Business Central is a business management solution for small and mid-sized organizations that automates and streamlines business processes and helps you manage your business. Highly adaptable and rich with features, Business Central enables companies to manage their business, including finance, manufacturing, sales, shipping, project management, services, and more. Companies can easily add functionality that is relevant to the region of operation, and that is customized to support even highly specialized industries.

Today we are going to focus on Warehouse Management features.

The inventory-related tasks of counting, adjusting, and reclassifying items may involve warehouse tasks that must be performed on warehouse entries before they can be synchronized with the related item ledger entries.

The following table describes a sequence of tasks, with links to the topics that describe them.

Receive Items

When items arrive at a warehouse that is not set up for warehouse receipt processing, you simply record the receipt on the related business document, such as a purchase order, a sales return order, or an inbound transfer order.

When items arrive at a warehouse that is set up for warehouse receipt processing, you must retrieve the lines of the released source document that triggered their receipt.

If you have bins, you can either accept the default bin that is filled in, or if the item has never been used before in the warehouse, fill in the bin where the item should be put away. You must then fill in the quantities of the items you have received, and post the receipt.

To receive items with a purchase order

The following describes how to receive items with a purchase order. The steps are similar for sales return orders and transfer orders.

1. Choose the icon 🔎, enter Purchase Orders, and then choose the related link.
2. Open an existing purchase order, or create a new one.
3. In the Qty. to Receive field, enter the received quantity.

Note

If the received quantity is higher than ordered on the purchase order, per the Quantity field, and the vendor has been set up to allow over-receipts, then you use the Over-Receive field to handle the excess quantity. For more information,

4. Choose the Post action.

The value in the Qty. Received field is updated. If this is a partial receipt, then the value is lower than the value in the Quantity field.

To receive items with a purchase order

1. Choose the icon 🔎, enter Warehouse Receipts, and then choose the related link.
2. Choose the New action.field, enter the received quantity.

Fill in the fields on General FastTab. When you retrieve source document lines, some of the information is copied to each line.
For warehouse configuration with directed put-away and pick, if the location has a default zone and bin for receipts, the Zone Code and Bin Code fields are filled in automatically, but you can change them as appropriate.

Note

If you wish to receive items with warehouse class codes other than the class code of the bin in the Bin Code field on the document header, you must delete the contents of the Bin Code field on the header before you retrieve source document lines for the items.

3. Choose the Get Source Documents action. The Source Documents page opens.

From a new or an open warehouse receipt, you can use the Filters to Get Source Docs. page to retrieve the released source document lines that define which items to receive or ship.

• Choose the Use Filters to Get Src. Docs. action.
• To set up a new filter, enter a descriptive code in the Code field, and then choose the Modify action.
• Define the type of source document lines that you want to retrieve by filling in the relevant filter fields.
• Choose the Run action.

All released source document lines that fulfill the filter criteria are now inserted in Warehouse Receipt page from which you activated the filter function.

The filter combinations that you define are saved on the Filters to Get Source Docs. page until the next time you need it. You can make an unlimited number of filter combinations. You can change the criteria at any time by choosing the Modify action.

4. Select the source documents for which you want to receive items, and then choose the OK button.

The lines of the source documents appear on the Warehouse Receipt page. The Qty. to Receive field is filled with the quantity outstanding for each line, but you can change the quantity as necessary. If you deleted the contents of the Bin Code field on the General FastTab before getting the lines, you must fill in an appropriate bin code on each receipt line.

Note

To fill in the Qty. to Receive field on all the lines with zero, choose the Delete Qty. to Receive action. To fill it in once again with the quantity outstanding, choose the Autofill Qty. to Receive action.

Note

You cannot receive more items than the number in the Qty. Outstanding field on the source document line. To receive more items, retrieve another source document that contains a line for the item by using the filter function to get source documents with the item.

5. Post the warehouse receipt. The quantity fields are updated on the source documents, and the items are recorded as part of company inventory.

If you are using warehouse put-away, the receipt lines are sent to the warehouse put-away function. The items, although received, cannot be picked until they have been put away. The received items are identified as available inventory only when the put-away has been registered.

If you are not using warehouse put-away but you are using bins, the put-away of the items in the bin specified on the source document line is recorded.

Note

If you use the Post and Print function, you both post the receipt and print a put-away instruction that shows you where to place the items in storage.
If your location uses directed put-away and pick, then the put-away templates are used to calculate the best place to put the items away. This is then printed on the put-away instruction.

