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INVENTORY MANAGEMENT
IN MICROSOFT DYNAMICS NAV 5.0
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Lab 3.5 – Create a Sales Order in a Company with Multiple Locations ...........3-33
Control Inventory at Multiple Locations ............................................................3-34
Lab 3.6 – Create and Set Up Stockkeeping Units ............................................3-38
Summary ..........................................................................................................3-40
Test Your Knowledge .......................................................................................3-41
Quick Interaction: Lessons Learned .................................................................3-43
Solutions...........................................................................................................3-44
Chapter 4: Transfer Between Locations 4-1
Objectives...........................................................................................................4-1
Introduction.........................................................................................................4-1
Set Up Transfers ................................................................................................4-2
Lab 4.1 – Set Up a Transfer Route ....................................................................4-6
Use Transfer Orders...........................................................................................4-7
Demonstration - Transfer 50 Top Panels from Yellow to Blue Warehouse ........4-7
Lab 4.2 – Transfer Items between Locations ...................................................4-14
View Items in Transit ........................................................................................4-16
Summary ..........................................................................................................4-18
Test Your Knowledge .......................................................................................4-19
Quick Interaction: Lessons Learned .................................................................4-20
Solutions...........................................................................................................4-21
Chapter 5: Perform Basic Warehouse Tasks 5-1
Objectives...........................................................................................................5-1
Introduction.........................................................................................................5-1
Set Up Basic Warehousing ................................................................................5-3
Lab 5.1 – Set Up a Warehouse Location ...........................................................5-8
Receive and Put Away Items..............................................................................5-9
Lab 5.2 – Receive and Put Away from the Purchase Document......................5-25
Lab 5.3 – Receive with a Warehouse Receipt..................................................5-26
Pick and Ship Items..........................................................................................5-27
Lab 5.4 – Pick and Ship with Inventory Pick Documents .................................5-42
Lab 5.5 – Ship with Warehouse Pick and Ship Documents .............................5-43
Move and Adjust Items in Warehouse..............................................................5-44
Lab 5.6 - Move Ten Loudspeakers to an Empty Bin ........................................5-47
Summary ..........................................................................................................5-48
Test Your Knowledge .......................................................................................5-49
Quick Interaction: Lessons Learned .................................................................5-51
Solutions...........................................................................................................5-52
Chapter 6: Handle Serial/Lot Numbers 6-1
Objectives...........................................................................................................6-1
Introduction.........................................................................................................6-1
Set Up Item Tracking..........................................................................................6-2
When to Use Serial/Lot Numbers .......................................................................6-7
Handle Inbound Serial/Lot Numbers ..................................................................6-9
Handle Serial/Lot Numbers on Inventory..........................................................6-17
Handle Outbound Serial/Lot Numbers..............................................................6-31
Lab 6.1 – Buy and Sell Items with Serial/Lot Numbers ....................................6-47
Lab 6.2 - Auto-Pick Monitors by FEFO.............................................................6-49
E-Learning
Online training for Microsoft Dynamics products helps you increase your
productivity without spending time away from your home or office. E-Learning
allows you to learn at your own pace through flexible access to training, therefore
proving beneficial for those lacking the time or budget to travel. E-Learning are
online training courses designed to cover detailed concepts on specific product
areas and allow you to:
Instructor-Led Training
With instructor-led training, you can gain a solid foundation or refresh your
knowledge in Microsoft Dynamics products and processes while learning from
an expert in an interactive environment. With courses on a variety of topics, you
can:
Training Materials
Training materials can be ordered for the purpose of self-paced study. These
materials are comparable to courseware used with instructor-led training, and
enable you to:
For selected training materials there are training material – local functionality
available which cover country specific features in the product. The training
material – local functionality add on to existing training materials and are
designed to teach local functionality within a given country. Please notice that
training material – local functionality are used only in conjunction with the
training material, not as stand-alone training materials.
Certifications
Certifications help identify and distinguish an individual’s technical skill set
using a Microsoft Dynamics or related business product. Certifications for
Microsoft Dynamics are widely recognized by industry employers and provide an
objective validation of an individual’s knowledge. Organizations that employ
certified individuals benefit from a complete approach to learning – certified
individuals have higher skills retention and increased productivity. Organizations
can streamline their employee recruitment process and lower their external
support costs plus downtime by maintaining technically skilled employees by
requiring Microsoft Certified Business Management Solutions Specialist and
Professional certifications.
Learning Plans
Learning Plans can help you plan the best learning strategy for you and your
organization. Learning plans illustrate module specific learning tracks that can
be easily targeted towards specific roles. Learning plans also provide a learning
track towards obtaining certifications. Learning plans can be found on both
PartnerSource and CustomerSource.
Objectives
Each chapter begins with a statement of the learning objectives for that chapter.
Learning objectives are important because they inform you about what needs to
be done to successfully complete the chapter.
Introduction
An introduction sets the stage for the learning to take place and prepares you with
key statements of the chapter.
Topics
Chapters are split up into topic areas, usually according to the learning objectives
for the chapter. This is especially beneficial in large chapters so that the
knowledge and skills to be learned are split up into more manageable units.
Conclusion
The conclusion wraps up the chapter by highlighting the important parts of the
chapter as well as providing a transition to the next chapter. The conclusion also
offers an opportunity to refresh earlier learning.
Labs
Labs test your skills with the learning concepts presented and learned during a
topic or chapter. Labs begin with a scenario paragraph which describes the
business problem to be solved, and also sets the stage for the exercise. Solutions
to the labs are also provided. Labs may be offered at different levels to
accommodate the variety of skills and expertise of each student.
Challenge Yourself!
Challenge Yourself! labs are the most challenging. These exercises are designed
for the experienced student who requires little instruction to complete the
required task. This level of exercise states the business problem to be solved and
describes the tasks the learner needs to complete.
We suggest you try the “Challenge Yourself!” labs first, and if you need help
completing the task, look to the information in the “Need a Little Help?” labs. If
additional assistance is required, refer to the “Step by Step” lab solutions located
in an Appendix.
Description
This 2-day course covers all aspects of the inventory and basic warehousing
functionality available for Microsoft Dynamics NAV, as well as conceptual
information on inventory management in general. This course also provides
background information to set up Microsoft Dynamics NAV for inventory
management.
Audience
The intended audience for this course is individuals who want to learn how to set
up and use inventory management functionality in Microsoft Dynamics NAV.
The course is targeted toward sales people, consultants, and implementers within
a Microsoft partner staff who need to master the inventory management
functionality in order to support or teach it to end users, such as order processors,
account managers, and purchasing agents.
Prerequisites
Before attending this course, students must have:
Student Materials
The following materials for Microsoft Dynamics NAV version 5.0 are related to
this course:
• Introduction
• Finance
• Trade
Student Objectives
What do you hope to learn by participating in this course?
1.
2.
3.
Introduction
Inventory management is a cornerstone of any company within the wholesale and
manufacturing business. Inventory reliability at a low cost is the key factor to
ensure the smooth functioning of all related operations.
This chapter addresses the second goal and covers the following topics:
• Analyzing availability
• Manually adjusting inventory levels
• Counting the physical inventory
• Reclassifying inventory items
In principle, available items can be defined as a quantity that the company has at
its disposal at a given point of time. This definition goes beyond the actual
inventory quantity and includes such factors as allocations, meaning quantities
that have already been set aside or reserved for specific purposes, and expected
inbound orders representing future supply.
• Item
• Location
• Point of time
Because the expected dates of inbound and allocated quantities are known, the
program can calculate availability over time. This is shown as projected available
balance. Refer to “Projected Availability” in this chapter.
Inventory
The program calculates the inventory quantity as the sum of all item increases
minus all item decreases on the current date. Accordingly, inventory is calculated
from posted item transactions, that is item ledger entries.
The total inventory quantity across all locations is shown in the Inventory field
on the General tab of each item card.
When a company has more than one location set up in the program and orders are
received into different locations, it is relevant to know the current and expected
availability of items for each location. This is provided with the Items by
Location window.
This window contains the item quantities available on all company sites that are
set up in the program as locations. Note that BLANK location is not included.
For more information about locations, refer to “Use Multiple Locations” in this
course.
The actual physical inventory quantity can differ from the recorded quantity due
to shrinkage caused by, for example, scrap, deterioration, or pilferage, as well as
administrative mistakes. Refer to “Count Inventory” in this course.
Allocations
As mentioned earlier, the available quantity can be reduced by allocations, that
is, quantities set aside for a specific purpose, temporarily or permanently. The
following are examples of allocations:
For more information about manual and automatic reservations, refer to “Reserve
and Order Track Items” in this course.
Projected Availability
Inbound quantities or outstanding receipts like purchase orders, inbound
transfers, and production orders are included in the projected (expected)
availability calculation. This is relevant in situations when there is a need to
know when the inventory quantity is supposed to increase, such as to promise a
delivery.
You can get an overview of when quantities are expected to be available in the
three different Item Availability By windows. Using the Item Availability by
Periods window is described in the “Introduction” course. For information on
using dedicated order promising functions, refer to the “Trade” course.
1. From the item card for item 1908-S, click Item→Item Availability
By→Location.
2. In the Item Availability by Location window, set the date interval
button in the bottom corner to Month (automatically filters on the
month of the work date, January).
Adjust Inventory
It is sometimes necessary to make adjustments to quantities in inventory, such as
when there is inventory shrinkage or items are not salable.
Adjustments of this kind are usually made when the physical inventory has been
counted, typically at the end of a fiscal year. For that particular purpose,
inventory adjustments are made in the Phys. Inventory Journal window. For
more information, refer to “Count Inventory” in this chapter.
Most companies may need to do minor inventory adjustments a few times in the
course of the fiscal year, while other companies regularly make inventory
adjustments as a part of their business process. An example of this is smaller
wholesaler who sometimes perform light manufacturing in the process of
fulfilling sales orders, but do not use production orders.
The item journal can be used to post the following four types of item entries:
Most fields on the item journal are rather elementary and therefore not covered in
this course. However, three fields relate to cost accounting and are briefly
explained in the following.
The Unit Amount field shows the price of one unit of the item on the journal
line. Depending on what you select in the Entry Type field, the price is
represented by either a unit cost or a unit price. When the Item No. field is filled
in, the program automatically copies the price from one of the following fields on
the item card:
The Unit Cost field shows the cost for each unit of the item on the journal line. It
is copied from the item’s Unit Cost field.
In the Applies-to Entry field, you can look up and select an entry number if the
item journal line must be applied to an already-posted document.
Refer to the “Inventory Costing” course for more information about why and
how these three fields are used.
Notice that the unit amounts on all lines are simply carried from the respective
item cards. The item journal is ready to be posted, but first it must be saved as a
standard item journal.
NOTE: If no journal lines are selected, the function will include all the journal
lines.
The program now prepares to save the lines that are currently in the item journal,
but first you must name the standard item journal that they must be saved in. The
Save as Standard Item Journal window appears.
5. In the Code field, enter a code to identify the standard item journal
that you are about to save, for example, “New1896-S”.
6. Place a check mark in the Save Unit Amount field to have the
program save the value(s) in the Unit Amount field of the item
journal you are saving.
7. Place a check mark in the Save Quantity field to have the program
save the value(s) in the Quantity field of the item journal you are
saving.
NOTE: Selecting the Save Unit Amount and/or Save Quantity fields will save
you the trouble of entering amounts and quantities in a future item journal that
reuses the standard item journal. But, it also increases the risk of wrongful
posting if the quantities and amounts of that future item journal are not
supposed to be the same as those in the standard item journal.
8. Click OK to save the item journal. The program reverts to the Item
Journal window so you can proceed to post it – while knowing that
it can easily be recreated next time you need to post the same or
similar lines.
Illustrate the Get Standard Journal function, proceed to delete the existing item
journal lines and then get the lines from the standard journal just created.
9. In the item journal, press Ctrl+A to mark all lines, and then press
Delete.
10. Click Functions→Get Standard Journals.
The Standard Item Journals window appears showing codes and descriptions
for all existing standard item journals:
To review or change a standard item journal before you select it for reuse, click
Standard, Show Journal (or Shift+F5).
NOTE: Any changes you make in a standard item journal are implemented
right away, that is, they will also be there the next time you open or reuse the
standard item journal in question. Therefore, ensure you want the change to
apply generally. Otherwise, make the specific change in the item journal after
the standard item journal lines have been inserted.
11. Back in the Standard Item Journals window, select the standard
item journal for NEW1896-S, and then click OK to complete the Get
Standard Journals function.
Now the item journal is filled with the lines you saved as the standard item
journal.
If journal lines already existed in the item journal, the inserted lines are placed
under the existing journal lines.
Normally, that is, if you did not check the Save Unit Amount field during the
Save as Standard Journal function, the Unit Amount field on lines that you have
inserted is automatically filled with the item’s current value (copied from the
Unit Cost field on the item card).
NOTE: If you checked the Save Unit Amount and/or Save Quantity fields
during the Save as Standard Journal function, you should now make sure the
inserted values are correct for this particular inventory adjustment before you
post the item journal.
If inserted item journal lines carry saved unit amounts, which you do not want to
post, you can adjust it to the current value of the item in the following way:
Select the item journal line(s) in question and click Line→Recalculate Unit
Amount. This will update the Unit Amount field with the current unit cost of the
item card.
This concludes the demonstration of how to save item journal lines to reuse them
for recurring tasks.
Count Inventory
From time to time, at the end of a fiscal year as a minimum, the items that are
physically in the company warehouse(s) must be counted to check if the quantity
registered in the program agrees with the actual inventory quantity. If there are
differences, these must be posted to the item accounts before the finance
department performs their periodic inventory valuation.
3. Count the quantity of each item and write the figure in the empty
field.
4. Enter the counted quantities in the physical inventory journal.
5. Post the journal.
After posting the journal, the inventory quantities registered in the program will
agree with the actual quantities in inventory as determined by the physical count.
The Qty. (Calculated) field holds the quantities that the program expects to be in
inventory. The Qty. (Phys. Inventory) field is preset with the same quantities,
and this is where John will enter counted quantities if they differ from the
calculated.
The Options tab defines what information will be shown on the printed Phys.
Inventory List report. John prefers to print the sheet with the expected quantities
preset so that he only has to write down the deviating figures.
None of the items carry serial or lot numbers so the Show Serial/Lot Numbers
field is irrelevant. Refer to Chapter 6 for information on counting serial/lot
numbers.
6. Select the Show Qty. (Calculated) field and click Preview or Print.
With the printout in hand, John now goes into YELLOW warehouse to take a
physical inventory. In the process he discovers that two MUNICH Swivel Chairs,
item 1972-S, are missing and that there is one more SEOUL Guest Chair than
expected.
For item 1972-S, John writes 88 after the calculated 90 on the empty line in the
Qty. (Phys. Inventory) column. For item 1988-S, he writes 44 on the empty line.
All other items are on inventory in the expected quantity and he leaves these lines
empty.
The physical counting is done and John proceeds to record the actual inventory
quantities in the system.
Notice that the Entry Type field changes to Negative, and the Quantity field
shows 2.
9. On the line for item 1988-S, SEOUL Guest Chair, enter 44 instead of
43.
Reclassify Inventory
It is sometimes necessary to change information attached to items in inventory,
such as to correct a data entry error made when the item was posted to inventory.
• Dimension code
• Location code
• Bin code
• Serial/lot number
• Expiration date - of a serial/lot number
• Serial/lot number information cards
For more information on the last three types of item information, refer to “Handle
Serial/Lot Numbers” in this chapter.
Notice in the Show Column window that for each changeable field there is a
corresponding New.. fields, such as the New Department Code field.
Follow these steps to set up the Item Reclass. Journal window for the task:
The journal now includes the fields that will hold the old and new
department codes, plus shows where the item is stored. Before
proceeding to fill in the journal line, verify that the item ledger entry
currently carries the SALES department code.
4. Back in the Item Reclass. Journal window, look up from the Item
field and select item 1968-S in the Item List window (or press F6).
5. While the item is selected, click Item→Entries→Ledger Entries (or
press Ctrl+F5) to open the Item Ledger Entries window.
NOTE: The last item ledger entry shows that on 01/20/08, the two swivel chairs
are in fact sold again, with the SALES department code. This demonstration
assumes that this date has not yet arrived. Therefore, disregard the last item
ledger entry.
Notice that two new item ledger entries of type Transfer are created: one for a
quantity of -2, removing the existing entry, and one for a quantity of +2, restoring
the entry, but without the SALES department code.
Again assuming that the last item ledger entry does not exist, when 01/20/08
arrives, the order processor will sell from inventory two Mexico swivel chairs
that do not hold dimension values as is company rule.
Summary
A typical task involved in controlling inventory is to analyze and maintain
inventory levels to keep the supply chain flowing. Other general tasks are to post
adjustments to inventory, either with the item journal, as a substitute for
production orders or other purposes, with the physical inventory journal in
connection with periodic counting, or with the reclassification jouirnal when only
attached item information needs to be changed.
5. Which item journal functions enable you to reuse item journal lines? (Select
all that apply.)
( ) Reuse Journal Lines
( ) Get Standard Journals
( ) Get Posted Journal lines
( ) Save as Standard Journal
Step _____ : Count the quantity of each item and write the figure in the
empty field.
Step _____ : Print the Physical Inventory List sheet to write counted
quantities on.
Step _____ : Enter the counted quantities in the physical inventory journal.
8. In the Phys. Inventory Journal window, what value is shown in the Entry
Type field when you enter a surplus in the Qty. (Phys. Inventory) field?
1.
2.
3.
Solutions
Test Your Knowledge
1. Which of the following windows show item availability according to MPS
(Master Production Schedule) concepts? (Select all that apply.)
(√) Item Availability by Period
( ) Item Availability by Date
(√) Item Availability by Variant
(√) Item Availability by Location
5. Which item journal functions enable you to reuse item journal lines? (Select
all that apply.)
( ) Reuse Journal Lines
(√) Get Standard Journals
( ) Get Posted Journal lines
(√) Save as Standard Journal
Step 3 : Count the quantity of each item and write the figure in the empty
field.
Step 2 : Print the Physical Inventory List sheet to write counted quantities
on.
8. In the Phys. Inventory Journal window, what value is shown in the Entry
Type field when you enter a surplus in the Qty. (Phys. Inventory) field?
