Tag: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 2023 Wave 2

This post is part of the In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Sales), how do I… series and of the wider In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, how do I… series which I am posting as I familiarise myself with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

I recently received a query from one of my old contacts who was using Microsoft Dynamics GP (formerly known as Great Plains) and who was now migrating to Business Central.

In Dynamics GP you need to mark boxes in the setup to keep historic transactions; in other words, when a sales order is shipped and invoiced, if the keep history box isn’t marked then the PO will be removed from the system. When the box is marked, the PO will be moved to a history table, so that it can be viewed in the future.

My contact wanted to know if I could advise them if the same functionality was present in Business Central. It is present and works very much the same way.

In Business Central, unless you mark some options to archive data, then the sales transactions will be moved to history when they are deleted (which can happen when they are fully shipped and invoiced).

In the Purchases & Payables Setup page there is an Archiving fasttab containing four options (for quotes, orders, blanket orders and return orders) which need to be marked to have the transaction moved to the archive instead of deleted:

I always make sure these (and similar) options are marked so that historic transactions are retained; even if not required for regulatory purposes, clients generally want to be able to look back and report on previous transactions.

This post is part of the In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Purchasing), how do I… series and of the wider In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, how do I… series which I am posting as I familiarise myself with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

This is a query that came to me from one of my contacts who is migrating from Microsoft Dynamics GP (formerly known as Great Plains) to Business Central.

In Dynamics GP you need to mark boxes in the setup to keep historic transactions; in other words, when a purchase order is invoiced, if the keep history box isn’t marked then the PO will be removed from the system. When the box is marked, the PO will be moved to a history table, so that it can be viewed in the future.

My contact wanted to know if I could advise them if the same functionality was present in Business Central. It is present and works very much the same way.

In Business Central, unless you mark some options to archive data, then the purchasing transactions will be moved to history when they are deleted (which can happen when they are fully received).

In the Sales & Receivables Setup page there is an Archiving fasttab containing four options (for quotes, orders, blanket orders and return orders) which need to be marked to have the transaction moved to the archive instead of deleted:

I always make sure these (and similar) options are marked so that historic transactions are retained; even if not required for regulatory purposes, clients generally want to be able to look back and report on previous transactions.

This post is part of the In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Purchasing), how do I… series and of the wider In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, how do I… series which I am posting as I familiarise myself with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

This is related to the training preparation I was doing a while ago where I needed to work out how to get the Goods Shipped Not Invoiced Report and discovered there wasn’t one available as standard.

Well, the Goods Received Not Invoiced report is also not available as standard, but, fortunately, the same list page we can use to get the shipped invoice can also be used for the goods received one:

By applying filters of Completely Invoiced = No, Entry Type = Purchase and Document Type = Purchase Receipt, you can get a view of the posted shipments in the system which have not been fully invoiced.

While there is no report as standard, you can create a report using the data from the Item Ledger Entry page in a report; the data is in the Item Ledger Entry (32) table.

This post is part of the In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Sales), how do I… series and of the wider In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, how do I… series which I am posting as I familiarise myself with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

A while ago I was preparing for training a client on the purchasing module in Business Central and was identifying the key reports to show them and realised that there was a rather key one missing: the Goods Shipped but Not Invoiced report.

I’ve done some exploring of the system and it really does seem that there is no shipped but not invoiced report available in the system. However, there is a list page which can be used to easily get this information, and which can be exported to Excel.

That list is the Item Ledger Entries list:

By applying filters of Completely Invoiced = No, Entry Type = Sales and Document Type = Sales Shipment, you can get a view of the posted shipments in the system which have not been fully invoiced.

While there is no report as standard, you can create a report using the data from the Item Ledger Entry page in a report; the data is in the Item Ledger Entry (32) table.

I am currently working on a project to implement Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and was asked by the client about limiting items to specific locations. They asked about this as they have two warehouses which hold different items and it would be easier if they could limit the system to the items at the location, as they would see fewer items in the lookups, reports and on the stock count.

It is a reasonable question which I know some systems would be able accomplish, but, unfortunately, Business Central does not allow you to do this as standard. It would require an extension to manage this functionality.

I am surprised that Business Central does not have this ability as standard, as it does seem something which is very basic.

This post is part of the In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Inventory and Warehouse Management), how do I… series and of the wider In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, how do I… series which I am posting as I familiarise myself with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

So, this came up as a query from a prospect I was talking about implementing Business Central and I had what I thought was a brain freeze where I couldn’t think of the answer.

How do you remove a warehouse, or stop processing, if you close the warehouse down (which the customer would be doing with one of their warehouses in a few months post-implementation of Business Central)?

I assumed this was just a momentary memory lapse and said I’d check and get back to them. Unfortunately, the reason I didn’t think of the answer, is that in Business Central there isn’t one.

You have no way of closing a location, such as making inactive or disabling it. Once a location has been created, it is there and can be used.

The only workaround I could come up with is to delete the Inventory Posting Setup, which would stop transactions being posted to it.

This wasn’t the answer I hoped to find; I have worked with other ERP systems, including a Microsoft one, which did allow stock locations to be removed from use. The Microsoft one I worked with was Dynamics GP, which had this functionality added back in late-2012.

I’m not the only person to have come across this deficiency; there is an “idea” on the Ideas – Experience Dynamics 365 asking that the ability to “block” a location from use, similar to blocking movement to/from a bin, is added, but the idea requires votes for Microsoft to consider adding this functionality (it’s perhaps also worth noting that someone there has also suggested deleting the inventory posting setup as a workaround too).

This post is part of the In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Inventory and Warehouse Management), how do I… series and of the wider In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, how do I… series which I am posting as I familiarise myself with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

While I was writing the articles on consignment stock being held by the customer in their warehouse or in your own warehouse, I have dealt with several clients who hold stock on vans.

One example, I worked with a housing association who had operatives driving vans going to do housing maintenance with stock in the van to use for the jobs.

If I was doing this in Business central, I would, as with consignment in the customers own warehouse, create a new location identified as a van; I’ve seen a few variations of location names, from van registration places, operative names and initials, but the one that seems to work best is simply issuing each van with a numeric or colour identifier. The problem with using something like a name or registration plate, is that people leave and vans get replaced. An identifier based on the operative is particularly tricky; what if he changes vans, even if only for one day while his usual van is replaced.

Separate locations can be defined with an Inventory Posting Group and related Inventory Posting Setup which allow you to account for van stock in a different G/L account than the warehouse, if you so choose.

In addition, I’d suggest configuring these van locations with only basic inventory and no warehouse configuration (they’re too small to require anything other than the basics).

Stock would be transferred to the vans using the Item Reclassification Journal; this would be done for general stock on the van as well as items for specific jobs (such as a sink or boiler).

Consumption would depend on the way in which the stock had been consumed:

• Used for work to the customers benefit – a sales order line could be raised for the quantity of stock used. For example, fitting a new sink.
• Consumed for a non-rechargeable repair (like some repairs by a housing association) where the customer is not responsible for the cost of the good, or where the items used are classed as an incidental (such as some sand for cement) which might be subsumed into the cost of the overall work; this stock could be removed from the van by way of a negative adjustment on an Item Journal.