To set up over-receipts

You must define a percentage by which you allow the ordered quantity to be exceeded when receiving. You define this under an over-receipt code, which contains the percentage in the Over-Receipt Tolerance % field. You then assign the code to the cards of relevant items and/or vendors.

The following describes how to set up and assign an over-receipt code to an item. The steps are similar for a vendor.

1. Choose the   icon, enter Items, and then choose the related link.
2. Open the card for an item that you suspect may sometimes be delivered with a higher quantity than ordered.
3. Choose the look-up button in the Over-Receipt Code field.
4. Choose the New action.
5. On the Over-Receipt Codes page, create one or more new lines that define different over-receive policies. Hover over a field to read a short description.
6. Select a line, and then choose the OK button.

The over-receipt code is assigned to the item. Any purchase order or warehouse receipt for the item now allows receiving more than the ordered quantity according to the specified over-receipt tolerance percentage.

Note

You can set up an approval workflow to require that over-receipts must be approved before they can be handled. In that case, you must select the Approval Required check box on the Over-Receipt Codes page.

To perform an over-receipt

On purchase lines and warehouse receipt lines, the Over-Receipt Quantity field is used to record over-received quantities, meaning quantities that exceed the value in the Quantity field, the ordered quantity. When you handle an over-receipt, you can either increase the value in the Qty. to Receive field to the actually received quantity. 

The Over-Receipt Quantity field is then updated to show the excess quantity. Alternatively, you can enter the excess quantity in the Over-Receipt Quantity field. The Qty. to Receive field is then updated to show the ordered quantity plus the excess quantity. The following procedure described how to fill in the Qty. to Receive field.

1. On a purchase order or a warehouse receipt document where the received quantity is higher than ordered, enter the actually received quantity in the Qty. to Receive field.

If the increase is within the tolerance specified by the assigned over-receipt code, the Over-Receipt Quantity field is updated to show the quantity by which the value in the Quantity field is exceeded.

If the increase is above the specified tolerance, the over-receipt is not allowed. In that case, you can investigate if another over-receipt code exists that will allow it. Otherwise, only the ordered quantity can be received, and the excess quantity must be handled otherwise, for example, by returning it to the vendor.

2. Post the receipt as you would for any other receipt.

Note

Business Central does not include functionality to automatically initiate the financial administration of over-receipts. You must manually handle this in agreement with the vendor, for example, by the vendor forwarding a new or updated invoice.

Cross-Dock Items

Cross-docking functionality is available to you if you have set up your location to require warehouse receive and put-away processing.

When you cross-dock items, you process items in receiving and shipping without ever placing them in storage, thereby expediting the item through the put-away and pick processes and limiting the physical handling of items. You can cross-dock items for both shipments and for production orders. When you prepare a shipment or pick items for production and you are using bins, the item is automatically picked from a cross-dock bin before any other bin. You must look in the cross-dock area to see if the items you need are available there before you get the items in their usual storage area.

If you have calculated cross-dock quantities, put-away lines to the cross-dock bin for cross-dock calculations are created when you post the receipt. Other put-away lines are created as usual.

If you want to post the cross-dock items right away to make them available for picking, you must also register a put-away for the other items originating from the receipt line, namely those that need to be stored. If only some items on a receipt line are being cross-docked, you must therefore make an effort to put away the remaining items as quickly as possible. Alternatively, your warehouse policy could be to encourage cross-docking of entire receipt lines whenever possible.

If you post the warehouse receipt and you do not have the Use Put-away Worksheet field selected, the items to be cross-docked appear as separate lines on the put-away instruction. The Cross-Dock Information field on each put-away line shows whether the line contains cross-dock items, items from the same receipt that all need to be stored, or items that need to be stored originating from a receipt line where some of the items are to be cross-docked. With this field, employees can easily see why the full receipt quantity is not being placed in storage.

The application does not keep separate records about items that have been cross-docked, but registers them as ordinary put-away instructions.

To set up the warehouse for cross-docking

1. Set up at least one cross-dock bin, if you are using bins. Set up a cross-dock zone, if you are using directed put-away and pick.

• A cross-dock bin has the Cross-Dock Bin field selected and must have both Receive and Pick bin types selected.
• If you are using zones, create a zone for your cross-dock bins, and select the Cross-Dock Bin Zone field.

2. Choose the 🔎 icon, enter Location, and then choose the related link.

3. On the Location page, select the location that you want to set up the warehouse for cross-docking, and then choose the Edit action.

4. On the Warehouse FastTab, select the Use Cross-Docking check box and fill in the Cross-Dock Due Date Calc. field with the time to search for cross-dock opportunities.

• The Use Cross-Docking option is only available if the Require Receive, Require Shipment, Require Pick, and Require Put-away fields are selected.