Introduction
For many companies, the greater challenge lies in their ability to couple demand
with supply in a manner that provides transparency and guarantees superior
customer satisfaction without increasing inventory carrying costs.
• Reservations
• Order tracking
Reserve Items
Reservations are intended for salespeople who want to reserve inventory or
inbound items for a specific sales order, and for production planners who want to
reserve components for firm planned production orders before they are released.
The reservation system enables the user to make a firm link between existing
supply and demand, which directly affects the way the inventory transaction is
performed. Reservations may also be used to handle exceptional situations where
the results of the normal, automatic offsetting of supply and demand are
unacceptable.
The program follows the simplicity principle that if reservations are broken
because of quantity changes on the demand or supply side, the user must
manually remove and recreate the reservation.
Set Up Reservations
Each item can be set up to handle reservations by selecting one of three different
options in the Reserve field on the Planning tab of the item card:
• Always
• Optional
• Never
Manually reserving either of these supply types takes place when you select from
proposed supply with dedicated functions in the Reservation window. Review
this by opening existing sales order 109001 in the demonstration company.
3. Place the pointer in the first and only sales order line.
4. Click Functions→Reserve.
The Reservation window shows all the supply types that may cover the required
quantity on the sales order line.
To reserve a quantity, place the pointer on a supply type line, and then click
Functions→Reserve from Current Line.
The program allows you to reserve items that are not available in inventory but
are inbound on purchase or production orders. The condition is that the expected
receipt date of such inbound quantities is earlier than the shipment date of the
sales order. The program cancels a reservation automatically when date changes
make the supply-demand link impossible.
1. Create a purchase order for vendor 3000 for ten units of item 80201
with expected receipt date on 02/01/08 at blank location.
2. Create a sales order for customer 20000 for four units of item 80201
with a shipment date of 02/03/08 from blank location.
The Reservation window header contains information about the demand. The
lines show the available supply, including how much of the supply is currently
allocated in the warehouse on picks or shipments. This is shown in the Qty.
Allocated in Warehouse field. The lines may contain several sources of supply
with different reservation status.
NOTE: If the sales order is for a specific serial and/or lot number, the
Reservation system will allow the user to reserve that specific serial/lot number
in a dedicated window. Refer to “Handle Serial/Lot Numbers” in this course.
In this scenario, Susan is not concerned with reserving specific items (serial/lot
numbers), so she proceeds to reserve four of the 10 units on the purchase order
line.
Susan can see from the Reservation window that the units of item 80201are
reserved for her sales order. To verify this, she looks up the reservation entries of
the sales order.
Depending on item setup, the program creates order tracking links dynamically to
reflect possible order fulfillment. This linking works as information about
possible fulfillment within the availability system and, as such, may work as a
simple planning tool. If the item is not set up for such dynamic order tracking,
then order tracking links are only created as a reflection of concrete reservations
or planning results.
Notice that the four reserved pieces are now also reflected as order tracking links
between the sale and the purchase, although item 80201 is not set up for dynamic
order tracking.
For the same reason as for reservations, the program creates order tracking links
between demand and a corresponding supply that is created by the planning
system. A typical example of this is the order tracking between a sales order and
a purchase order indicating that the existence of the sales order caused the
planning run to create the purchase order. For detailed information on order
tracking and action messages in planning, refer to the “Manufacturing II” course.
• None
• Tracking Only
• Tracking & Action Msg.
The order tracking setup options define the following system reactions:
The item is now set up for order tracking. Proceed to buy and sell it.
3. Click Purchase→Order Processing→Orders.
4. Create a new purchase order from any vendor for 20 pieces of item
80212 to BLUE location with receipt date on 01/20/08.
To verify that the items will be available on 01/24/08, Susan uses order tracking
to see if a matching supply exists.
To verify that the items will be available on the shipment date, Susan uses order
tracking to see if a matching supply exists.
The Order Tracking window shows that the full sales quantity of eight pieces is
covered by purchase order 106024; the Untracked Quantity field shows zero.
Susan decides to take a closer look at the purchase order.
To be absolutely sure that the purchase order is linked to her sales order, Susan
uses order tracking in the other direction: from the supply to the demand.
Now the Order Tracking windows shows that eight pieces on the purchase
order are linked to eight pieces on the sales order. The remaining 12 pieces is an
untracked quantity, meaning that no link is made for this quantity. In connection
with order tracking between actual supply and demand windows, like purchase
and sales orders, a lookup from the Untracked Quantity field will never yield
any additional information.
When using order tracking in supply planning, through the requisition worksheet
or planning worksheet, a lookup from the Untracked Quantity field will show
order tracking links to the following other types of demand:
• Planning parameters
• Production forecasts
• Blanket sales orders
For detailed information about using this information in the Untracked Planning
Elements window, refer to the “Manufacturing II” course.
The following table shows which order network entities can be order tracked and
which can be reserved:
Name Option
Item Ledger Entry Reserve / Order Track
Sales Quote Can only be order tracked to a simulated
production order and vice versa.
Sales Order Reserve / Order Track
Purchase Order Reserve / Order Track
Requisition line Order Track
(Only if resulting from a planning run)
Planned Prod. Order line Order Track
Firm Planned Prod. Order line Reserve / Order Track
Released Prod. Order Line Reserve / Order Track
Simulated Prod. Order Line Order track to sales quote only
Prod. Order Component Reserve / Order Track
(Reservation only against firm planned and
released components)
MRP Line Order Track (Only if resulting from a
planning run)
MRP Component Order Track (Only if resulting from a
planning run)
Planning Parameter Order Track (in Untracked Quantity field)
Production Forecast Order Track (in Untracked Quantity field)
Blanket Sales Orders Order Track (in Untracked Quantity field)
Summary
Reservations and order tracking links are managed in the same system and serve
similar purposes, namely to link demand with supply. In the case of reservations,
the link locks the two together and thereby excludes the supply from availability
until posting or cancellation. Order tracking, on the other hand, is merely
informational and can dynamically link all types of supply and demand.
Both reservations and order tracking links help order processors and planners
meet customer requirements without increasing inventory carrying costs.
3. Which of the following types of supply can be reserved? (Select all that
apply.)
( ) Released production order line
( ) Sales order
( ) Planned production order line
( ) Item ledger entry
4. With a setup option of None, when are order tracking links created? (Select
all that apply.)
( ) Between a sales order and a matching production order that is created by
the planning system
( ) Between a sales order and its reserved purchase order
( ) Between a sales order and its reserved production order
( ) Between a sales order and a matching purchase order
1.
2.
3.
Solutions
Test Your Knowledge
1. Which setting must you select if you sometimes want to manually reserve an
item?
( ) Sometimes
( ) Never
(•) Optional
( ) Always
3. Which of the following types of supply can be reserved? (Select all that
apply.)
(√) Released production order line
( ) Sales order
( ) Planned production order line
(√) Item ledger entry
4. With a setup option of None, when are order tracking links created? (Select
all that apply.)
(√) Between a sales order and a matching production order that is created by
the planning system
(√) Between a sales order and its reserved purchase order
(√) Between a sales order and its reserved production order
( ) Between a sales order and a matching purchase order
Introduction
Many modern companies have their organization and operations distributed over
large geographic areas, with each unit being managed independently. Such an
approach to organizing their business helps companies gain competitive
advantage through achieving operational flexibility and customer responsiveness.
At the same time, companies with multiple locations face the challenge of
retaining control over their decentralized operations and optimizing the inventory
flows. To meet this challenge, such companies must ensure that the real-time
information generated at the location level is available to the rest of the
organization.
With the Multiple Locations granule, companies can manage their inventory in
multiple locations using one database. Two concepts, location and stockkeeping
unit, are the cornerstone of this granule. A location is defined as a place that
handles physical placement and quantities of items. The concept is broad enough
to include locations such as:
• A cost center
• A profit center
• An investment center
Note that the Multiple Locations and the Responsibility Centers granules can be
implemented independently.
First, the Multiple Locations granule and then the Responsibility Centers granule
are demonstrated by reviewing the logistical setup of the Cronus demonstration
company.
Scenario: To run its business in the United Kingdom, Cronus International Ltd.
has five physical premises: the headquarters, located in London, and five
warehouses located in other cities around the country. The warehouse in
Birmingham functions as a central warehouse to which most of the company's
vendors ship their items. The central warehouse then transfers inventory to all
other warehouses, which operate as distribution centers from which sales orders
are shipped to the customers.
Fields on the General tab contain the address details of the Cronus company
headquarters:
By default, the program fills in the various ship-to fields on the Shipping tab
with the address details of the company's headquarters. However, if the
company's warehouse is located at a different address than the headquarters, the
user can overwrite information in the ship-to fields with the location's address.
The information in these fields is then printed on purchase orders, for example,
so that vendors ship items to the correct location.
In the Location Code field, the user can select the location code that corresponds
to the company's ship-to address. If the field contains a code, whenever the
purchasers order items are shipped to the company, the program automatically
uses the warehouse location represented by the code.
Generally, the location card is used to record information about the company's
locations. In Microsoft Dynamics NAV, location is defined as a physical place
where items are produced, handled, and stored before being sold. A location can
be, for example, a production plant, a warehouse, or a distribution center. The
purpose of setting up locations in Microsoft Dynamics NAV is to make a
distinction between where different locations are geographically located and how
they handle inventory. The address information held on the location card is
printed on the purchase documents to notify vendors to which locations they
must ship the ordered items.
Companies must set up a location card and a location code for each of their
locations.
Cronus has set up eight locations: six represent warehouses and two, OUT. LOG.
and OWN LOG., are the in-transit locations. For more information on in-transit
location, refer to “Location Transfers” in this course.
By selecting a location on the list and clicking Location→Card, you can see the
address and setup details for each location.
Cronus is now set up to use BLUE location as the main receiving location for
purchase orders.
Similarly, Cronus has decided that one of its vendors, vendor 40000, will always
ship orders to its GREEN warehouse located in Liverpool.
To reflect these procedures in the program, the company links customer 40000 to
the YELLOW location and links vendor 40000 to the GREEN warehouse.
To link a customer to a location, the user must select a default location code on
the customer card:
Notice that the Location Code field contains the code for the YELLOW
warehouse. The program uses this code as a default location code every time the
user makes a sales order for this customer.
Similarly, to link a vendor to a location, the user must select a default location
code on the vendor card.
Notice that the Location Code field contains the code for GREEN location. The
program uses this code as a default location code every time the user makes a
purchase order from this vendor.
The implications that this setup has on where addresses on different documents
come from are discussed in this chapter. Aditionally, you will see how the
company uses the Multiple Locations granule functionality granule to distinguish
between different locations and manage inventory at each specific location.
Remember that the company also has six warehouses located in these two areas.
In the Central area, the BLUE warehouse operates as a central warehouse to
which most of the vendors in the area ship their purchase orders, while in the
Southern area, vendors ship the orders to different warehouses.
Fields on the General tab of the responsibility center card specify the code and
the name for the responsibility center as well as address details.
Each responsibility center has a name, such as the address of the regional office,
as well as a code representing the name. The user can apply this responsibility
center code elsewhere in the program. For example, when the user enters a
responsibility center code on purchase and sales documents, it affects the address
and dimensions on the documents.
The Location Code field contains the code of a default warehouse, which in this
case is the Blue warehouse. Physical transactions administered by the
Birmingham responsibility center take place at this location. Entering a location
code here makes that location the automatic default on all sales and purchase
documents with this responsibility center.
Note that the London responsibility center does not have a default location code.
To reflect these procedures in the program, the company must link users to the
corresponding responsibility center. The following is the procedure for how to do
that.
Now, assign new users to specific responsibility centers so that the program can
accordingly filter data used when creating transactions.
NOTE: Always have one user configured as ALL, so that there is always a user
ID with all the permissions.
As an example of this feature, suppose that a salesperson creates a sales order for
a customer that is linked to a specific responsibility center. The corresponding
responsibility center code defaults on the sales order header as well as on the
printout of the sales order. In addition, the company is able to track their
performance toward customers for each specific responsibility center.
Look at how Cronus reflects this business pattern in their setup of Microsoft
Dynamics NAV setup.
Notice that the Responsibility Center field on the General tab contains the code
for the Birmingham responsibility center.
2. Open the customer card for customer 50000 to see that this customer
is linked to the London responsibility center.
The companies where the user perspective is of a higher priority than that of the
account may want to choose the user-focused approach. In this case, they follow
the general guidelines for setup as follows:
Where the account perspective is of a higher priority than the user, companies
may want to choose the account-focused approach. In this case, companies can
follow the general guidelines for setup:
NOTE: The demo database for Cronus does not reflect the above-mentioned
approaches.
Cronus International Ltd. extends its operations in England and purchases a new
warehouse in Brighton.
Cronus management decides that vendors 10000 and 50000 will use this new
warehouse as a ship-to location.
Challenge Yourself
Your tasks are as follows:
1. Set up this new location in the program. To do so, you must create a
new location card. The new location is called Orange Warehouse and
it has the location code ORANGE.
2. Set the orange location as the default location for vendors 10000 and
50000.
Step by Step
1. Click Warehouse→Inventory→Setup.
2. Press F3 to create a new location card.
3. In the Codefield, enter ORANGE .
4. In the Namefield, enter Orange Warehouse.
Among other things, management also decides to administrate all deals with
customer 30000 from the Manchester responsibility center.
Challenge Yourself
Your tasks are as follows:
Step by Step
1. Click Administration→Application Setup→Responsibility Centers.
2. Press F3 to create a new responsibility center card.
3. In Codefield, enter MANCHESTER.
4. In the Location Codefield, enter GREEN.
The new user setup is created. Proceed to link the new responsibility
center to customer 30000.
Priorities
In Microsoft Dynamics NAV, there is a pattern according to which the program
applies the responsibility centers and locations codes to the sales and purchase
documents. This pattern is based on a priority issue.
The following table shows the priority rules that determine which responsibility
center must appear on the sales and purchase documents:
Priority 2 no default RC *
The following table shows the priority rules that determine which location should
appear on the sales and purchase documents:
The following section describes specific situations in which the program applies
a responsibility center or a location code to sales and purchase documents,
depending on the setup of the multi-site company.
These situations are described in the form of scenarios that represent different
setups. However, instead of going through all the scenarios you may just choose
to have a closer look at the selected few that are of interest to you.
Scenario: The setup: A head office with a default ship-to location. (See the
demonstration “Review a Centralized Warehouse Setup”):
Cronus has one head office set up on the company information card and a
number of locations represented by warehouses, with the Blue location being a
central warehouse. On the company information card, the location code BLUE is
set up as a default ship-to location.
A purchaser in Cronus creates a purchase order for vendor 30000 for ten units of
item 70000.
1. Fill in the Buy-from Vendor No., Type, No., and Quantity fields in
the Purchase Order window with the corresponding information.
Notice that the program has automatically filled in the Location Code field on
the Shipping tab and on the purchase line with BLUE.
Now, view the printout of the purchase order document that Cronus sends to their
vendor.
The vendor's address is in the top-left corner of the document. The address in the
top-right corner is the company's headquarters address that the company set up in
the Company Information window. The bottom-left corner displays the ship-to
address that the vendor ships the ordered items. This address is for the Blue
warehouse.
Consider the following scenario and its implications for the purchase document.
Cronus has one head office set up on the company information card and a
number of locations represented by warehouses, with the Blue location being a
central warehouse. The location code Blue is set up as the default ship-to location
on the company information card. The location code GREEN is set as a default
for vendor 40000 on the vendor card.
A purchaser in Cronus creates a purchase order for vendor 40000 for 25 units of
item 70001.
1. Fill in the Buy-from Vendor No., Type, No., and Quantity fields in
the Purchase Order window with the corresponding information.
Notice that the program has automatically filled in the Location Code field on
the Shipping tab and the purchase line with GREEN.
Consider the following scenario and its implications for the sales document.
Cronus has one head office set up on the company information card, a number of
locations represented by warehouses, and three responsibility centers. The
location code Blue is set up as a default for the Birmingham responsibility center.
A user with user ID BR-USER is linked to the Birmingham responsibility center.
Customer 20000 does not have a default location code set up.
Create the sales order for customer 20000 from the Birmingham responsibility
center.
Notice that the Responsibility Center field on the General tab is automatically
filled in with BIRMINGHAM. The Location Code field on the Shipping tab
contains BLUE, because this is the default location for the Birmingham
responsibility center.
5. Fill in the Sell-to Customer No., Type, No., and Quantity fields in
the Sales Order window with the corresponding information.
Notice that the program has automatically filled in the Location Code field on
the sales lines with BLUE. This code is copied from the Shipping tab.
Now you can see how these different addresses appear on the printout of the sales
order to be sent to the customer for confirmation:
The customer's sell-to address is in the top-left corner of the document. The top-
right corner of the document contains the address of the responsibility center that
the sales order has been made for. In this case, it is the Birmingham
responsibility center.
Consider the following scenario and its implications for the purchase document.
Cronus has one head office set up on the company information card, a number of
locations represented by warehouses, and three responsibility centers. The
location code BLUE is set up as a default ship-to location on the company
information card. A user with user ID LD-USER is linked to the London
responsibility center. The London responsibility center does not have a default
location code.
Create the purchase order for vendor 30000 from the London responsibility
center.
1. Log in as LD-USER.
2. Click Purchase→Order Processing→Orders.
3. Press F3 to create a new order.
Notice that the Responsibility Center field on the General tab is automatically
filled in with LONDON. The Location Code field on the Shipping tab is filled
in with BLUE. This is a default location that has been set up for the entire
company on the Shipping tab of the company information card.
4. Fill in the Buy-from Vendor No., Type, No. and Quantity fields in
the Purchase Order window with the corresponding information.
Notice that the program has automatically filled in the Location Code field on
the sales lines with BLUE. This code is copied from the Shipping tab.
Look at the printout of the purchase order to see how these different addresses
appear on the printout that is sent to the vendor.
The vendor's address is in the top-left corner of the document. The top-right
corner of the document contains the address of the responsibility center that the
purchase order has been made for. In this case it is the London responsibility
center. The bottom-left address is the recipient's address, at the Blue warehouse.
If Cronus did not have a default location set up on the company information card,
the ship-to address will be the company's general address.
The last two scenarios illustrated how the program uses the address information
in situations when a user is linked to a specific responsibility center. Now,
consider scenarios when customers and vendors are linked to a responsibility
center or location that is different from the one linked to the user.
