts
In the system, create work shifts including a specific description and a unique code, schedule employees accordingly, and have an overview of your employees’ shifts (e.g., warehouse workers, warehouse assistants, forklift operators, logistics specialists, shipping department employees, or administrative staff) in the business calendar at any time.
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Efficient warehouse management is crucial for ensuring the optimal functioning of an entire company’s supply chain and for maintaining competitiveness. The work of warehouse management is always aimed at making warehouse management more economical and efficient. To achieve this, warehouse managers regularly review the performance metrics of relevant warehouse and logistics processes. These include, for example, inventory turnover, productivity, lead time, accuracy of delivery, warehouse operating costs, inventory value*, and average inventory level.
Depending on the current figures, it is up to warehouse management to identify the causes of problems and delays and initiate appropriate measures (e.g., optimizing the use of area-specific budgets).
*Example: Calculation of inventory value
You can determine the inventory value at any time using the “Calculate Inventory Value” function. The system then begins by calculating the inventory of the item as of a certain start date. It adds the value of inventory receipts and subtracts the value of inventory issues until a certain end date. The end result is the inventory value at the end date. The printed report always shows actual (invoiced) amounts, i.e., purchase prices of items booked as invoiced.
Decision Made Easy:
Why anaptis? Your Benefits
We have been a Microsoft-certified partner for medium-sized businesses for over 20 years. We assist you with the implementation of Dynamics 365 Business Central, upgrading existing systems, or providing support for your current software. Our clients operate in a wide range of industries, as we do not offer pre-packaged solutions but instead provide tailored, near-standard solutions that are precisely adapted to your individual processes. No frills. Only what you truly need.
Why anaptis? Discover the advantages that will make your heart beat faster:
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We prefer a standard-based software approach and first assess if a requirement can be solved with the standard. This is how we ensure that you remain independent and
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From day one, expect honest and fair statements. We also stick to our commitments.
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You receive fair usage rights to the individual content created by us, including editing and access by third parties.
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You’ll be supported by a dedicated project team. We ensure that everyone feels included and understood.
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Our unique project methodology is structured but flexible – with maximum transparency, minimum costs, interactive workshops instead of specifications and comprehensible communication without technical jargon.
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With state-of-the-art technologies and a specialized innovation team, we help you get more out of your data.
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