5. If you are using bins, on the Bins FastTab, fill in the Cross-Dock Bin Code field with the code of the bin you would like to use as the default cross-dock bin.

6. Choose the 🔎 icon, enter Stockkeeping Unit, and select the related link.

7. For each item or stockkeeping unit that you want to be able to cross-dock, select the item, and then choose the Edit action.

8. On the Stockkeeping Unit Card page, select the Use Cross-Docking check box.

Note

Cross-docking is only possible if your location is set up to require warehouse receive and put-away processing.

To cross-dock items without viewing the opportunities

1. Choose the 🔎 icon, enter Warehouse Receipts, and then choose the related link.

2. Create a warehouse receipts for an item that has arrived and can perhaps be cross-docked.

3. Fill in the Qty. to Receive field, and then choose the Calculate Cross-Dock action.

• Outbound source documents requesting the items that are scheduled to leave the warehouse within the date formula time period are identified. Business Central calculates quantities so that you can cross-dock as much as possible and avoid having to put items away, without piling up too many items in the cross-dock area. The value in the Qty. to Cross-Dockfield is thus the sum of all the outbound lines requesting the item within the look-ahead period minus the quantity of the items that have already been placed in the cross-dock area, or it is the value in the Qty. to Receive field on the receipt line, whichever is smaller. You cannot cross-dock more than you have received.

4. If you want to cross-dock the quantity as suggested, post the receipt. You can also decide to change the quantity to cross-dock to a higher or lower value and then post the receipt.

• The amounts to be cross-docked now appear as lines in the put-away instruction, assuming the Use Put-away Worksheet field is cleared. The quantities not cross-docked also become lines in the put-away instruction.
• If you have bins, the cross-docked items have been assigned to the default cross-dock bin defined on the location card.

5. Delete the Take and Place lines for items that are not going to be cross-docked at all.

6. Print the put-away instruction for the remaining lines, and place the quantities of the receipt that need to be stored in the appropriate bins or in the appropriate area of the warehouse. Place the cross-dock items in the area or bin designated for them by warehouse policy. Sometimes, warehouse policy might require that you to just leave them in the receiving area.

7. To register the cross-docked items as being put-away and available for picking, choose the Register action.

To cross-dock items after viewing the opportunities

1. Choose the 🔎 icon, enter Warehouse Receipts, and then choose the related link.

2. Create a warehouse receipts for an item that has arrived and can perhaps be cross-docked.

• You want to view the source document lines that are requesting the item before you post the receipt.

3. Choose the Calculate Cross-Dock action.

• On the Cross-Dock Opportunities page you can see the most important details about the lines requesting the item, such as type of document, quantity requested, and due date. This information might help you to decide how much to cross-dock, where to place the items in the cross-dock area, or how to group them.

4. Choose Autofill Qty. to Cross-Dock action to see how the quantities on the receipt lines are calculated. When you change the number of items in the Qty. to Cross-Dock field on each line, the calculation is updated as you make changes. This does not mean that the particular shipment or production order will actually receive the items being suggested for cross-docking, because these manipulations are for testing purposes only. The process can be informative, however, if more than one unit of measure is involved.

5. If you want to reserve a quantity of the item for a particular order line, place your cursor on that line, and then choose the Reserve action. On the Reservation page, you can now reserve any available quantity of the item for this specific order. This reservation is like any other reservation and does not have higher priority because it was created in connection with cross-docking.

6. When you are finished recalculating or reserving, choose the OK button to bring the calculation as you have revised it into the Qty. to Cross-Dock field on the receipt line, or choose the Cancel button if you want to return to the warehouse receipt, where you can calculate the cross-dock again if you wish.

7. Now post the receipt, and you can continue in the put-away instruction as described in steps 3 through 7 in the “To cross-dock items without viewing the opportunities” section.

Note

In the warehouse put-away, you can continue to change the quantities that are being put away in storage or cross-docked, as necessary. For example, you might decide to cross-dock an extra quantity to expedite the cross-dock registration.

To view cross-docked items in a shipment or pick worksheet

If you are using bins, you can see, each time you open a shipment or the pick worksheet, an updated calculation of the quantity of each item in the cross-dock bins. This is valuable information if you are waiting for an item to come in. When you see that the item is available in the cross-dock bin, you can then quickly create a pick for all the items on the shipment. In the pick worksheet, you can modify the lines as appropriate and then create a pick.

You have to look for items in the cross-dock area first when you pick items for shipment. If you have noted during the receipt process the source documents that were the basis for cross-docking, you have a better idea of whether the item can be found in the cross-dock area or not.