Cronus has one head office set up on the company information card, a number of
locations represented by warehouses, and three responsibility centers. The
location code Blue is set up as a default ship-to location on the company
information card. The London responsibility center is the default for customer
50000. There is no default location set up for this customer. The London
responsibility center does not have a default location code. A salesperson in
Cronus creates a sales order for customer 50000, for five units of item 70002.
Notice that the Responsibility Center field on the sales header contains
LONDON which is a default code for this customer. Meanwhile, the Location
Code field on the Shipping tab is filled in with BLUE. This is a default location
that has been set up for the entire company.
4. Fill in the Type, No, and Quantity fields in the Sales Order
window with the appropriate information.
The program copies the location code to the sales line from the Shipping tab.
Consider the following scenario and its implications for the sales document.
Cronus has one head office set up on the company information card, a number of
locations represented by warehouses, and three responsibility centers. A user
with user ID BR-USER is linked to the Birmingham responsibility center. The
location code Blue is set up as the default for the Birmingham responsibility
center. The London responsibility center is the default for customer 50000.
Create the sales order for customer 50000 from the Birmingham responsibility
center:
You have accepted that the program will process the sales order from the
Birmingham responsibility center, which is a default responsibility center for the
salesperson making the orders, rather than from London responsibility center,
which is the default responsibility center for the customer.
Consider the following scenario and its implications for the sales document.
Cronus has one head office set up on the company information card, a number of
locations represented by warehouses, and three responsibility centers. A user
with user ID BR-USER is linked to the Birmingham responsibility center. The
location code Blue is set up as the default for the Birmingham responsibility
center. The customer 40000 is not linked to any responsibility center, but has the
location code Yellow as default.
Create the sales order for customer 40000 from the Birmingham responsibility
center.
Notice that the Responsibility Center field on the sales order header is
automatically filled with BIRMINGHAM, while the Location Code field on the
Shipping tab contains BLUE.
4. Fill in the Sell-to Customer No. Notice that the Location Code field
on the Shipping tab now contains YELLOW.
5. Fill in the Type, No. and Quantity fields in the Sales Order
window with the appropriate information:
The program copies the location code to the sales line from the Shipping tab.
A purchaser at Cronus needs to buy 70 units of item 70000 from vendor 20000
and 30 units of item 70200 from vendor 40000.
Challenge Yourself
Your tasks are as follows:
Step by Step
1. Log on to NAV as ALL.
2. Click Purchase→Order Processing→Orders.
3. Press F3 to create a new purchase order.
4. Enter 20000 in the Buy-from Vendor No.field.
5. On a purchase line, enter 70000 in the Item No.field.
6. In the Quantityfield, enter 70.
7. Press F3 to create a new purchase order.
8. Enter 40000 in the Buy-from Vendor No.field.
9. On a purchase line, enter 70200 in the Item No.field.
10. In the Quantityfield, enter 30.
11. From each purchase order, click Print→Preview.
On the first purchase order (for 70 pieces), the Cronus company address in the
top right corner is that of the London responsibility center, as linked to vendor
2000. The ship-to address (at the bottom) is that of the Cronus Yellow
Warehouse.
On the second purchase order (for 30 pieces), the Cronus company address in n
the top right corner is that of the company's default address (whenno
responsibility center is linked), as defined in the Company Information
window. The ship-to address (at the bottom) is that of the Cronus Green
Warehouse.
Challenge Yourself
Your tasks are as follows:
Step by Step
1. Log on to NAV as MNC-USER
2. Click Sales & Marketing→Order Processing→Orders.
3. Press F3 to create a new sales order.
4. Enter 40000 in the Sell-to Customer No.field.
5. On a sales line, enter 1896-s in the Item No.field.
6. In the Quantityfield, enter 25.
7. Click Print→Order Confirmation→Preview.
Notice that, although the sales person is in Manchester, which normally uses
GREEN location, the location code on the sales line uses the location code that is
linked to customer 4000, YELLOW.
• Cost prices
• Replenishment information
• Manufacturing information
Whenever there is an SKU, the program uses the information on the SKU card
instead of referring to the item card. SKUs have priority over the item card but do
not replace it.
Look at the SKUs that have been created for item 70001.
Notice the Stockkeeping Unit Exists field on the Planning tab of the item card.
If this field contains a check mark, then one or more stockkeeping units for this
item have already been created.
Notice that many fields on the General tab of the SKU card are the same as on
the item card for the corresponding item.
The fields on the Replenishment tab specify details of the replenishment process
that the inventory manager has established for this item at the Blue location.
The Replenishment System field specifies the type of order the program
suggests when it creates orders as the result of the replenishment planning.
At Cronus, where location Blue is the company's main distribution center, most
of the items stored at this location are replenished through purchase. Therefore,
Purchase is selected in the Replenishment System field for this stockkeeping
unit.
Now, view the details for the SKU card for the same item at the Yellow location:
5. From the stockkeeping units list, select the SKU for location Yellow
and click SKU→Card (or press Shift+F5).
6. Click the Replenishment tab.
When the user selects a code in the Transfer-from Code field, the program
verifies whether the combination of the transfer-to and the selected transfer-from
locations is a valid transfer route.
Cronus has stockkeeping units for item 70001 at the Blue and Yellow locations.
When this item is handled from other locations, the program uses the information
on the item card.
To print other inventory reports, follow the same procedure as described in steps
1-4.
Due to the different conditions under which the various warehouses within
Cronus operate, the company decides to establish a set of parameters with regard
to certain items, which will distinguish the way that these items are handled and
managed at different locations.
Among these items is item 70100. General practice is that this item is purchased
from a limited number of vendors, who are located in close proximity to the Blue
warehouse. These vendors therefore ship their orders directly to this warehouse.
The Red and Yellow warehouses will not purchase this item from the vendors but
will transfer it from the Blue warehouse.
Challenge Yourself
Your tasks are as follows:
1. Create stockkeeping units for item 70100 at the Blue, Red and
Yellow locations.
2. Set up the stockkeeping units according to the following parameters:
Step by Step
1. Click Warehouse→Planning and Execution→Items.
2. Open the card of item 70100.
3. Click Functions→Create Stockkeeping Unit.
4. On the Item tab, enter this filter in the Location Code field:
BLUE|RED|YELLOW. (The vertical line is done by pressing Alt
Gr+| keys).
5. Leave the Options tab unchanged and click OK.
6. From the item card, click Item→Stockkeeping Units.
7. With the pointer in the first line, BLUE location, press Shift+F5.
8. Go to the Replenishment tab and enter 100 in the Lot Size field.
9. Press Esc to return to the Stockkeeping Unit List window.
10. With the pointer in the second line, RED location, press Shift+F5.
Summary
Microsoft Dynamics NAV helps to provide rich functionality to manage
inventory in dispersed warehouses and still maintain effective distribution to and
from business partners. This is enabled with dedicated program granules centered
on the concepts of locations, responsibility centers, and stockkeeping units.
4. Suppose that you have set up multiple locations for your company, and you
have decided that a certain customer must always receive shipments from a
particular location. How do you specify that the customer must be associated
with the location?
1.
2.
3.
Solutions
Test Your Knowledge
1. In Microsoft Dynamics NAV, a ______________ is defined as a physical
place where items are produced, handled, and stored before being sold, such
as a production plant, a warehouse, or a distribution center.
items are handled whereas responsibility centers are not necessarily physical
4. Suppose that you have set up multiple locations for your company, and you
have decided that a certain customer must always receive shipments from a
particular location. How do you specify that the customer must be associated
with the location?
MODEL ANSWER - Assign the location code on the Shipping tab of the
customer card.
locations.
Introduction
Many large wholesale distributors and manufacturers have a number of branch
warehouse locations, each servicing a specific area or region. To minimize their
total inventory level, these companies often follow the strategy of having safety
stock in one main warehouse, while maintaining minimum inventory in regional
warehouses. This practice requires the transfer of inventory from the main
warehouse to the regional ones. Companies also move inventory from one
location to another to satisfy unexpected demand.
With the Location Transfers granule, companies use a transfer order to accurately
track the movement of inventory from one location to another. To transfer items,
companies create a transfer order containing a line for each inventory item being
transferred. When the inventory is shipped from the source location, it is
considered to be in transit until received at its destination.
Set Up Transfers
The following example illustrates the functionality of the Location Transfers
granule using Cronus International Ltd.
Cronus is a company with many warehouses located all over the United Kingdom
(UK), with one central warehouse and a number of regional warehouses, each
with its own manager. To help ensure a high level of customer service in terms of
delivery time, the company strives to achieve maximum operational flexibility
through decentralized management of its warehouses.
Refer to “Use Multiple Locations” to see that Cronus has established a setup to
achieve this flexibility. According to this setup, some customers are always
supplied from specific warehouse(s) and some vendors deliver to certain
warehouses. With such an organizational configuration, Cronus sometimes needs
to transfer inventory from one location, for example a central warehouse, to
another, such as a regional warehouse.
To use location transfers, a company must have the Multiple Locations granule.
Learn more about this granule and the setup procedures in “Multiple Locations.”
Typically, the in-transit location is a truck or van transporting the inventory from
one location to another. Because the distance between different warehouses
within the Cronus distribution network varies, the company uses either its own
logistics facilities or external ones to transport inventory between its different
locations.
To reflect this practice in the program, Cronus has set up two in-transit locations.
Follow the these steps to review the setup:
1. Click Warehouse→Setup→Locations.
2. From the Location Card window, click Locations→List to see the
list of all locations in Cronus.
Notice the two locations called Outsourced Logistics and Own Logistics. These
two locations are the in-transit locations with OUT. LOG. and OWN LOG. in-
transit codes, respectively.
3. Select location code OWN LOG. from the list and click
Location→Card (or press Shift + F5) to open the location card.
At a minimum, the Code and Name fields on the General tab must be filled in.
The Use As In-Transit field must contain a check mark. This indicates that this
location is used as an in-transit location.
Read about how to set up in-transit locations in the topic called "Setting up In-
Transit Codes" in online Help.
You can assign each transfer route a default in-transit code, shipping agent code
and shipping agent service code. The program uses the shipping time of the
shipping agent service to calculate the receipt date at the transfer-to location.
Read about how to set up shipping agents and shipping agent services in the
topics called “Setting up Shipping Agents” and “Setting Up Shipping Agent
Services” in online Help. At Cronus, transfer routes have been set up to reflect
the current business processes. Follow these steps to review the setup:
Cronus has set up five transfer routes. On the transfer routes from the Blue to the
Red and Yellow locations, and from the Red to the Blue location, the company
uses an external carrier represented by the OUT. LOG. code. On the transfer
routes from the Green to the Red and Yellow locations, the company uses its own
logistics facilities represented by the OWN LOG. code.
In the Show field, the user can select the transfer route specification that they
want to have shown in the fields in the right pane.
To display the names of the transfer-to locations as headings in the right pane,
the user must place a check mark in the Show Transfer-to Name field. If the
field is blank, the program displays the location codes.
Read about how to set up transfer routes in the topic called “Setting up Transfer
Routes” in online Help.
Cronus needs a new transfer route to bring items from Red to Green warehouse
using their own trucks.
Step by Step
1. Click→Warehouse→Planning & Execution→Setup
Inventory→Transfer Routes.
2. In the Transfer Routesmatrix window, look up in the cell between
RED (as Transfer-from Code) and GREEN.
3. In the Trans. Route Spec.window, look up in the In-Transit Code
field and select OWN LOG.
• Create a transfer
• Post the shipment of the items
• Post the receipt of the items
The transfer order contains information regarding how much has been shipped
and received in the same manner as the purchase and sales documents, using
quantity shipped, quantity received and so on.
With the location transfers functionality, companies can make transfers both
manually and automatically. A company may need a manual transfer when there
is lack of inventory at a certain location, and this inventory is needed to fulfill a
sales order. In this case, an initiator, such as a salesperson, decides to move items
from a location where the required inventory is available to the location in
question.
The previous section described the rationale and procedure for creating transfer
orders manually. It is also possible for companies to use the requisition
worksheet to create transfer orders automatically.
When creating a sales order for this customer, a salesperson finds out that the
quantity of item 70002 on stock in warehouse Yellow is not sufficient to fulfill
this order. To ensure order fulfillment, the salesperson decides to make a transfer
from the Blue warehouse, where the needed items are available, to the Yellow
warehouse, from which the order is shipped to the customer. This customer wants
to ship complete and from one warehouse, and they have only agreed to pay any
transportation costs that occur when the final complete order is shipped from the
Yellow warehouse.
Note that the program fills the In-Transit Code field automatically with the in-
transit code OUT. LOG. This code is a default in-transit code for the transfer
route between the Blue location and the Yellow location.
The program also automatically fills in the name and address information for the
Blue and Yellow locations in the corresponding fields on the Transfer-from and
Transfer-to tabs, respectively.
On the right side of the transfer order header, there are six fields specifying
shipping details for this transfer. The program fills in the Shipping Agent Code,
the Shipping Agent Service Code and the Shipping Time fields automatically
from information defined for this transfer route.
The Receipt Date field indicates when the items are to be received at the Yellow
location. This calculation is based on the outbound warehouse handling time at
the Blue location (0 days), the shipping time set up for this transfer route, which
is two days, and inbound warehouse handling time at the Yellow location, which
is one day.
If the user enters Green as the location code in the Transfer-to Code field, the
program does not suggest a default in-transit location. This is because the transfer
route that permits transfers from Blue to Green is not a valid route in the
program.
In this case, the user must manually enter an in-transit code in the In-Transit
Code field. Because there are no shipping agent and shipping agent service set up
for this transfer route, the program uses only the outbound warehouse handling
time for the transfer-from location and the inbound warehouse handling time for
the transfer-to location to estimate the receipt date. To estimate the receipt date
more accurately for this transfer order, the user must select a specific shipping
agent and shipping agent service or enter a shipping time in the corresponding
fields on the Transfer-from tab.
Complete the transfer order from the Blue to Yellow location by filling in the
transfer order lines with the item number and quantity to be transferred:
The header and line are ready. Proceed to release the transfer order. Some
companies may have an authorized person responsible for releasing transfer
orders.
9. Click Functions→Release.
The Status field on the header has changed from Open to Released.
To release all transfer orders from a given location, you can open the Transfer
Order List window and release all existing transfer orders in one batch.
In this window, you could set a table filter for the transfer orders to be released,
such as those shipping from Blue location.
4. Click OK.
Now, the transfer order has been shipped out of the Blue location and 50 units of
item 70002 are currently in transit.
To view the posted transfer shipment document for this specific transfer, open
the Posted Transfer Shipments window:
From this window, you can navigate to gain more detailed information about this
transaction.
This posted shipment and all other posted transfer shipments can be accessed
directly from the navigation pane.
Scenario: Two days after the Blue warehouse shipped the transfer order, 50 units
of item 70002 arrive at the Yellow warehouse, which is the target location for
this transfer. A warehouse person at the Yellow warehouse must open the
transfer order that corresponds to the arrived items and post the transfer receipt.
As in the case of posting the transfer shipment, a warehouse person can use a
table filter to filter the transfer orders according to certain parameters, for
example, the transfer-to code.
NOTE: If you ship the transfer order from a location that requires picking, or if
you receive the order at a location that requires receiving, the program
requires you to process the shipping or receiving through dedicated warehouse
documents and gives the message “There is nothing to post.” You can skip this
process by entering the corresponding amounts in the Qty. To Ship/Qty. to
Receive fields on the transfer lines and then accepting the warning messages
given by the program.
The receiving/shipping processes of the Warehouse Management functionality
are described in detail in “Perform Basic Warehouse Tasks” in this course.
A message appears reminding you that Yellow location is set up to use dedicated
warehouse receiving documents. Click OK to continue.
Due to certain considerations, the order is shipped to this customer from the Red
warehouse. The availability check undertaken by the salesperson shows that there
are not enough items in stock at the Red warehouse to fill the order and no
receipt of new stock is scheduled or planned within the next five days. At the
same time, there is enough stock available at the Blue warehouse to fulfill this
sales order. The salesperson decides to transfer the required quantity of the above
items from the Blue to the Red warehouse.
Challenge Yourself
Your tasks are as follows:
1. Create one transfer order for the required quantity of items 70200,
1908-S, and 1964-W.
2. Release and ship the transfer order with the full quantity of all three
items from the Blue warehouse.
3. Receive the full quantity of items 80100 and 1908-S at the Red
warehouse.
4. Do not receive the ten units of item 1964-W at the Red warehouse.
NOTE: The outcome of this exercise is used in the following section as well as
the next exercise.
Step by Step
1. Click Warehouse→Planning & Execution→Transfer Orders.
2. Press F3 to create a new order.
3. Enter GREEN in the Transfer-from Codefield.
4. Enter RED in the Transfer-from Codefield.
The three transfer shipments are posted. Proceed to post two transfer
receipts.
8. In the Qty. to Receive field, leave 1000and 30 in the first two
transfer lines, but remove 10 on the last transfer line.
9. Press F11, select Receive, and then click OK.
Notice that the transfer order is not deleted because the last line is
incomplete.
By default, this window shows item availability for each physical location. It can
also be used to show item quantities for each in-transit location code.
Proceed to view the quantity in transit for item 1896-S in the period up to
01/25/08 (one day after the work date).
5. In the Items by Location window, select the line for item 1964-W.
6. Click Item→Item Availability by→Location.
7. Add the Qty. In Transit field by using the Show Column function.
The Item Availability by Location window now shows the total quantity of an
item that is in-transit on a specific date towards a specific location.
As indicated by the contents of the Qty. in Transit field, ten units of item 1864-
W are on the way to the Red warehouse on 01/25/01. (These are the ten units that
you left unreceived in lab 4.2.)
Quantities in transit are also included in all the reports that specify inventory
availability. The Inventory - Inbound Transfer report shows items in transit that
are to be received at the transfer-to location.
To view value of items in transit, you can use the Inventory Valuation report.
3. Look up from the Filter field and select an in-transit code, such as
OWN LOG.
The Inventory Valuation - Cost Spec. and the Item Age Composition - Value
reports also show the value of items in transit.
Summary
Transfer orders are used to manage and track the movement of inventory from
one location to another. When the inventory item is shipped from the source
(transfer-from location), it is considered to be in transit until received at its
destination (transfer-to location). Both the transfer shipment and the transfer
receipt are posted from one transfer order to ensure a simple and stable workflow
of such inventory items. The system also offers functionality for tracking where
and when items are in transit.
1.
2.
3.
Solutions
Test Your Knowledge
1. Besides standard multiple location setup, what two elements must you set up
before you can use location transfers? (Select all that apply.)
( ) Responsibility centers
(√) In-transit locations
( ) SKUs
(√) Transfer routes
card.
Locations window.
Introduction
Maximum efficiency, data accuracy, and reliability in inventory management and
warehousing operations are of utmost importance to any company striving for
excellence in customer service and cost reduction. While these goals are relevant
to a business, not every company considers warehousing as their core
competence, which in turn reflects on their willingness to invest in extensive
warehousing solutions and accept long implementation time.
To sustain efficiency and short order handling time, items must be easy to find in
the warehouse. Additionally, warehouse workers must be able to focus on
carrying out physical movements rather than spending time in front of computers
recording information. Moreover, in companies that experience high turnover of
warehouse workers, the ability to train them quickly on using the program is
highly relevant.
• Bin
• Pick
• Put-away
• Receipt
• Shipment
The ability to use bins on sales and purchase documents with the Bin granule
gives companies with a simple warehouse organization a way to perform picks
and put-aways while using documents they are already familiar with. When these
companies grow and find that their pick and put-away processes become more
complicated, the Pick and Put-away granules provide the perfect step up to a
level where their information can be handled with greater flexibility. With the
Pick and Put-away granules comes the ability to access pick and put-away
information from separate documents and menu options, which means that
warehouse workers can do their work in a specialized and focused environment.
Finally, the Receipt and Shipment granules give companies the ability to process
receiving and shipment information for multiple orders in one separate
warehouse document.
This chapter describes the different setup options for warehousing and explains
the implications of selecting them. The warehousing processes are divided into
the following categories:
Read the respective topics in the online help for a quick overview of typical
procedures associated with specific warehouse handling activities.
Set Up Locations
In the program, you must set up each warehouse as a location. Define the extent
to which you want the program to support warehouse processes for a specific
location on the Warehouse tab of the location card.
The Cronus company has a number of locations for warehousing. Consider the
setup for the Silver location.
The fields on the left side of the tab define the different ways the program can
handle inbound and outbound warehouse processes. As previously explained,
these different ways are directly linked with the functionality of different
warehousing granules.
A check mark in the Bin Mandatory field indicates that a company has chosen
to define and record bin information for all movements that take place in this
location. This means that posting of transactions, both from journals and
documents, is not possible unless a bin code is specified. Keeping records of
inventory movements at the bin level is an important precondition for efficient
warehousing.
Essentially, if these fields contain checkmarks, it means that the company has a
designated warehouse environment, where actual order handling is carried out
and order posting takes place. Otherwise, the company operates on the premise
that all warehousing activities are handled and posted from the actual order
document (or journal).
NOTE: If the Bin Mandatory field contains a check mark, the Directed Put-
away and Pick field is available. A check mark in this field indicates that the
company is using functionality from the Warehouse Management Systems
granules and that the location requires advanced warehousing functionality.
Directed put-away and pick makes it possible to use such features as bin
ranking, bin capacity, and put-away templates to let the program suggest which
bins to use for put-aways and picks. Learn about these features in the
Warehouse Management Systems training material.
Notice that at Cronus, the Silver location is set up to use bins without requiring
the use of separate warehouse documents. The Green and Yellow warehouses
are, on the other hand, set up in a way that requires all warehouse activities to be
processed separately from the order documents without registering bin
information.
Set Up Bins
A bin is the most basic storage unit in the warehouse. When companies require
workers to enter bin codes for each inventory transaction and movement, they
must consider a number of bin setup options.
For locations that use bins, the program uses a system of default bins to facilitate
the warehouse handling tasks. You can assign every item that is stored in a
warehouse a default bin, and each item can have only one default bin for each
location. The program then suggests the default bin whenever you perform a
transaction with the item. For instance, when creating a purchase order, the user
enters the item number and location code, and the program automatically fills in
the bin code with the item's default bin.
The first step is to create the bins in the program. You must identify bins by
codes that reflect the actual bin numbering in the warehouse.
• Manually
• Automatically by using the Bin Creation Worksheet
The method you choose depends on the scope of the setup task. If the task is
limited to only a few modifications, then the manual bin creation method is most
appropriate. If the task is to register a large number of bin codes, as is typically
the case in the startup phase of an entire warehouse setup, then you must choose
to do so automatically.
You create bins manually from the location card. Cronus has a number of bins
for the Silver location:
Create bins automatically using the worksheet, the user must first define bin
templates. The user can then create bins automatically using the Bin Creation
Worksheet window. In the worksheet, the user can apply the Calculate Bins
function to create a large number of bins.
Once bin codes have been assigned, the user can define bin contents.
Bin content defines which items are stored in each bin. It also describes a relation
between the bin and the item in terms of if a particular bin is default or fixed for a
specific item.
Like bins, bin content can also be set up in two ways: manually and
automatically. The first and simplest method is to set up bin content manually.
This can be done from both the location card and item card.
Look at the content of one of the bins set up for Silver location:
2. From the Bins window for Silver location, select the first bin code
and click Bin→Contents.
In the Bin Content window, the user specifies which item will be stored in the
bin.
A check mark in the Fixed field indicates that the item (bin content) has been
associated with this bin, and that the bin normally contains the item. If the item
quantity goes to zero, the program does not delete the bin content line.
A check mark in the Default field indicates that this bin must be the first bin the
program suggests when the user enters details of a transaction involving this item
on the order document or journal line. For items with no default bin specified in
advance, the program sets the bin in which the item is put away for the first time
as the default bin.
NOTE: The way that the program behaves (as previously described) can be
used as an alternative method for setting up default bins.
The Quantity field is for information only and is not editable. This field shows
how many units of the item are currently in the bin.
If required, you can set up the same bin to contain more than one item and,
similarly, you can store the same item in several bins. However, an item has only
one default bin for each location.
The second, and most efficient, way to set up large numbers of bins with bin
content is to use the Bin Content Creation Worksheet window.
NOTE: The bin creation and bin content creation worksheets are part of the
Bin Setup granule. For more details on these two worksheets, read the
corresponding topic in the online Help or refer to the “Warehouse Management
Systems” course.
To complete the setup of bin usage rules for the location, the company must
specify how the program will handle default bins once they are set up. This is
done by selecting one of the two options in the Default Bin Selection field on
the Warehouse tab of the location card.
Selecting fixed bins as default bins is the rule specified for the Silver warehouse.
Cronus has established a new warehouse location that is referred to as the Orange
location. This location uses bins.
The warehouse manager must set up the new Orange location to use a basic bin
structure using bins numbered from O-01-0001 to O-01-0005, and set up bin O-
01-0001 as the default bin for item LS-75.
Challenge Yourself
1. Create a new location card for Orange warehouse, and set the
warehousing options so that bin usage is mandatory.
2. Manually create the five bins for the Orange location, using bin
codes O-01-0001 to O-01-0005.
3. Set up bin O-01-0001 as the default bin for item LS-75.
Step by Step
1. Click Warehouse→Setup→Locations.
2. Press F3 to create a new location card
3. Enter ORANGE in the Codefield.
4. On the Warehousetab, select the Bin Mandatory field.
5. Leave all other tabs unchanged.
6. Click Location→Bins.
7. On the first line, enter O-01-0001 in the Codefield.
8. On the next four lines, enter O-01-0001 to O-01-0005.
9. Place the pointer on the first line, and then click Bin→Contents.
10. Select the Defaultfield.
11. Look up in the Item No.field to select item LS-75.
A typical scenario when items arrive at the warehouse may be the following,
where a warehouse person:
In methods (a), (b), and (c), the program combines the actions of receiving and
putting away in one step when posting the corresponding documents as received.
In the method (d), the program posts the receipt first to recognize the increase of
inventory and thus that items are available for sale. The user registers the put-
away to make items available to pick.
When a location is set up for mandatory bin usage, the program also creates
warehouse entries in addition to the item ledger entries and value entries, upon
posting a receipt. These entries are the records of the items’ placement in the
warehouse at the bin level.
The following sections show how to use methods (a), (b), and (c) and explain the
implications of each. For simplicity, the example of a purchase order is used as
the inbound order throughout the explanations.
Recording a receipt and put-away on the order is the simplest way to receive and
put away items. With this method, the program posts the receipt and put-away in
one step, and no additional warehouse documents are required. This method is
available with the Bin granule, and the only requirement to use this method is
that the location must be set up with mandatory bin usage. When items arrive at
the warehouse, the person who receives the shipment records the bin code on the
order line. This bin code is where the item is put away. When the user posts the
order as received, the program posts the put-away as well.
Notice that the program fills in the default bin code for each item in the Bin
Code field.
To make the order ready for handling in the warehouse, the purchaser must use
the release function. Releasing the order changes the order's status to Released,
which serves as a signal to the warehouse that the order is complete and ready to
be delivered from the vendor and received into the warehouse.
Assume that the shipment now arrives at the warehouse. The warehouse worker
uses the accompanying delivery documents to determine to which purchase order
the shipment belongs. With this information, the worker can now carry out
receiving and putting the order away.
The bin codes on the purchase order lines serve as an indication to the warehouse
person as to where the respective items must be put away. A situation may occur
where items must be put in a bin other than a default one or be placed in more
than one bin.
Suppose that, when putting item LS-120 away, the warehouse worker finds that
the bin can only hold 20 units. The remaining 50 units must be put away in bin S-
01-0002. To record this handling in the program, the warehouse worker must do
a partial receipt.
3. In the Qty. to Receive field on the first purchase line, change the
quantity to 20. This indicates that only 20 units are put into the bin
specified on the line.
4. Click Posting→Post. The following window appears:
Proceed to complete the put-away and receipt of the remaining 50 units of item
LS-120.
6. In the Bin Code field, change the code to S-01-0002 - the bin code
where the remaining quantity is actually put away.
7. Post the order as received.
• Run the receive function for the received items and updated the
relevant fields on the order.
• Recorded the put-away information for the bin by creating a
warehouse register and warehouse entries specifying the quantity and
bin information for the put-away.
• Updated the bin contents for the corresponding bin.
To view the put-away information, open the warehouse registers created by the
posting.
8. Click Warehouse→History→Registers→Registers.
Notice that the last two entries are marked with the Purchases’ source code.
Those are the registers for the put-away that were just posted.
Based on these entries, the program updates the bin content records for the bins,
respectively.
To check that the quantity has been received and put away in the appropriate
place, check the bin contents.
The program opens the list of all the bin codes set up for this location. Notice that
the Empty field for the bins to which the items on the purchase order have been
put away does not contain a check mark.
12. Select the line for the bin code S-02-0001 (the default bin code) and
click Bin→Contents.
The bin content record specifies that there are 20 units of item LS-120 in the bin.
NOTE: When a purchase order is associated with a sales order set to be drop
shipped (the order line has a purchasing code defined as drop shipment), in
principle, items do not enter and are not handled in the company's warehouse.
In this case, the program prevents the user from entering a bin code on a
sales/purchase order, even though the location has mandatory bin usage. As a
consequence, when the user posts the orders, the program does not create
warehouse entries.
Scenario: Suppose that in the process of putting the item LS-150 away in the bin
and, importantly, after the order has been posted as received, a warehouse worker
discovers that only 60 of the expected quantity of 80 units were delivered. When
the purchaser is alerted to the problem, it turns out that according to the
agreement with the vendor, the order was indeed for 60 units.
Follow these steps to undo the posting of the receipt and put-away:
The record of the content of bin S-03-0001 has now been updated.
If the warehouse worker had put away the order line in more than one bin using
multiple receipts, then the worker must undo each receipt as appropriate.
Generally, the undo quantity function can reverse the warehouse records for the
posted receipt line as long as there is enough quantity in the bin to which the
corresponding quantity was originally put away. This means that the user can still
perform the function even though some or all of the items in the bin were moved
elsewhere but the bin contains the quantity specified for the undoing operation.
NOTE: The undo quantity posting functionality is also available if you have
posted a receipt from a warehouse receipt document (when using the Receipt
granule). However, the undo functionality is not available when you post a
receipt from an inventory put-away document (using the Put-away granule and
not the Receipt granule).
To complete the handling of scenario 1, update the purchase order with the
correct quantity of item LS-150.
To register the item's physical placement in the warehouse, rather than using the
purchase order line, the warehouse worker uses a separate document: an
inventory put-away. In essence, this document is a copy of the order document
but only displays the information relevant to the warehouse. Moreover, the
inventory put-away document provides greater flexibility in regard to handling
additional warehouse requirements such as splitting lines and document printing.
The user creates an inventory put-away document and accesses it either directly
from the purchase order or from the Warehouse menu on the Navigation Pane.
When the user posts the put-away document, the program also posts the order as
received.
The principle behind the functionality of the Put-away granule is identical to that
of the Pick granule, which is described in detail in the section “Picking and
Shipping” of this chapter.
This option is particularly relevant for companies where the receiving process is
more complex or requires more attention. You can plan for the receipt tasks by
creating a warehouse receipt document. With this document, which is based on
released inbound orders, companies get an accurate picture of the expected work
load and can manage the receiving process in the most efficient way.
If the location has been set up for separate put-away processing (the Require
Put-away field on the location card contains a check mark), described earlier as
method (d), posting the receipt also creates a warehouse put-away document.
This document is an instruction to the warehouse worker to move items from the
receiving area to the storing area. They also use this document to register the
handled quantities and the bin information.
If the location has not been set up for put-away processing but the bin usage is
mandatory, the warehouse worker must record the bin information on the
warehouse receipt lines. The receipt document can be printed as a put-away list
to aid warehouse workers. When the warehouse worker posts the receipt, the
program also posts bin information on the line and creates warehouse entries.
When the warehouse completes the receiving process, the associated order
document (purchase order or sales return order) is ready for invoicing. If the
source document is an inbound transfer order, the program deletes it and creates a
posted transfer receipt.
The first step is to set up the Silver location to require that receipts are handled
through warehouse documents.
1. Open the location card for the Silver warehouse. Click the
Warehouse tab.
2. Select the Require Receive field.
Now, create the two purchase orders for vendors 10000 and 50000, respectively.
3. Enter the header and line details for the purchase orders. Make sure
that the items are to be shipped to the Silver location.
4. Release the purchase orders by pressing Ctrl+F11.
In the program, you can create a receipt of a purchase order from two functional
areas:
The warehouse manager must now select the released source documents (in our
example, purchase orders) with lines for quantities that have not yet been
received. To do this, the manager has two options:
The procedure for using the warehouse source filter card to create a warehouse
receipt document is as follows:
The Filters To Get Src. Docs. - Inbound window contains a list of filter codes
that represent filter combinations. The program only retrieves lines from source
documents that meet the filter criteria. You can save and reuse filter
combinations with the code reference.
If the Show Filter Request field contains a check mark, the Filters to Get Source
Docs. function shows the filter request form before the program retrieves the
lines. Read more about the filter request in the topic called "Get Source
Documents Batch Job" in the online Help.
NOTE: The Filters to Get Source Docs. - Inbound window appears empty only
if the warehouse has not yet set up filters. In this case, when you click Run, the
program retrieves all the released source documents. Once the filters are set up,
the window contains a list of corresponding filter codes.
The warehouse manager at the Silver warehouse decides to set up a filter card
specifying that the program must only retrieve all the released purchase orders,
without retrieving any other inbound orders.
When setting up a filter for the first time, the user must enter a code name on the
Filters To Get Source Docs. - Inbound window and then open the filter card to
specify other parameters.
The manager can define the source document(s) for a specific filter by inserting
and removing check marks in the fields representing the types of source
documents. Note that, by default, only fields representing the inbound source
documents (sales return orders, purchase orders, and inbound transfers) are
editable and contain check marks.
6. Remove the check marks in the Sales Return Orders and the
Inbound Transfers fields.
Every time the manager chooses to create a receipt document by using the Use
Filters to Get Src. Docs. function, the program opens the Filters to Get Source
Docs. - Inbound window, where the manager can select, modify, and run the
appropriate filter.
Now the manager wants to retrieve all the released purchase orders with the
expected receipt date of 01/24/08.
7. In the filter card just created, on the Purchase tab, in the Expected
Receipt Date field, enter 01/24/08. Click Run.
The program retrieves the lines from the purchase order documents and fills in
the fields in the Warehouse Receipt window.
As it appears in the Warehouse Receipt window, on this working date there are
two purchase orders (created according the scenario) that meet the parameters
specified in the source document filter card.
Notice that the program fills the Bin Code field on the line with the item's default
bin code.
Suppose that all items now arrive at the warehouse. A warehouse person must
handle the items and record their receipt in the program. While the quantities of
all other items that arrive correspond to the quantities on the purchase orders,
only 25 units out of 30 of item LS-150 arrived.
The warehouse worker must repeat the handling and posting tasks for the
remaining receipt line(s) when the items arrive at the warehouse.
This example combined the actions of receiving and putting-away in one step of
posting the warehouse receipt document. This is in accordance with the
warehousing setup chosen for the Silver location, the location does not require
put-away processing through separate put-away documents.
If the location is set up with a check mark in the Require Put-away field on the
location card, the posting of the warehouse receipt creates a warehouse put-away
document, accessible from the Warehouse menu. Similar to the inventory put-
away document, the function of the warehouse put-away document is to allow
the warehouse worker to handle put-away information separately from the
warehouse receipt document.
A purchaser creates a purchase order for four pallets of item LS-75 from vendor
10000 to be delivered to the Silver location. The Silver location is set up for
mandatory bin usage and warehouse receipts.
When the shipment arrives, the warehouse worker finds that only two of the
pallets can be put away in the bin suggested by the program. The other two must
be put away into an available bin, and the warehouse worker chooses to use bin
O-03-0003.
Challenge Yourself
1. Create and release the purchase order, ensuring that the shipment is
delivered to the Silver location.
2. Receive the correct quantity into the correct bins.
Step by Step
1. Click Purchase→Order Processing→Orders.
2. Press F3 to create a new purchase order.
3. Enter 10000 in the Buy-from Vendor No.field.
4. On the first purchase line, enter the following information:
A purchaser at Cronus creates a purchase order for 30 units of item 70010 for
vendor 40000. The expected receipt date for this order is 01/24/08.