When a production order has been released, the lines are available in the pick worksheet, and you can see in the Qty. on Cross-Dock Bin field whether the items you are waiting for have arrived and been placed in the cross-dock bins. When you create a pick instruction, application suggests that you first pick the cross-docked items and will only later search for the item in storage bins.

If you are not using bins, you must remember to check the cross-dock area from time to time, or rely on notifications from receipts that items for production have arrived.

If you decide that you want to organize and record put-away information with warehouse documents, you place a check mark in the Require Put-away field on the location card. This indicates that when you have items coming into the warehouse location through an inbound source document, you want the put-away of those items to be controlled by the system. An inbound source document can be a purchase order, a sales return order, an inbound transfer order, or a production order whose output is ready for put-away.

If your location is set up to use put-away processing but not receive processing, you use the Inventory Put-away page to organize the put-away information, print it, enter the result of the actual put-away and post the put-away information, which in turn posts the receipt information for the source document. In the case of a production order, the posting process posts the output of the order and finishes the production order.

If your location is set up to require both receive and put-away processing, so that you have placed check marks in both the Require Receive and the Require Put-away field on the location card, there is a different process for putting items away. In this case, you will use the Warehouse Put-away page to handle the put-away. The warehouse put-away functions similarly to the inventory put-away, except that instead of posting the information, you register the put-away. Note that the registering of the warehouse put-away does not post the receipt of the items. It merely updates the bin content. As a warehouse manager, you can use a put-away worksheets to organize put-away information before creating the individual warehouse put-away instructions.

The following table describes a sequence of tasks, with links to the topics that describe them.

Moving Items

The warehouse activity of moving items within the warehouse is performed in different ways depending on how warehouse management features are configured. The complexity can rank from no warehouse features, through basic warehouse configurations for order-by order handling in one or more activities only, to advanced configurations where all warehouse activities must be performed in a directed workflow.

While in one warehouse location, items may need to be moved between bins to support the daily warehouse activities involved in keeping items flowing through the warehouse. Some movements happen in direct relation to internal operations, such as a production order that needs components delivered or end items put away. Other movements happen as mere warehouse space optimization or as ad-hoc movements to and from operations.

Additional movement tasks are to periodically replenish picking bins or shop floor bins and to modify bin content information.
Moving items to other locations affects the item ledger entries and must therefore be done by transfer order.

The inventory-related tasks of counting, adjusting, and reclassifying items may involve warehouse tasks that must be performed on warehouse entries before they can be synchronized with the related item ledger entries.

The following table describes a sequence of tasks, with links to the topics that describe them.

Pick Items

The warehouse activity of picking items before they are shipped or consumed is performed in different ways, depending on how warehouse management features are configured. The complexity can rank from no warehouse features, through basic warehouse configurations for order-by-order handling in one or more activities only, to advanced configurations where all warehouse activities must be performed in a directed workflow.

If you decide to organize and record your picking activity with warehouse documents, you place a check mark in the Require Pick field on the location card. This indicates that when you have items that need to be picked for an outbound source document you want the picking of those items to be controlled by the system. An outbound source document can be a sales order, a purchase return order, an outbound transfer order, a service order, or a production order whose components should be picked.

Note

Even though the setting is called Require Pick, you can still post shipments directly from the source business document at location where you select this check box.

If your location is set up to require pick processing but not shipment processing, you use the Inventory Pick page to organize the picking information, print the picking information, enter the result of the pick, and post the picking information, which in turn posts the shipment of the items. In the case of picking components for a production order, the posting of the pick also posts the consumption.

If your location is set up to require both pick and shipment processing, so that you have placed check marks in both the Require Pick and Require Shipment field on the location card, you use the Warehouse Pick page to handle the pick. The warehouse pick functions similarly to the inventory pick, except that instead of posting the picking information, you register the pick. This registering process does not post the shipment, but merely makes the items available for shipment. As a warehouse manager, you can use a pick worksheets to organize pick information before creating the individual warehouse pick instructions.

The following table describes a sequence of tasks, with links to the topics that describe them.

Ship Items

When you ship items from a warehouse that is not set up for warehouse shipment processing, you simply record the shipment on the related business document, such as a sales order, service order, purchase return order, or outbound transfer order.

When you ship items from a warehouse that is set up warehouse shipment processing, you can ship items only on the basis of source documents that other company units have released to the warehouse for action.

Note

If your warehouse uses cross-docking and bins, for each line, you can view the quantity of items that have been placed in the cross-dock bins. The application calculates these quantities automatically whenever the fields on the shipment are updated. If they are the items that apply to the shipment you are preparing, you can create a pick for all the lines and then complete the shipment.