When the items arrive at the warehouse, the warehouse worker must perform a
series of activities to make items available for sale and for picking.
Challenge Yourself
1. Create and release the purchase order.
2. Create a warehouse receipt for all the orders from vendor 40000 with
the expected receipt date of 01/24/08.
3. Ensure that the items are made available for sale and for picking.
Step by Step
1. Click Purchase→Order Processing→Orders.
2. Press F3 to create a new purchase order.
3. Enter 10000 in the Buy-from Vendor No.field.
4. On the first purchase line, enter the following information.
In principle, the process of shipping outbound orders consists of two major tasks:
As with the receiving and putting away processes, four methods exist to support
picking and shipping, controlled by respective granules.
What differentiates the four methods from one another is how complex the
picking process or warehouse organization is for a company. In the order-by-
order warehousing environment, for a company with straightforward processes
where the bin structure is simple, picking and shipping from the order line is
appropriate. Conversely, for a company where items for one order line might
come from more than one bin, or where warehouse workers typically do not work
with the order documents, the use of separate pick documents is more
appropriate. Where a company's picking and shipping processes involve multiple
order handling and thus require greater control and overview, the company might
choose to use a warehouse shipment document and warehouse pick document to
separate the picking and shipping tasks.
In the methods (a), (b), and (c), the program posts picking and shipping in one
step when either of the corresponding documents is posted as shipped. In method
(d), the program registers the pick first and posts the shipment at a later time
from a different document.
The following sections demonstrate methods (a), (b), and (d) and explain the
implications of each. For simplicity, the example of a sales order is used as the
outbound order throughout.
In addition to the item ledger entries and value entries for the shipment, this
shipment posting also creates warehouse entries, which are the records of where
the items were picked from in the warehouse.
The principles behind the functionality of picking and shipping from the order
line are identical to that on the receiving side, which was described in detail in
the previous section.
If the location has been set up for processing picks separately from the shipment
document (the Require Pick field on the location card contains a check mark),
the user must create a warehouse pick document based on the shipment
document. This document is an instruction to the warehouse worker to remove
items from the shelves and move them to the packing and shipping area. They
also use this document to register the handled quantities and the bin information.
For companies with dedicated warehouse staff, the use of pick documents is the
best option. This is because the functionality of the Pick granule offers greater
flexibility in terms of meeting their key requirements, such as:
• A warehousing program must be easy and fast for the users to learn.
• The warehouse workers can carry out their jobs without having to be
tied to the computer to perform lengthy or complicated procedures.
When the user posts the pick document, the program also posts the associated
outbound order as shipped.
The following scenario illustrates how you can create pick documents and use
them to efficiently pick and ship.
As explained earlier, for picking to be handled through pick documents, you must
first set up the warehouse location to require pick.
1. Open the location card for the Silver warehouse. On the Warehouse
tab, select the Require Pick field.
2. Enter the header and line details for the sales order. Make sure that
the items are shipped from the Silver location. Use the Show Column
function to make the Bin Code field visible.
The release of an order is a signal to the warehouse that the order is ready for
picking and shipping.
Suppose that, as a part of regular daily activity, the warehouse manager consults
the list of released orders and creates a pick document for each.
The warehouse manager has three options for creating a pick document:
• Create the pick document from the sales order document by clicking
functions→create inventory put-away/pick.
• Create the pick document from the Warehouse menu.
• Create pick documents for several orders from the Create Invt. Put-
away/Pick batch job found under Warehouse→Planning &
Execution.
In this scenario, the warehouse manager prefers to create the pick documents for
orders one at a time using the Warehouse menu.
The next step is to retrieve the information from the sales order to create the pick
lines. You can do this in two ways:
• Select the relevant order details in the fields on the inventory pick
document header.
• Use the Get Source Document function.
In this window, the Source Type field indicates the type of outbound order. In
this scenario, the source type is Sales Order. The Source No. field contains the
document number for the outbound order. The Destination Type field indicates
that the source document is for a customer, and the Destination No. field
contains the customer number, if applicable.
The Put-away/Pick No. field contains the number of the put-away or pick
document that has been created for the order. In this example, no pick document
has been created yet. This is the next step.
9. Click the line containing the source number for the sales order and
click OK.
The program now creates the inventory pick lines for item LS-120.
Notice that the document contains two pick lines, specifying that the required
quantity must be picked from two different bins. The program automatically split
the sales order line into two pick lines because the default bin code for item LS-
120 - S-02-0001 - does not contain enough quantity to fulfill the order line.
Based on the bin content records (warehouse entries) for the item in question
within the specified location, the program has suggested picking the remaining
quantity from a bin code with sufficient quantity.
10. Select the first line and click Line→Bin Content List to view the
quantities of item LS-120 at the bin level.
This example shows a pick line being split automatically by the program.
Warehouse workers might experience situations where they must split a pick line
manually. The need for this can occur when, during the picking process, no
sufficient item quantity is found in the bin suggested by the program and the
required quantity is actually picked from another bin. To record this handling in
the program, the warehouse worker uses the Split Line function available on the
inventory pick document.
From the Inventory Pick window, the warehouse workers can print the pick
lines and use the printout to pick the items for the shipment to the customer,
writing down the actual quantities and recording any deviations from the printed
information. When they are finished, the warehouse manager can take the written
feedback and record the actual pick information in the inventory pick document.
11. In the Qty. to Handle field, enter 40 and 10 for the respective lines.
When the pick lines correctly reflect the picked quantities and bin codes, the
manager can post the inventory pick document. As explained earlier, this posting
also posts the shipment of the associated sales order.
12. In the Inventory Pick window, click Posting→Post (or press F11).
The program posts the picking information and the shipment. Notice that the
option of posting the order as invoiced is also available for the warehouse
workers. This can be relevant in situations where the invoice document serves as
a shipment note to be handed over to the shipping agent.
Now, view the inventory records at the bin level by looking at the warehouse
registers created by the posting.
Notice that the last entry has a source code of SALES. This is the register for the
pick just posted.
15. Select the last line and click Register→Warehouse Entries to see the
warehouse entries that correspond to the pick.
The program's warehousing functionality also supports the practice used by some
customers of creating order documents with negative lines. A negative order line,
in essence, represents a transaction opposite to the one associated with the order
in question, for example, a negative sales order line stands for an inbound order
of sales return. This means that, when processing warehouse activities, the
program ensures that the corresponding warehouse entries reflect the
corresponding inventory movement at the bin level. In the example of a negative
sales line, the warehouse entry represents an increase in the bin contents.
NOTE: The Undo Quantity function is not available when the process of
putting away/picking is performed by means of using the separate warehouse
documents of inventory put-aways and inventory picks. The Undo Quantity
function is also not available when you post a shipment from a warehouse
shipment document (using the Shipment granule).
If the location has not been set up for separate pick processing but the bin usage
is mandatory, the warehouse worker must record the bin information on the
warehouse shipment lines. The document can be printed to help warehouse
workers in the picking process. Posting the shipment at the same time registers
the pick information.
A document with ship lines is an instruction to the warehouse worker to pass the
picked items to the shipping agent. The warehouse worker also use this document
to register the handled quantities; they then post the ship lines when the items
leave the warehouse.
When the warehouse completes handling the shipping process, the associated
order document (sales order or purchase return order) is ready for invoicing. If
the order document is an outbound transfer order, the program creates a posted
transfer shipment.
The following scenario describes the processes of creating shipment for items to
pick, picking the items and shipping them to customers using Cronus. In this
example, you must set up the Silver location for both pick and ship processing.
For simplicity, only a sales order is used as an outbound source document.
The first step is to ensure that the Silver location requires shipment processing
through warehouse documents.
1. Open the location card for the Silver warehouse. Click the
Warehouse tab.
2. Select the Require Shipment field.
Creating a shipment document is the first stage in the flow of items out of the
warehouse. At this stage, a warehouse manager assigns quantities of items from
available inventory to outbound source document lines.
Based on the list of all released outbound orders, managers create shipment
documents, that is, make specific lists of items to be picked for shipment. To
make the picking process more efficient, managers can sort the lines in various
ways by setting certain parameters, such as who must do the picking and what
sorting method to apply. As in the case of receiving, a shipment line can also be
sent to the warehouse shipment document directly from an order document by
clicking Functions→Create Whse. Shipment.
NOTE: If you do not select a location code for a specific warehouse shipment,
then the program retrieves source document lines from all locations that
require warehouse shipment processing.
Since the Silver location is set up for mandatory bin usage as well as to require
both shipment and picking documents, the program regards the item movement
from the shelves to the shipping dock as a movement from a picking bin to a
shipping bin. The program automatically suggests the bin code from which to
pick the items, but the user must specify on the warehouse shipment header the
bin code to which items are placed after being picked and from which they are
shipped.
Assume that bin code S-09-0001 has been selected as a shipping bin for the
shipment in question.
The manager must now fill in the shipment document with lines of the released
outbound source documents (in this example, sales orders), for which quantities
have not yet been assigned. To do this, the manager has two options:
Suppose that the manager decides to use the Get Source Documents function to
create a warehouse shipment document
The program retrieves the source documents and creates the lines in the
Warehouse Shipment window. Use the Show Column function to make the Bin
Code field visible.
For locations not requiring a separate pick processing, the warehouse employees
can print the shipping document with bin code information and use it as an
instruction for where in the warehouse to find the items. When the warehouse
worker post the picking information, the program creates warehouse entries with
bin information.
NOTE: Handling a picking task only with the warehouse shipment document is
based on the assumption that the shipping bin code information is irrelevant
and therefore must not be selected on the document header. Analogous to the
other warehousing scenarios, in this case, the program suggests a default bin
code as a picking bin for each shipment line.
Since the Silver location has been set up to require pick documents, the picking
document must now be created from the warehouse shipment document.
The warehouse manager now creates a picking document for the items required
to fulfill the order.
In the Whse.-Shipment - Create Pick window, the user can assign a user ID in
the Assigned User ID field. The user can choose a sorting method for the pick
lines in the Sorting Method for Activity Lines field. The Set Breakbulk Filter
field is only applicable when the program is set up to use warehouse management
systems.
A check mark in the Do Not Fill Qty. to Handle field tells the program that the
Qty. to Handle field must be set to zero initially, so that the warehouse worker
filling in the pick document must enter the quantity manually. The worker can
print the pick list by placing a check mark in the Print Document field.
Notice that in the pick document, the program creates two pick lines for each
shipment line; a Take and a Place line for each item. The Take line is, in essence,
a pick line indicating from where the items are to be picked, while the Place line
specifies a shipping bin to which the picked items are to be placed before
shipping.
Notice that the program suggested bin S-02-0002 instead of the default bin S-02-
0001 on the Take line for item LS-120. This is because the default bin is
currently empty, and the program detected that bin S-02-0002 contains the
required picking quantity.
Upon moving items to the shipping dock, the warehouse worker must record this
action in the program through the Register function. Registering essentially
differs from the posting function in that it does not affect inventory availability
but simply recognizes the fact that the items have been moved from one place to
another within the same warehouse.
The warehouse worker must now pass the picked items to the shipping agent and
post the shipment lines when the items leave the warehouse.
In the warehouse shipment document, the program has updated the Qty. to Ship
fields and set the document status to Completely Picked. To complete the
shipping process:
The program offers the possibility of posting the shipment and at the same time
invoicing the associated outbound order document(s).
The shipment has now become both a posted warehouse shipment and a posted
sales shipment.
A salesperson enters a sales order for 50 PCS of item LS-75 for customer 30000
to be shipped from the Silver location.
The warehouse manager creates inventory picks from the released source
documents and ensures that the pick is completed and that the shipment is posted.
Challenge Yourself
1. Change the Silver location to not use warehouse
2. Create and release the sales order.
3. Process the pick and shipment, which encompasses:
• Creating the inventory pick
• Ensuring that the picked quantity is recorded
• Posting the pick and shipment
Step by Step
1. On the SILVER location card, deselect the Require Shipmentfield.
2. Click Warehouse→Orders & Contacts→Sales Orders.
3. Press F3 to create a new sales order with the following information:
A salesperson at Cronus creates a sales order for 30 units of item 1900-S and 52
units of item 1908-S for customer 30000.
The warehouse worker must perform a series of activities to ship items to the
customer.
Challenge Yourself
1. Create and release the sales order.
2. Process the pick and shipment, which encompasses:
• Creating a warehouse shipment document
• Creating a warehouse pick document
• Registering the pick
• Posting the shipment
Step by Step
1. Click Warehouse→Orders & Contacts→Sales orders.
2. Press F3 to create one new sales order with the following
information:
When the user adjusts quantities in a warehouse that is set up for mandatory bin
usage, the program creates both item ledger entries and warehouse entries when
the user posts the journal.
The following scenario describes how movements and adjustments are performed
with warehousing in Microsoft Dynamics NAV.
The manager must perform a series of steps to ensure that the movement of items
from one bin to another is recorded accurately in the program.
Now that all the necessary fields are visible, fill in the fields of the journal. The
fields can be filled in individually but, for an example like this one where the full
content of one bin must be moved to another bin, the user can apply the Get Bin
Content function to speed up the process.
3. In the Location Code field, select the Silver location and look up
from the Bin Code field to open the Bin List window.
4. Select the line for bin code S-02-0002, the bin whose contents must
be moved, and then click OK.
The item reclassification journal now contains a line for item LS-120 specifying
the bin code from which the item is to be moved and the quantity currently
contained in that bin.
6. In the New Bin Code field, enter S-02-0001, the bin code to which
the contents must be moved.
7. Press F11 (or click Posting→Post). Click Yes to confirm the posting.
The program posts the movement by creating two warehouse entries, one
indicating the decrease in contents in bin code S-02-0002 and another indicating
increase in bin code S-02-0001, without creating item ledger entries.
1. Open an item journal. Use the Show Column function to make the
Bin Code field visible.
2. In the Entry Type field, select Negative Adjustment, and in the Item
No. field, enter LS-120. In the Location Code field, select the Silver
location.
The program fills in the Bin Code field with the item's default bin. To make sure
that this bin contains the quantity to be adjusted, check the bin contents by
looking up from the field.
3. In the Quantity field of the item journal, enter 5. This is the quantity
to be adjusted.
The program creates item ledger entries and warehouse entries that adjust the
quantity in the bin to reflect the change.
The warehouse manager needs to move all available loudspeakers, item number
LS-75, to another bin in Silver location to make room for repairs to the default
bin.
Challenge Yourself
Create an item reclassification journal line that moves all units of items LS-75
currently in bin S-01-0001 to the closest empty bin in Silver location.
Step by Step
1. Click Warehouse→Inventory→Item Reclass. Journals.
2. In the Location Codefield, enter Silver.
3. Look up up the Bin Codefield and find S-01-0001.
4. Notice the value in the Quantityfield (750 pcs).
5. Look up from the New Bin Codefield and select the first bin code
that has the Empty field selected.
6. In the Quantityfield, enter the quantity of all the items that are
currently in bin S-01-0001 (750 pcs).
7. Press F11 to post the movement.
Summary
Efficiency, data accuracy, and reliability in warehousing operations are of utmost
importance to the bottom line of competitive companies. To guarantee short
order handling time, items must be quickly found in the warehouse. Additionally,
warehouse workers must be able to focus on carrying out physical movements
rather than spending time in front of computers recording information. Moreover,
in companies that experience high turnover of warehouse workers, the ability to
train them quickly in how to use the program is highly relevant.
2. In the Bin Content window, what do the Fixed and Default fields mean?
3. Suppose that you have the Put-away granule and the Bin granule, but not the
Receipt granule. What documents do you use to post the receipt and put-
away of a purchase order?
( ) Post receipt from the purchase order and post put-away from the
warehouse put-away document.
( ) Post both receipt and put-away from the inventory put-away document.
( ) Post both receipt and put-away from the warehouse receipt document.
( ) Post both receipt and put-away from the purchase order.
4. When you use the Bin granule and post a transaction such as a receipt of an
item to a bin, the program creates ____________ entries in addition to item
ledger entries and value entries.
5. If you used the Bin granule, how do you record a movement from one bin to
another bin in Microsoft Dynamics NAV?
1.
2.
3.
Solutions
Test Your Knowledge
1. Where in Microsoft Dynamics NAV do you set up the warehousing options
that trigger the different warehousing features, such as receipt handling or
pick handling?
location card.
2. In the Bin Content window, what do the Fixed and Default fields mean?
MODEL ANSWER - In the Bin Content window, the Fixed field indicates
that the bin normally contains the item. The Default field indicates that the
program must always suggest this bin when the user performs a transaction
3. Suppose that you have the Put-away granule and the Bin granule, but not the
Receipt granule. What documents do you use to post the receipt and put-
away of a purchase order?
( ) Post receipt from the purchase order and post put-away from the
warehouse put-away document.
(•) Post both receipt and put-away from the inventory put-away document.
( ) Post both receipt and put-away from the warehouse receipt document.
( ) Post both receipt and put-away from the purchase order.
4. When you use the Bin granule and post a transaction such as a receipt of an
item to a bin, the program creates ____________ entries in addition to item
ledger entries and value entries.
5. If you used the Bin granule, how do you record a movement from one bin to
another bin in Microsoft Dynamics NAV?
MODEL ANSWER - If you used the Bin granule, you record a movement of
items from one bin to another by using the item reclassification journal.
to create physical inventory journal lines for a location with bins, it is not
Introduction
As the flow of goods in the modern supply chain becomes more complex, the
ability to keep track of items increases in importance to the companies in the
supply chain. While monitoring an item's transaction flow can be obligatory in
certain businesses (for instance, those dealing with hazardous products), other
businesses may find it advantageous to monitor products that are associated with
warranties or have expiration dates.
The functionality is based on using serial and lot numbers and allows the user to
receive and ship multiple quantities with serial and lot numbers from a single
order line entry. Item tracking entries, which represent the transaction history of
each individual item with serial and/or lot numbers, are the records used to trace
an item along its movement through the supply chain.
Based on careful planning, Cronus has set up a number of item tracking codes
that are applied to certain items.
The Item Tracking Codes window contains a list of six item tracking codes
created at Cronus. The details of each tracking code are specified on the item
tracking code card.
The fields on the General tab specify the code name and the description for the
item tracking code. As the contents of these fields indicate, items to which this
code is applied are tracked by a lot number.
Since this tracking code is applied only to items with lot numbers, the Serial No.
tab is not set up for this code.
4. Click the Lot No. tab and select the Lot Warehouse Tracking field.
The fields on the Lot No. tab specify the details of the item tracking by lot
number as well as the operational area where the tracking is applied.
Selecting the Lot Specific Tracking field indicates that when handling an
outbound unit of the item in question, you must always specify which existing lot
number to handle. This means that when you sell a unit of the item, it must be
applied against a specific pool of lot numbers in inventory. In other words, a lot
number assigned to the item when it is entered into inventory must follow that
item type out of inventory.
NOTE: The program does not allow a user to remove a check mark from this
field if the program detects that item tracking entries exist for items to which
this tracking code is applied.
In the remaining check mark fields, the user can define in which operational
area(s) and on what stage of the item flow (inbound, outbound, or both) the
program must apply lot tracking. This is done by placing check marks in the
corresponding field(s).
For instance, for the item tracking code in question, Cronus has decided to
require lot tracking on inbound and outbound documents in all areas. This means
that the user must enter a lot number on the item tracking line before posting any
purchase, sale, and positive or negative adjustment entries for items with this
item tracking code setting. This decision is reflected in the setup, where the
corresponding fields contain check marks.
Selecting the Lot No. Info. Must Exist field (inbound or outbound) indicates
that documents with positive entry for items that require lot numbers cannot be
posted before lot number information is created.
Selecting the Lot Warehouse Tracking field indicates that a lot number is
required for every warehouse activity.
Selecting the Lot Transfer Tracking field indicates that a lot number is required
on the item tracking line before item transfer lines can be posted. The check mark
in this field cannot be deleted once a check mark is placed in the Lot Specific
Tracking field.
The fields on this tab define two additional parameters related to a specific item
tracking code: warranty date and expiration date.
In the Warranty Date Formula field, the user can enter a formula that the
program uses to calculate the warranty date on the item tracking line entries for
items that require a serial or lot number.
Selecting the Man. Warranty Date Entry Reqd. field indicates that a warranty
date on the item tracking line for items with serial or lot numbers must be entered
manually before a document with entries for these items can be posted.
Selecting the Man. Expir. Date Entry Reqd. field indicates that an expiration
date on the item tracking line for items with serial or lot numbers must be entered
manually before a document with entries for these items can be posted.
Selecting the Strict Expiration Posting field indicates that an expiration date
assigned to the item tracking number as it entered inventory must be respected
when it exits inventory. This option is mostly used for items that cannot be used
after they expire. This field relates to the Expiration Calculation field on the
Item Tracking tab of an item card. The program does not allow posting of a
document with entries for the items when it detects that the posting takes place
after the expiration date.
Because warranties and expiration dates are irrelevant to the items to which the
LOTALL item tracking code is applied, the fields on the Misc. tab are not
activated.
You have now looked at the setup of one of the item tracking codes: LOTALL. It
is recommended that you now learn the setup of the other item tracking codes
created at Cronus because these codes have been applied to some existing items
used in examples in the following sections.
Item tracking code, serial/lot numbers, and expiration calculation are item
properties that are a part of every posting record for that item. Therefore, these
properties must be set up before the item has been involved in any transaction. In
other words, a company must set up item tracking information when they add
items to their inventory file (that is, while creating item cards).
If a company wants to start tracking an item for which posting records already
exist, they must create a new item card and on that new card set up the relevant
item tracking information.
Among the items that have been set up for item tracking are items 80102-T and
80218-T.
Notice that the SNALL item tracking code is selected for this item. This means
that the program requires the user to apply serial numbers to this item at all
stages of item handling, except warehousing, before the posting of the
corresponding entries is allowed. Open the item tracking code card for the
SNALL code to see the setup details. The number series for the serial numbers
when assigned to this item is SN1. The item is not tracked by lot number.
3. Go to the item tracking code card for SNALL code and select the SN
Warehouse Tracking field.
The selection of LOTSNSALES in the Item Tracking Code field indicates that
serial numbers are required for this item when you are posting the sales entries
and that lot numbers are required when you post all entries (except warehouse
documents). Open the item tracking code card for the LOTSNSALES code to see
the setup details. The number series for the lot numbers assigned to this item is
LOT. There is no number series for serial numbers set for this item.
5. Go to the item tracking code card for LOTSNSALES code and select
the Lot Warehouse Tracking field.
Vendors’ numbers * *
New numbers * * *
Enter numbers
automatically:
Assign new * * *
numbers
Define and assign * *
customized
numbers
Other companies may want item tracking applied to items only when they are
sold to the customers, rather than from the moment they arrive at a warehouse.
Still others may choose to track items from the moment they are purchased up to
the moment they are sold. The way of handling the shipment of items with item
tracking required at the point of sale depends on a company's decision concerning
item tracking on the purchase side.
Assign own *
numbers
Enter numbers
manually:
Enter numbers *
manually
The following sections explain some of the most common processes through the
use of scenarios.
Another situation where inbound serial/lot numbers require handling is the output
of produced items with serial/lot numbers.
The person receiving the items must enter the serial/lot numbers for the arrived
items in the program.
1. Create a purchase order for five units of item 80103-T, five units of
item 80218-T, and seven units of item 80208-T for vendor 50000, to
be received at the BLUE location.
Because of item tracking codes that are applied to the first two items, SNALL,
and LOTSNSALES, the program requires the entry of serial numbers on the item
tracking lines for the first item and the entry of lot numbers for the second item
before the receipt can be posted. If a purchaser attempts to post the receipt
without entering the serial numbers, the program gives the following message:
NOTE: You cannot use negative quantities in sales and purchase when you are
using item tracking.
2. In the Purchase Order window, select the first line and click
Line→Item Tracking Lines.
The Item Tracking Lines window is used to record detailed information for an
item concerning serial/lot numbers. The top panel of this window contains a
summary of the information on the lines, including the name and description of
the item tracking code applied to a particular item.
The user can enter serial numbers for the item in the following ways:
Suppose that to assign the serial numbers at the receipt of the purchase order in
an efficient way, a warehouse person chooses to run the Create Customized SN
function.
By entering a number in the Increment field, you define the increase between
values of two sequential numbers in the number series.
5. In the Increment field, enter 1. This number reflects the fact that the
serial numbers assigned by vendor 50000 to five units of item 80103-
T increase by one.
The Quantity to Create field contains the quantity on the line by default. You
can modify it, if necessary.
The program creates five individual serial numbers starting from SN-85C31 and
ending at SN-85C35 and creates corresponding item tracking lines:
Notice that the Undefined fields on the top panel are blank. This is because all
individual items on the purchase line have been assigned an item tracking line. If
the user created item tracking lines with less quantity than the quantity in the
Qty. to Receive field on the purchase line, then there will be an undefined
quantity, and the purchase order will not be posted until the full quantity is
assigned.
Proceed to assign a lot number to the purchase line for item 80218-T.
All five units of item 80218-T are part of the same lot
NOTE: For purchase orders with more than one line, if item tracking lines
have not been created for at least one line, the purchase order is not posted. To
post the order, the quantity in the Qty. to Receive field for the line(s) with
missing item tracking lines must be zero.
In the Item Ledger Entry table, the program posts the information about serial/lot
numbers that was recorded for the items in the posted purchase order.
The following scenario shows how to assign serial/lot numbers partially during
receipt/put-away process using an inventory put-away document (requires the
Put-away granule).
NOTE: Partial handling of item tracking numbers is possible from any type of
order or warehouse document.
The units must be placed at Silver location, bin number S-02-0001. The purchase
order must not be invoiced until it is completely received.
To perform this scenario, make sure that Silver location is set up to require Put-
away and not Receive.
1. Create the purchase order for Silver location for three units of item
80102-T.
2. In the Qty. to Receive field, enter 3.
3. Release the order.
When the next receipt is to be handled, the warehouse worker repeats steps 8-10
with the remaining two lines.
To enable the demonstration “Pick the First Serial Number to Expire” later in this
chapter, begin by buying five items and apply expiration dates before posting
them to inventory.
Scenario: A warehouse worker is about to receive four used 17” monitors and
must assign different expiration dates to each monitor.
1. Create a purchase order for any vendor on work date with this
purchase line:
Item Location Quantity
80102-T BLUE 4
2. Open the Item Tracking Lines window and add the Expiration
Date field to your view.
3. Create the following item tracking lines:
Serial no. Expiration Date Qty.
SN00021 01/24/08 1
SN00022 01/24/07 1
SN00023 01/24/06 1
SN00024 01/24/09 1
NOTE: Make sure that the expiration dates are created as shown for each
serial number, because it will make it easier to illustrate later how the system
sorts the item ledger entries when outbound.
The program ensures that serial/lot numbers are synchronized between the sale
and the purchase. The Information in the Item Tracking Lines window is locked
for editing during the drop shipment process. For more detail, refer to "Transfer
Serial/Lot Numbers," which is governed by similar principles.
When the produced item is entered on an output journal line, after ended
manufacturing, the assigned serial/lot numbers are still attached. Thereby, the
posted output provides item tracking entries for future tracing of the produced
item.
NOTE: The detailed procedures for how to transfer items between locations are
described in "Transfer Between Locations" in this course.
Although shipped complete from the Blue warehouse, the order arrives at the
Red warehouse in two shipments of two and three units.
Warehouse persons shipping the order from the Blue location and receiving it at
the Red location must ensure that the information concerning serial numbers is
recorded correctly.
1. Create a transfer order for five units of item 80103-T for the Blue to
the Red locations.
Before shipping the order, the warehouse worker must enter the serial numbers of
the individual items to be shipped:
Five units of item 80103-T are currently in transit. Suppose now that the first two
units arrive at the Red location. When receiving the items, the warehouse person
must enter the serial numbers of the arrived items.
The fields in the top panel of the Item Tracking Lines window specify order
quantity and quantity to receive on both the transfer order and the associated item
tracking lines. The lines specify individual serial numbers and quantities entered
when the order was shipped.
The warehouse worker can enter the serial numbers of the arrived items by
changing the quantities in the Qty. to Handle (Base) field to zero for those item
serial numbers that have not yet arrived. Additionally, he or she must ensure that
the serial numbers on the lines correspond to the serial numbers of the arrived
items.
Suppose that items with serial numbers from S/N-85C33 to S/N-85C35 are not
among the two units that arrived at the Red warehouse.
8. In the Qty. to Handle (Base) field for lines with serial numbers from
S/N-85C33 to S/N-85C35, enter 0.
As in the case of all other inbound and outbound item transactions with serial/lot
numbers, the posting of the transfer order results in the program posting records
containing serial or lot numbers to the item tracking entries table, where they can
be used to trace items.
10. Open the item card for item 80103-T and click Item→Entries→Item
Tracking Entries.
The records in the Item Tracking Entries window reflect the transaction history
of each individual unit of the item.
Notice that three items with serial numbers from S/N-85C33 to S/N-85C35 are
still in transit, as indicated by the corresponding quantities in the Remaining
Quantity field at the in-transit location OUT. LOG.
NOTE: When receiving a transfer, all the other fields of the Item Tracking
Lines form are locked for writing. This is to ensure that item tracking numbers
remain unchanged.
Suppose that the remaining three units of item 80103-T arrive at the Red
warehouse. The warehouse person must enter the serial numbers of the arrived
items.
If the user tries to change the quantity in the Qty. to Handle (Base) field for
lines with serial numbers that have already been received, the program gives the
following warning message:
13. Close the Item Tracking Lines window and post the final receipt of
the transfer order.
When the serial/lot number information cards create a new serial/lot number
information card, users can copy from existing serial number or lot number
information cards by selecting from the Serial No. information List window.
Serial/lot information cards hold information about how many of the serial/lot
numbers are expired, in the Expired Inventory field.
Scenario: The warehouse worker, must change the expiration date of a particular
serial number on the 17” M780 Monitor. It was wrongly entered as 01/24/09 and
must be changed to 01/24/07. The worker must also record the change in a serial
number information card with an attached comment, and then group all expired
monitors into a new lot called EXLOT.
4. Open the Item Tracking Lines window, look up from the Serial No.
field and select SN00024 (earliest expiration date).
Notice that the expiration date assigned when the monitor entered inventory is
displayed as shaded to indicate that it cannot be edited on the item tracking line.
Before changing the expiration date, review the serial number information card.
6. Go back to the item tracking line and change the preset date in the
New Expiration Date field to 01/24/06 (two years before work
date).
7. Open the serial number information card again and enter the text
“Expired” in the Description field.
SN00024 now has the correct expiration date and the inventory worker can
continue to group all expired monitors under a new lot number.
10. Create the following item reclassification journal line on work date:
11. Open the Item Tracking Lines window and use the Select Entries
function to select the two oldest available monitors.
As all four items carry expiration dates, the system suggests SN00023 and
SN00024 (earliest expiration dates). Refer also to the demonstration titled “Select
the First Serial Number to Expire”.
12. Click OK to carry the suggested lines to the Item Tracking Lines
window.
Before creating the new lot, review the result of the first reclassification of
SN00024.
13. Select the item tracking line of SN00024 (now expires 01/24/06) and
open its serial number information card.
14. On each item tracking line, enter EXLOT in the New Lot No. field.
15. With the pointer on the item tracking line of SN00023, click
Line→New Serial No. Information, and then Functions→Copy Info.
Notice that a list of all existing serial number information records is provided
from which users can drill down to detailed information and copy to the new
information card.
16. Click OK to create the same information and comment for SN00023
as for SN00024.
17. Close the comment, information card, and item tracking lines
windows and then post the reclassification journal (press F11).
The two expired monitors are now reentered into inventory with complete serial
number information cards and grouped in one lot.
This completes the description and demonstration of improved usability for the
reclassification of serial/lot numbers.
Scenario: The warehouse worker in charge of location BLUE must perform the
annual count of inventory items carrying serial/lot numbers. The worker initiates
the process by filling the physical inventory journal with calculated inventory
quantities, prints the Physical Inventory List report, and continues to do the
physical counting. In the process, the worker records that one M780 monitor is
missing and that a forgotten lot of ten hard disks are found.
Notice that serial/lot numbers are listed in extra information columns under the
item in question. The quantity of each (here, all the items are serialized) is shown
in the Quantity (Base) field and each serial/lot number has a separate line in
which to enter the counted quantity.
With the printout in hand, the warehouse worker now goes into BLUE warehouse
to perform a detailed physical inventory, down to serial numbers.
Notice that on the line of item 80102-T, the worker enters 3 on the empty line
behind the calculated 4, and then he enters 1 for each counted serial/lot number,
to indicate which one is missing. Regarding the ten found hard disks, the worker
enters this count at the bottom of the sheet and remind himself that they must be
recorded under a new lot number.
NOTE: The warehouse worker does not count the three computer packages as
they are currently requested on open sales orders, therefore, the negative
figures.
9. Look up from the Serial No. field, select SN00021, and close the
Item Tracking Lines window.
10. In the physical inventory journal, select the line for item 80218-T,
Hard Disk.
11. Change the Qty. (Phys. Inventory) field to 15 (existing five plus the
ten found) and access the Item Tracking Lines window.
12. Click Functions→Create Customized SN.
13. Enter SN01 in the Customized SN field.
14. Select the Create New Lot No. field, and then click OK.
Go back to the physical inventory journal and post the inventory adjustments,
carrying the recorded serial/lot number details.
In the situation where a company chooses to assign their own serial and lot
numbers, it is important to emphasize that the more consistently a company sets
up their number series for serial and lot numbers, the more efficient the process.
NOTE: This formula implies that the serial/lot number availability calculation
only considers inventory and ignores projected receipts.
The availability overview is provided within one central lookup window. This is
dynamically named and adapted depending on which of these it is opened by
using:
Both selection methods take the user to the Item Tracking Summary window
(dynamically named depending on where it is opened from). This displays
availability information for each serial/lot number about:
Refer to the demonstration “Selling from a Specific Lot” for detailed descriptions
of the user tasks involved in guaranteeing that a customer receives items from a
specific requested lot – without making reservations.
Scenario: Cronus customer 20000 places an order for five units of item 80208-T.
The order is to be shipped from the Blue warehouse and must be assigned serial
numbers for future item tracing.
The salesperson creates the sales order. After the warehouse worker has picked
the items from inventory, he assigns the serial numbers in questions to the item
tracking lines of the sales line. This process is mostly done with some sort of bar
code reader. If the warehouse worker forgets and tries to ship without serial
numbers, the program will block the process according to the rules of the SNALL
item tracking code, namely that serial numbers must be assigned.
1. Create the sales order for five units of item 80208-T to customer
20000 to be shipped from Blue location.
Because of the item tracking code applied to the item, SNSALES, the program
requires of the warehouse worker that serial numbers are assigned on the item
tracking lines for item 80208-T before the order can be posted.
2. Select the sales line for item 80208-T and click Line→Item Tracking
Lines.
This item is usually purchased without serial/lot numbers but it is required (by
the item tracking code applied to this item) to be sold with serial numbers. The
person shipping the order must therefore enter the serial numbers for this item.
Because there is a number series for serial numbers set up for this item, entry of
the serial numbers can be done automatically:
By default, the Quantity to Create field contains the quantity copied from the
sales line. If necessary, the user can modify this quantity.
4. Click OK.
The program automatically assigns serial numbers to each individual unit of the
item:
Notice that the Availability, Serial No. field has a warning icon. In this scenario,
where new serial numbers are only assigned, not selected from inventory, the
warnings do not make much sense, except they indicate that the serial numbers in
question are obviously not in inventory. Refer to “Sell from a Specific Lot” for a
relevant demonstration.
NOTE: Item 80216-T is set up with lot-specific tracking. This means that
outbound transactions with this item must be assigned a lot number selected
from inventory (fully applied). It can be any lot number. However, it must exist
in inventory.
The customer, Cannon Group PLC, is skeptical of the quality of the cables, and
has requested that the ten cables be from the same batch as their last delivery,
LOT0002, which are all working well.
Before this sales negotiation, another order processor has already randomly
selected some of the available Ethernet cables from LOT0002 for another
customer who is not concerned with the lot number.
The order processor dealing with the Cannon Group can communicate the exact
availability of LOT0002 and agree on a compromise offer when the customer is
on the telephone.
HINT: To auto-assign the lot numbers from number series, click Functions,
Assign Lot No.
2. After posting the item journal, open the item ledger entries of item
80216-T.