To ship items with a sales order

The following describes how to ship items from a sales order. The steps are similar for purchase return orders, service orders, and outbound transfer orders.

1. Choose the 🔎 icon, enter Sales Orders, and then choose the related link.
2. Open an existing sales order, or create a new one.
3. In the Qty. to Ship field, enter the shipped quantity.The value in the Qty. Shipped field is updated. If this is a partial shipment, then the value is lower than the value in the Quantity field.
4. Choose the Post action.

Note

If your organization does not use sales orders, then, when you post the sales invoice, Business Central assumes that you have shipped the full quantity. If this contradicts with how your organization works, then we recommend that you use sales orders and register shipments as explain in this article.

To ship items with a warehouse shipment

First you create a shipment document from a business source document. Then you pick the specified items for the shipment.

To create a warehouse shipment

Typically, the employee who is responsible for shipping creates a warehouse shipment. The following procedure describes how to create the shipment manually in the default version of Business Central, but your organization might have automated part of the process, such as with the use of hand-held or mounted scanners that are supported by external providers.

1. Choose the 🔎 icon, enter Warehouse Shipments, and then choose the related link.

2. Choose the New action.

Fill in the fields on General FastTab. When you retrieve source document lines, some of the information is copied to each line.
For warehouse configuration with directed put-away and pick, if the location has a default zone and bin for shipments, the Zone Code and Bin Code fields are filled in automatically, but you can change them as appropriate.

Note

If you wish to ship items with warehouse class codes other than the class code of the bin in the Bin Code field on the document header, you must delete the contents of the Bin Code field on the header before you retrieve source document lines for the items.

3. Choose the Get Source Documents action. The Source Documents page opens. From a new or an open warehouse shipment, you can use the Filters to Get Source Docs. page to retrieve the released source document lines that define which items to ship.

• Choose the Use Filters to Get Src. Docs. action.
• To set up a new filter, enter a descriptive code in the Code field, and then choose the Modify action.
• Define the type of source document lines that you want to retrieve by filling in the relevant filter fields.
• Choose the Run action.

All released source document lines that fulfill the filter criteria are now inserted in Warehouse Shipment page from which you activated the filter function.

The filter combinations that you define are saved on the Filters to Get Source Docs. page until the next time you need it. You can make an unlimited number of filter combinations. You can change the criteria at any time by choosing the Modify action.

4. Select the source documents for which you want to ship items, and then choose the OK button.

The lines of the source documents appear on the Warehouse Shipment page. The Qty. to Ship field is filled with the quantity outstanding for each line, but you can change the quantity as necessary. If you deleted the contents of the Bin Code field on the General FastTab before getting the lines, you must fill in an appropriate bin code on each shipment line.

Note

You cannot ship more items than the number in the Qty. Outstanding field on the source document line. To ship more items, retrieve another source document that contains a line for the item by using the filter function to get source documents with the item.

When you have the lines you want to ship, you can start the process that sends the lines to warehouse employees to pick.

To pick and ship

Typically, a warehouse worker responsible for picking creates a pick document, or opens an already created pick document.

1. Choose the 🔎 icon, enter Warehouse Shipments, and then choose the related link.

2. Select the warehouse shipment that you want to pick for, and then choose the Create Pick.

3. Fill in the fields in the request page, and then choose the OK button. The specified warehouse pick document is created.

Alternatively, open an existing warehouse pick.

4. Choose the 🔎 icon, enter Picks, and then choose the related link. Select the warehouse pick that you want to work on.

If the warehouse is set up to use bins, then the pick lines have been converted to Take and Place action lines.

You can sort the lines, assign an employee to the pick, set a break-bulk filter, if you are using directed put-away and pick, and print the pick instructions.

5. Perform the actual picking of items and place them in the specified shipping bin, or in the shipping area, if you do not have bins.

6. Choose the Register Pick action.

The Qty. to Ship field and the Document Status field on the header of the shipment document are updated. The items you have picked are no longer available for picking for other shipments or for internal operations.

7. Print your shipping documents, prepare the shipment packages, and then post the shipment.

You can also use the pick worksheet to make several pick instructions into one instruction (for several shipments) and thereby improve the efficiency of picking in the warehouse.

Note

If you are waiting for particular items to arrive at the warehouse, and you use cross-dock functionality, then Business Central calculates on each shipment or pick worksheet line the quantity of the item that is in the cross-dock bin. It updates this field each time you leave and open the shipment document or worksheet.