3. Add the Lot No. field to your view.
The resulting item ledger entries for item 80216-T must be as follows.
Data is now created and ready to start the sales order process.
Continue with the steps of the other order processor, who auto-selects twelve
pieces from any lot.
4. Create this sales order line for any customer on work date:
5. Open the Item Tracking Lines window and then click Functions,
Select Entries.
The Item Tracking – Select Entries window (an adapted display of the Item
Tracking Summary window) provides an overview of the serial/lot number
availability for item 80216-T.
The Selected Quantity field is preset with a suggested selection of the needed
quantity, ordered by lot and serial number sequence. Users can edit the suggested
quantities as they like, if there is only one of each serial number, before they
copy the selected quantities to the item tracking lines.
Now that the unspecified sales order is created by using ten pieces from
LOT0002 and two pieces from LOT0003 that are committed and awaiting
posting, create the specified sales order for ten pieces from LOT0003.
7. Create this sales order line for Cannon Group PLC on work date:
FIGURE 6.37 WARNING ICON INDICATES THAT NOT ALL TEN ARE
AVAILABLE
Notice that a yellow triangle icon is displayed in the Availability, Lot No. field.
This is an availability warning to indicate that one or more values entered on the
item tracking line is not feasible according to the availability of LOT0003. (The
warning icon acts on values in the Serial No., Lot No. and Quantity (Base)
fields.)
9. Click the icon in the Availability, Lot No. field to see details.
The order processor is now aware that only eight Ethernet cables with LOT00003
are available, and that the last two must be selected from another lot.
10. Close the availability details for LOT0003 and change the value in
the Quantity (Base) from 10 to 8.
The warning icon disappears to indicate that those eight are available and can be
committed to the sales order. However, as indicated in the Undefined column in
the header of the Item Tracking Lines window, two must still be selected from
inventory for this sales order.
11. In the second (empty) item tracking line, look up from the Lot No.
field to select from the current availability of lot numbers for the
Ethernet cable at BLUE location.
Notice in the second line that the current pending quantity is 8. This indicates
that the entry performed in step 10 has not yet been committed to the database as
the Item Tracking Lines window has not been closed. (The first line represents
the ten pieces selected by the other order processor in step 6 of this
demonstration.)
The order processor informs the customer that only eight Ethernet cables from
LOT0003 are available, and that the last two will be from LOT0004. The
customer agrees to the terms.
12. Put the pointer in the last line (LOT0004) and then click OK.
Notice that the system has selected the needed quantity of two from LOT0004.
To ensure that no other users have been trying to select these serial/lot numbers
when they were not committed to the database, the order processor uses a
function that updates availability calculations across all concurrent writing of
serial/lot numbers in the database.
In this case, no other users have selected from the involved lot numbers and
therefore there are no availability conflicts.
However, if, for example, the other order processor had gone in to select more
pieces of LOT0002, the system will give this warning upon running the refresh
function:
“The data used for availability calculation has been updated. There are
availability warnings on one or more lines.”
Also, the yellow warning icon will be displayed on the affected item tracking
lines, to both users in each of their instance of the window.
14. Close the Item Tracking Lines window. The selections are
committed to the database.
The order processor has now secured the requested lot numbers and can move on
to the next customer, reassured that the Cannon Group order can be posted
successfully at any time.
The following demonstrates how outbound order handlers can use the extra level
of availability control offered with the handling of serial/lot numbers across
multiple bins. It also shows how to easily select multiple serial/lot numbers in
one action.
Start by adjusting the SNALL item tracking code to use a default number series
for serial and lot numbers, and then enter item-tracked inventory to a particular
bin in SILVER location:
Now this item tracking code is ready for a demonstration of selecting serial and
lot numbers from specific bins.
3. Open an item journal and add the Bin Code field to your view.
4. Enter serial/lot numbers into different bins by creating the following
positive inventory adjustments on work date:
Setup and data is now ready to start the transfer order processing. Continue to
select available serial/lot numbers to transfer.
The warehouse manager creates the transfer order for 14 pieces, but upon
selecting serial/lot numbers from bin S-04-0001, notices that only ten are
available and decides to supplement with four pieces from another bin.
5. Open a transfer order and add the Transfer-from Bin Code field.
6. Create this transfer order on work date (you must manually select
any in-transit code):
Notice that, although the transfer line quantity is 14, the Select Entries function
only pre-selects what is available in the specified bin, namely ten pieces.
The warehouse manager clearly sees that the bin only contains ten and decides to
look into supplying the last four from another bin.
The warehouse manager sees that the hard disk drive is also available in bin S-
04-0002. She selects it to determine which and how many serial/lot numbers the
bin holds.
12. Select the second bin content line, and then click OK.
13. Enter 4 in the Quantity field.
14. Reopen the Item Tracking Lines window and use the Select Entries
function.
Notice that because the new transfer order line specifies bin S-04-0002, the
Select Entries window now shows availability details for that bin only and has
pre-selected the requested quantity.
15. Click OK to select the four serial/lot numbers for the second transfer
line.
The warehouse manager can now continue to have the items picked for the
transfer shipment, reassured that bin S-04-0001 is emptied and that the requested
quantity of 14 will be transferred to BLUE location.
The following demonstrates how to store and handle serial/lot numbers according
to their expiration date. This functionality is required in certain industries (for
example those under the American Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and is
useful for perishable goods. Therefore, the following scenario may seem
unrealistic as it uses computer hardware from the Cronus demonstration data.
Scenario: An order processor is about to sell one 17” M780 Monitor. This
particular model shows bigger repair frequency the longer it is stored in
inventory before sale. Expiration date control functions within the system help
the order processor pick the monitor with the earliest expiration date.
1. Create this sales order line for any customer on work date:
Notice that the available items are sorted by expiration date, and that the system
has pre-selected the monitor that expires first.
Notice in the Item Tracking Lines window that the existing expiration date is
shaded. This indicates that the date was recorded as it entered inventory and
cannot be changed, except by reclassification. Refer to “Change Expiration Date
and Group in Lot.”
A purchaser at Cronus places an order with vendor 10000 for 20 units of item
80216-T. The vendor usually ships this item with lot numbers. This time they
shipped the order with two lots - 8 units in lot L/N-HW301 and 12 units in lot
L/N-HW320. The order must be shipped to the Blue location.
Cronus customer 10000 places an order for 15 units of item 80216-T. The order
should be shipped from the Blue warehouse.
Challenge Yourself
1. Create a purchase order for 20 units of item 80216-T for vendor
10000 to Blue location.
2. Handle the purchase order according to the rules set up for the item
in the item tracking code. Register the vendor's lot numbers for the
arrived items.
3. Receive and invoice the order.
4. Create a sales order for 15 units of item 80216-T for customer
10000.
5. Handle the sales order according to the rules set up for the item in
the item tracking code. Look up and select the available lot numbers.
6. Ship and invoice the order.
Step by Step
1. Click Purchase→Order Processing→Orders.
2. Press F3 to create a new purchase order.
3. Enter 10000 in the Buy-from Vendor No.field.
4. Create a purchase line with the following information:
The warehouse worker, must pick five hard disk drives from expiration date-
controlled inventory at SILVER location. No serial/lot numbers are specified on
the sales order and he therefore relies on the system to auto-pick the items with
the earliest expiration dates.
Challenge Yourself
1. Set SILVER location up to require pick and pick according to FEFO.
2. Post 10 pieces of item 80103-T to bin S-04-0001 in SILVER location
with an expiration date of 01/24/08 (work date).
3. Create a sales order for 5 17” monitors from SILVER location. Do
not define item tracking lines; release it.
4. Create an inventory pick for SILVER location and get the sales order
as source document.
5. Show the Serial No.and Lot No. fields in the inventory pick
document.
Step by Step
1. Click Warehouse→Setup→Locations.
2. Open the card for Silver location.
3. Select the Require Pickfield on the Warehouse tab.
4. Select the Pick According to FEFOfield on the Bin Policies tab.
5. Open an item journal and create a positive inventory adjustment with
the following information:
20. Look up in the any of the Serial No.fields and verify that among all
the available inventory of item 80103-T in Silver location, bin S-04-
0001, the serial numbers with expiration dates are auto-picked first.
Moreover, when errors occur during item flow, the errors must be identified and
affected items must be prevented from leaving the company. If defective items
have already been shipped, it is important to trace who received them and, if it is
required, to recall them.
The first aspect of defects management is to investigate where the defective items
were used. This investigation is based on historic data and is facilitated in
Microsoft Dynamics NAV by searching through item tracking entries using the
Item Tracing window.
The second aspect of defects management is to determine if the tracked items are
planned for in open documents, such as unposted sales orders or consumption
journals. This work can be done in the extended Navigate window. Refer to the
lesson titled Navigate with Serial/Lot Numbers.
Design Concepts
The item tracing feature is designed with three basic limitations:
Accordingly, it tracks through the history of item ledger entries carrying serial/lot
numbers and answers questions such as:
The answers are presented in the Item Tracing window as a chain of all the
posted documents the item flowed through, sorted either backward or forward in
the chain depending on the trace method.
Traceability Features
The most important user requirement in item tracking is to present data in a
transparent way where the user controls the view. A search in item tracking
entries can result in many records, and if all records are presented at one time
they can be difficult to use. It is also important for a search engine to have
effective search filters and functions and also the ability to keep track of the
search history. The Item Tracing window fulfills these requirements with the
following features.
Expandable/Collapsible Lines
Expanded lines are indented under their preceding trace line in order to provide
additional transparency of the item's flow through a supply chain.
The different views are selected from the Functions button, or by clicking +/-
icons in the Expand/Collapse field of each line.
Search Filters
Four main filters can be used to delimit the search:
• Serial No.
• Lot No.
• Item
• Variant
All four filter fields have lookup buttons for selecting data from master data
records. Accordingly, only serial/lot numbers with information card records can
be selected from the Serial No. Filter and Lot No. Filter fields. However, any
serial/lot number can be entered directly in the fields.
NOTE: The lookup from the Serial No. Filter and Lot No. Filter fields opens
the new Serial No. Information List and Lot No. Information List windows
respectively. This new feature is also described in the course titled Item
Tracking - Usability in the lesson titled Serial/Lot Numbers and
Reclassification.
In addition to the basic filters, users can define to what extent production
components must be included by selecting one of these trace settings under the
Show Components field:
Usage - Origin
The Usage-Origin method traces the item starting from where it was used and
backward to where it came from. For example, if a manufactured item was sold
to a customer, the trace result shows the sales shipment line first. This can then
be expanded to show from which production order it came.
Origin - Usage
The Origin-Usage method traces the item starting from where it came and
forward to where it was used. For example, if a manufactured item was sold to a
customer, the trace result shows the finished production order first. This can then
be expanded to show in which sales shipment lines it was used.
Search History
In between the header and the lines part of the Item Tracing window is a narrow
band that shows at all times which filters and settings are used to generate the
trace result. This ever-changing string of settings works as a kind of search
history to provide overview as users browse through trace results.
Functions
The following functions are available from the Functions button.
The Set Filters with Line Values function inserts the values of the selected line in
the respective filter fields in the header and executes a trace. This function is
useful, for example, when the origin of the defective item is found and that
particular trace line must form the basis of additional tracking with the same
trace method.
The Trace Opposite - From Line function resembles the Set Filters with Line
Values function, except it executes the trace in the opposite direction. This
function is useful, for example, when the source of a defect is found and the
usage of that defect must be found - by tracing in the opposite direction. Refer to
the demonstration titled Trace from Origin to Usage.
Integration to Navigate
The Item Tracing feature searches through historic data only. Therefore, most
item tracking processes at some point incorporate the Navigate feature for a
listing of all records and documents where a particular serial/lot number occurs.
For this purpose, the Navigate window is extended with an Item Tracking tab.
Refer to “Navigate With Serial/Lot Numbers” in this chapter.
The Navigate window can be opened directly from the Item Tracing window
and will then be preset with Navigate results based on the serial/lot numbers that
are used as filters in the Item Tracing window.
The report can only contain eight of the columns available in the Item Tracing
window. But the user can easily define which to include. The report request form
contains eight lookup fields in which users can define for which columns the
trace result must be shown in the report, for example:
The report definitions made in the previous screen shot result in the following
report:
Notice that the report also has options to include the number and name of the
customer or vendor of traced sales or purchase documents. Accordingly, it is a
useful printout to reference when investigating an item flow.
When it is opened from, for example, a lot number information card, the lot
number and item number in question will be preset in the filter fields of the Item
Tracing window, and an initial trace with the default trace method is executed.
This completes the conceptual descriptions of the Item Tracing feature. In the
following are two short demonstrations illustrating a complete item tracking
process, starting with a trace of usage to origin and then a trace of origin to
usage. A demonstration of item tracking with Navigate based on the same
scenario is provided in the lesson titled Navigate for Serial/Lot Numbers.
This demonstrates how the system supports the initial defects management task
of identifying which items were defective and which vendor supplied them. It is
based on the trace method Origin - Usage.
Scenario: Ricardo, the quality controller, is acting on a sales return of item 1002,
Racing Bike. The customer, Selangorian Ltd., complained that the frame has
cracked welding seams. QC engineers have confirmed that the racing frame of
the returned bike is defective. The quality controller must now know determine:
From the sales department, the quality controller knows which sales shipment the
returned racing bike was shipped on and he knows that the serial number is SN1.
From the usage of item 1002 on that sales shipment, he must first trace the origin
to establish which lot number the faulty racing frame came from.
The results of this first item tracking task will identify which items were
defective and which vendor supplied them. Afterward, but in the same overall
tracking process, the quality controller must find all the sold racing bikes that
contain racing frames from the faulty lot so that those orders can be stopped or
recalled. This second item tracking task is performed by tracing from source to
origin. Refer to the demonstration titled Trace from Source to Origin.
16. Modify production BOM 1000 to contain item 2000, Racing Frame
(remember to recertify the BOM).
17. Create and post the following purchase order from the vendor
Custom Metals Incorporated:
18. Create and post the following purchase order from the vendor
Coolwood Technologies:
Continue to create one more production order using racing frames from LOT1.
30. Create and post this sales order to The Cannon Group PLC:
Continue to sell racing frames. The Cannon Group PLC also orders four separate
racing frames for their own assembly line.
NOTE: Do not post the last sales order (for five racing frames).
This completes the preparation of data to demonstrate the Item Tracing and
Navigate features. Now continue to the actual demonstration of the functionality.
Keep the default setting of Item-Tracked Only in the Show Components field,
and keep the default trace method of Usage - Origin.
3. Click Trace.
Notice that one sales shipment header matches the search criteria. Before
continuing the trace, verify that shipment 102033 is the one that shipped the
faulty racing bike to Selangorian Ltd.
4. Put the pointer on the tracing line and then click Line, Show
Document (or press Shift+F5) or use the lookup button in the
Description field.
The next posted document backward in the chain is the output posting from a
released production order. The next posted document backward after that is the
consumption posting from a released production order. Here the quality
controller sees that the racing frame carries LOT1.
The lowest posted document in this trace is the posted purchase receipt on which
racing frames with LOT1 entered inventory.
The complete supply chain with all trace lines expanded looks as follows:
The quality controller has now established which lot of racing frames was faulty
and he can look up from the last tracing line to see which vendor supplied them,
namely Custom Metals Incorporated.
At this point, QC engineers will examine the rest of LOT1 and then suggest a
purchase return process though the purchasing department.
The quality controller must now continue to determine if other posted documents
carried the faulty racing frames. Refer to the demonstration titled Trace from
Origin to Usage.
Scenario: The quality controller has established that the faulty racing frames
came from LOT1. He must now determine which other end items and/or other
sales shipments contain item 2000, LOT1?
One way to prepare the next trace is to manually enter LOT1 in the Lot No.
Filter filed and 2000 in the Item Filter field. However, this demonstration will
use the Trace Opposite - from Line function.
1. In the Item Tracing window that contains the results of the initial
trace of usage to origin, put the pointer on the line of the purchase
receipt (the last trace line) and then click Functions→Trace Opposite
- from Line.
Notice that the created trace result is based on the filters of the trace line for the
purchase receipt (LOT1 and item 2000) and on the opposite trace method,
namely Origin to Usage.
The first four trace lines refer to the sales shipment to Selangorian Ltd., which is
already resolved. The last line indicates to the quality controller that one more
racing bike, SN2, was produced in the same released production order, 101004,
and then sold with sales shipment 102034. The controller immediately informs
the sales department so that they can initiate a recall of the defective racing bike
from the customer, Cannon Group PLC.
At the same time, the controller can see from the last three trace lines that another
two items, SN3 and SN4, have been produced based on racing frames from
LOT1. He takes action to block these end items in inventory from being handled
any more.
Fortunately, the trace result reveals no other orders affected by the faulty lot of
racing frames, at least no orders that are represented by posted documents.
The item tracking tasks for this demonstration are now complete regarding the
Item Tracing window. However, as the item tracing feature is based on posted
entries only, the quality controller must continue to the Navigate feature to make
sure that LOT1 is not used in unposted documents. Refer to the demonstration
titled Find all Occurrences of LOT1
This completes the description of the Item Tracing feature and demonstrations of
how to use it for typical item tracking tasks.
A machine operator on the final assembly of the faulty racing bikes says she
noted on the very first production order header that the frame weldings seemed
weak.
Challenge Yourself
Use Item Tracing to find the first production order for the racing frame and verify
that the document has a comment record.
Step by Step
1. In the Item Tracing window, filter on item 2000 (press Tab after
typing).
2. Select a trace method of Origin to Usage.
3. Expand all trace lines with the Expand All function.
4. In the second trace line (of type Consumption), look up to the
production order.
5. Verify that a comment is created (click the Comment icon).
Navigate Window
This global item tracking functionality is provided with the Item Tracking tab in
the Navigate window.
This tab enables a global search in the database for all records that contain either
the serial number that is specified in the Serial No. field or the lot number that is
specified in the Lot No. field.
Notice that when both fields in the header contain a value to find, only records
where both values occur will be displayed. Accordingly, the search will typically
yield more results when only one field is filled. This search limitation does not
apply to records of type Serial No. Information or Lot No. Information; they will
both be included in the result if an information card exists for each serial number
and lot number that is specified.
When the Navigate window is opened from, for example, a lot number
information card, the Lot No. field will be preset with that lot number. Refer to
the demonstration titled Find all Occurrences of LOT1.
Scenario: With the Item Tracing feature, the quality controller found out that
LOT1 contained the faulty racing frames. He must now determine if LOT1 exist
in any open documents.
1. In the Item Tracing window, put the pointer in the first trace line,
the purchase receipt of LOT1.
2. Click Navigate.
Notice that the window is preset with the search result for LOT1. The quality
controller recognizes most of the found records as pertaining to documents
already identified in the Item Tracing window. For example, the last Navigate
line of type Production Order refers to the two released production orders that
consumed racing frames from LOT1.
However, the second Navigate line of type Sales Line stands out as an unposted
document line, and the quality controller continues to investigate.
3. Put the pointer on the second Navigate line and then click the Show
button or drill down from the No. of Records field.
Here the quality controller sees one open sales line for the faulty racing frames.
He immediately suggests to the sales department that this order be canceled and a
new production order initiated - based on good racing frames.
This completes the description and short demonstration of the extended Navigate
function for item tracking and how it ties in to a complete defects management
process.
All printable documents and reports that hold item information can be set up to
also print related serial/lot number information by these features:
The feature is based on a generic report that can be set up to print serial/lot
numbers for a certain document type and number defined on the request form.
The report is accessed from the Documents menu folder of sales and purchases
navigation pane menus. For example, Sales and Marketing, Order Processing,
Documents, Item Tracking Appendix.
The Item Tracking Appendix report can be generated for business documents
based on the following tables:
• Sales header
• Sales Shipment Header
• Sales Invoice Header
• Purchase Header
This means that the report can be printed for all relevant sales and purchase
documents that use any of these four tables. These include quotes, invoices,
credit memos, returns, and blanket orders.
The suggested solution provides order handlers with the option to append
additional report pages that specify serial/lot numbers assigned to the items
specified in the main document printout, such as, for example, an order
confirmation. The figure is an example of the request form and printout of such a
customized report, namely the Item Tracking Appendix report for posted sales
shipments (this is included in the standard release).
Scenario: The Cannon Group PLC has requested that lot number information is
included with the order confirmation of their recent order for Ethernet cables.
1. Open the existing sales order for ten Ethernet cables to The Cannon
Group PLC.
2. Notice that the sales order number is 1003.
3. Click Sales & Marketing→Order Processing→Documents→Item
Tracking Appendix.
4. In the Item Tracking Appendix request form, enter Sales Order in
the Document field and 1002 in the Document No. field.
If no document number is defined, the report will print Item Tracking Appendix
report pages for all sales orders with serial/lot numbers.
The report can now be printed and/or sent to the customer as a specification of
serial/lot numbers together with the sales order confirmation.
The report calculates backward from the date in the Ending Date field and sets
up three periods of the length specified in the Period Length field. Accordingly,
this particular report will compare the current year with the two previous years.
Notice that the 17” and the 19” monitors are the only inventory items that carry
expiration dates. Concerning item 80102-T, two pieces expired in 2006, and one
piece expired in 2007.
This completes the description and short demonstration of the Item Expiration -
Quantity report that is aimed at users who manage or handle items with
expiration dates.
The concept of Late Binding makes sure that a non-specific reservation (user
does not care which) of a serial/lot number remains loosely coupled until posting.
At posting time, the system can reshuffle non-specific reservations to make sure
that fixed application is possible against serial/lot number actually picked. The
serial/lot number is meanwhile made available for specific reservation (user does
care which) in other documents requesting that particular serial/lot number.
NOTE: The Late Binding functionality only relates to items set up with specific
tracking and only applies to reservations against inventory, instead of to supply
such as purchase orders.
Specific Reservation
Late Binding introduces two new states for reservation entries, specific and non-
specific. A specific reservation is a regular reservation, that is, a rigid link
between supply and demand, where both carry serial/lot numbers. Notice that the
demand must carry serial/lot number to be a specific reservation.
Non-specific Reservation
A non-specific reservation is a state imposed by the system on reservation entries
for serial/lot numbers that are not selected specifically. In that case, the demand
does not carry serial/lot numbers, see figure 1-27.
Supply Demand
Specific SN/Lot SN/Lot
Non-Specific SN/Lot
Reshuffle
When a user posts an outbound document after picking the wrong serial/lot
number, the system reshuffles any other non-specific reservations to reflect the
actual serial/lot number that was picked. This satisfies the posting engine with a
rigid link (fixed application) between supply and demand.
For all supported business scenarios, reshuffling will only be possible against
positive item ledger entries that carry reservation and serial/lot numbers, but
without serial/lot numbers defined on the demand side.
The reasons that late binding system only focuses on reservations made against
inventory is that this is the most important customer problem, another is that the
implementation is less complex.
The late binding feature makes sure that users can enter the picked serial/lot
number without losing a reservation. The feature therefore makes sure that the
picked serial/lot number can be fully applied and posted.
This business scenario is supported with Late Binding functionality that makes
sure a user trying to reserve a particular serial/lot number, that is currently non-
specifically reserved, can do so. This is facilitated as the system tries to reshuffle
a non-specific reservation in order to free it for a specific request.
“XX of the Total Reserved Quantity are non-specific and may be available”.
The Non-specific Reserved Qty. field that displays how many reservation
entries are non-specific. By default, this field is not visible to users.
This business scenario is supported with Late Binding functionality that enables
fixed application and outbound posting of what was actually picked by
reshuffling other non-specific reservations of serial/lot numbers. If the system
cannot reshuffle, the standard inventory error (“cannot be fully applied”) will
appear when the user tries to ship.
Summary
Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 offers a comprehensive set of features for the
handling of serial/lot numbers when items are inbound, on inventory, and
ouitbound. In addition, the program provides the industry-required transparency
of item tracking information, whether for FEFO-managed inventory or for
quality control processes.
The Item Tracing feature in integration with Navigate means that Microsoft
Dynamics NAV can more easily meet certain traceability requirements of the
FDA and the EU. In all circumstances, it will greatly minimize the work load
involved in finding and recalling defective items.
3. Which are valid usability features in the Item Tracking Lines window?
(Select all that apply.)
( ) Availablity warning icons
( ) Search function
( ) Ability to select multiple entries
( ) Create Customized Lot function
7. Task: Outline the physical inventory counting process for serial/lot numbered
inventory (not WMS).
Step _____ : Go to the Item Tracking Lines window to specify ich serial/lot.
Step _____ : Print the physical inventory list with the Show Serial/Lot
Number.
Step _____ : Enter the counted quantities in the Qty. (Phys. Inventory) field
of.
8. You can check on the serial or lot number transactions that have been posted
by looking at what kind of entries?
( ) value entries
( ) item tracking entries or item ledger entries
( ) general ledger entries
( ) item tracing entries
9. What are the three basic preconditions of the Item Tracing feature? (Select
all that apply.)
( ) Items must be set up for specific tracking.
( ) Items must be set up with any item tracking code.
( ) It tracks items with serial/lot numbers only.
( ) It uses posted entries only.
10. Outline the business needs of the two trace methods respectively.
11. Which Item Tracing function is best suited when the source of a defect is
found and the usage of that defect must be found?
( ) Set Filters with Line Values
( ) Trace Opposite - From Line
( ) Set Filters with Line Values + trace with opposite trace method
( ) Trace opposite - From Line + Next Trace Result
12. Which statements are valid about the differences between Item Tracing and
Navigate? (Select all that apply.)
( ) Item Tracing shows open as well as posted entries containing the search
value.
( ) Navigate shows all records containing the search value.
( ) Navigate shows the relations between entries
( ) Item Tracing shows entry history
13. Which tables are enabled for customization of the Item Tracking Appendix
report by default.
( ) Sales header, Sales Shipment Header, Sales Invoice Header
( ) Sales Header, Purchase Header
( ) Sales header, Sales Shipment Header, Sales Invoice Header, Purchase
Header
( ) Sales Header, Shipment Header
14. Why can the Item Tracking Appendix report not be customized for
warehouse activity documents?
15. Name at least two warehouse reports that can be printed with serial/lot
numbers.
16. Which statements are true about the Item Expiration - Quantity report?
(Select all that apply.)
( ) The Item Expiration - Quantity report has same layout as the Item Age
Composition - Value report.
( ) The Item Expiration - Quantity report is based on expiration date.
( ) Item Expiration - Quantity report will only display inventory items with
expiration date.
( ) The Item Expiration - Quantity report is based on posting date.
1.
2.
3.
Solutions
Test Your Knowledge
1. To set up an item to be tracked by serial number, you first specify an
__________________ on the item card, which specifies which transactions
must contain a serial number for the item.
3. Which are valid usability features in the Item Tracking Lines window?
(Select all that apply.)
(√) Availablity warning icons
( ) Search function
(√) Ability to select multiple entries
( ) Create Customized Lot function
7. Task: Outline the physical inventory counting process for serial/lot numbered
inventory (not WMS).
Step 2 : Print the physical inventory list with the Show Serial/Lot Number.
Step 4 : Enter the counted quantities in the Qty. (Phys. Inventory) field of.
8. You can check on the serial or lot number transactions that have been posted
by looking at what kind of entries?
( ) value entries
(•) item tracking entries or item ledger entries
( ) general ledger entries
( ) item tracing entries
9. What are the three basic preconditions of the Item Tracing feature? (Select
all that apply.)
(√) Items must be set up for specific tracking.
( ) Items must be set up with any item tracking code.
(√) It tracks items with serial/lot numbers only.
(√) It uses posted entries only.
10. Outline the business needs of the two trace methods respectively.
MODEL ANSWER - Usage to Origin: This method traces the item starting
from where it was used and backward to where it came from. Origin to
Usage: This method traces the item starting from where it came and forward
11. Which Item Tracing function is best suited when the source of a defect is
found and the usage of that defect must be found?
( ) Set Filters with Line Values
(•) Trace Opposite - From Line
( ) Set Filters with Line Values + trace with opposite trace method
( ) Trace opposite - From Line + Next Trace Result
12. Which statements are valid about the differences between Item Tracing and
Navigate? (Select all that apply.)
( ) Item Tracing shows open as well as posted entries containing the search
value.
(√) Navigate shows all records containing the search value.
( ) Navigate shows the relations between entries
(√) Item Tracing shows entry history
13. Which tables are enabled for customization of the Item Tracking Appendix
report by default.
( ) Sales header, Sales Shipment Header, Sales Invoice Header
( ) Sales Header, Purchase Header
(•) Sales header, Sales Shipment Header, Sales Invoice Header, Purchase
Header
( ) Sales Header, Shipment Header
14. Why can the Item Tracking Appendix report not be customized for
warehouse activity documents?
those printed from worksheets and journals, may consist of split lines, which
15. Name at least two warehouse reports that can be printed with serial/lot
numbers.
Internal Pick Internal Put-Away Phys. Inventory List Whse. Phys. Inventory
List
16. Which statements are true about the Item Expiration - Quantity report?
(Select all that apply.)
( ) The Item Expiration - Quantity report has same layout as the Item Age
Composition - Value report.
(√) The Item Expiration - Quantity report is based on expiration date.
(√) Item Expiration - Quantity report will only display inventory items with
expiration date.
( ) The Item Expiration - Quantity report is based on posting date.
when the user simply reserves any item on the demand side - and the system
NOTE: The program systematically compares inventory receipts with outstanding sales
orders and indicates that a cross docking opportunity is available.
Noun and adjective forms: cross dock
delivery note
A note that accompanies a shipment and that lists the items in the shipment
Synonyms: advice note, accompanying note, dispatch note, covering note
expected receipt date
The date, calculated by the program, on which an inbound item will be available
for picking.
inventory
Items held in a store or a warehouse and purchased for resale, items used to
support production (raw materials and work-in-process) and items for
maintenance activities (including repair and operating supplies). The program
calculates inventory as the quantity of an item available in inventory.
item
A manufactured or purchased article, product, part or material that is part of
inventory. If a company has several locations, it stores inventory control
information about items or item variants at a particular location in the
stockkeeping unit for that item or item variant at that location.
item substitute
An item that can be offered to a customer as a substitute for an item that currently
is not available.
lead time
The time between recognition of the need for an order and the receipt of goods.
Individual components of lead time can include order preparation time, queue
time, processing time, move or transportation time, and receiving and inspection
time.
location
A physical structure or place where inventory is received, stored and shipped. A
location can be a warehouse, service car, showroom, plant or area within a plant.
negative adjustment
A reduction in inventory that is not due to a sale.
non-stock item
An item that a company sells but does not carry in inventory. A non-stock item is
often an item in a vendor catalog, also called a catalog item.
order date
The date on which the vendor must ship the items in order to meet the planned
receipt date.
physical inventory Abbreviation: Phys. Invt.
The determination of inventory quantity by the counting of items, which is
performed on a continuous, periodic or annual basis.
pick
To physically withdraw from inventory items to be shipped or components of
items to be assembled and shipped.
positive adjustment
An increase in inventory that is not due to a purchase.
put away
To remove the item from the receiving area, transport it to a specific location in a
storage area, and record the movement and the exact location of the item. Noun
and adjective form: put-away
receipt
The physical acceptance of an item at a location. A warehouse person
immediately registers the receipt of an item in the program, but the item is not a
part of available to pick inventory until it has been put away.
receiving
The function encompassing the physical receipt of items, the inspection of the
items for conformance to the purchase order (quantity and damage), the putting
away of the items, and the preparation of the receiving report.
registering
Creating an entry in the program that records an action completed in the
warehouse. For example, you can register the put-away, picking or movement of
an item into or from a specific bin. Registering differs from posting in that it does
not create any entries in the general ledger or the inventory item ledger.
release
To send a document to the next stage of processing without posting the
document. You cannot change information on a released document unless you
reopen the document.
Example: You can release a sales order to the warehouse. The order is then
among the source documents from which the warehouse can retrieve lines to be
assigned, picked and shipped.
reservation
The designation of a quantity of inventory on a purchase order for a specific sales
order or production schedule.
responsibility center Abbreviation: Resp. Ctr.
An organizational unit to which a company assigns duties or activities.
NOTE: A responsibility center can be a cost center or a profit center. Examples are a
sales office that sells items from one or more locations, a purchasing office for one or
several locations, a service unit, a production-planning unit, and a branch office with
responsibility for sales, purchases and cost accounting. A responsibility center that has
been assigned responsibility for a location accounts for location inventory in monetary
terms, while the location is responsible for the physical inventory count.
APPENDIX B: GRANULES
This appendix contains information about the granules that make up Microsoft®
Dynamics NAV® for inventory management, including the functional area that a
granule belongs to, its description and the requirements.
Stockkeeping Units
Functional area: Inventory
Description: This feature provides basic functionality that allows the user to
manage stockkeeping units (SKUs), meaning that identical items with the same
item number can be stored in different locations and managed individually at
each location. The user can add cost prices, replenishment and manufacturing
information, and so on, based on the location.
Requirements: Multiple Locations
Responsibility Centers
Functional area: General Ledger
Description: You use this granule to handle Cost Centers or Profit Centers.
Requirements: Multiple Locations
Location Transfers
Functional area: Inventory
Description: This granule enables you to track inventory effectively as it is
moved from one location to another. You can also better account for the value of
inventory in transit and at various locations.
Requirements: Multiple Locations
Bin
Functional area: Inventory
Description: You use this granule to organize your warehouse by assigning
items to bins, the smallest unit in the warehouse logical structure. This is done on
the item journals or directly on the document lines (does not only apply to order
lines).
Requirements: Basic Inventory and Multiple Locations
Put-Away
Functional area: Inventory
Description: You use this granule to enable your warehouse employees to carry
out their dedicated tasks. This is done from a separate user interface when
receiving items in an order-by-order environment. Here the put away is created
from the released order.
Requirements: Basic Inventory
Warehouse Receipt
Functional area: Warehouse Management
Description: You use this granule to enable your warehouse employees to carry
out their dedicated tasks. This is done from a separate user interface when
receiving items in a multi-order environment. Here the put away is created from
the receipt.
Requirements: Basic Inventory
Pick
Functional area: Inventory
Description: You use this granule to enable your warehouse employees to carry
out their dedicated tasks. This is done from a separate user interface when
shipping items in an order-by-order environment. Here the pick is created from
the released order.
Requirements: Basic Inventory
Warehouse Shipment
Functional area: Warehouse Management
Description: You use this granule to enable your warehouse employees to carry
out their dedicated tasks. This is done from a separate user interface when
shipping items in a multi-order environment. Here the pick is created from the
shipment.
Requirements: Basic Inventory
Bin Setup
Functional area: Warehouse Management
Description: You use this granule to easily set up and maintain your bins. This
is done by defining both the layout of your warehouse and dimensions of your
racks, columns, and shelves. Furthermore, you use the granule to easily set up
and maintain your planning parameters. This is done by defining the limitations
and characteristics of each bin.
Requirements: Bin
Item Tracking
Functional area: Inventory
Description: With this granule, you can handle and track serial and lot numbers.
Serial and lot numbers can be assigned manually or automatically. The feature
allows the user to receive and ship multiple-quantities with serial/lot numbers
from a single order line entry.
Requirements: Basic Inventory, Sales Order Management, Purchase Order
Management.
• Purchase Header
• Sales Header
• Sales Shipment Header
• Sales Invoice Header.
The following functions are created to collect item tracking data from the
different Item Tracking tables and will also be available in CU6500 Item
Tracking Management as global functions:
The following procedures defined handling the different source documents in the
generic report are implemented:
PageLoop - OnPreDataItem()
// Item Tracking:
IF ShowLotSN THEN BEGIN
TrackingSpecCount := 0;
OldRefNo := 0;
ShowGroup := FALSE;
END;
ItemTrackingLine - OnPreDataItem()
IF TrackingSpecCount = 0 THEN
CurrReport.BREAK;
CurrReport.NEWPAGE;
SETRANGE(Number,1,TrackingSpecCount);
TrackingSpecBuffer.SETCURRENTKEY("Source ID","Source Type","Source
Subtype","Source Batch Name",
"Source Prod. Order Line","Source Ref. No.");
ItemTrackingLine - OnAfterGetRecord()
IF Number = 1 THEN
TrackingSpecBuffer.FINDSET
ELSE
TrackingSpecBuffer.NEXT;
ShowTotal := FALSE;
IF ItemTrackingAppendix.IsStartNewGroup(TrackingSpecBuffer) THEN
ShowTotal := TRUE;