12 Feb Inventory vs. Warehouse – Dynamics 365 Business Central
The time has come to launch the Navision or Dynamics 365 Business Central warehouse module . Normally it is a complex decision due to the wide range of configurations and possibilities that the tool allows us. Therefore, it is not an easy decision to make. In this blog post we will explain the difference between a basic and a minimally advanced warehouse.
Different types of storage
When working with Business Central, you will have seen that there are two types of warehouse views, both in Business Central Work Areas ( Order-by-Order and Warehouse Management System ) as in subfolders in the Departments to Warehouse menu in RTC NAV ( “Ord. man. prod. per order” and the “Multiple orders man. prod.”) .
However, the documents they contain, although they may appear similar, have different names. On the one hand we find “ Inventory location” / “Picking inventory” / “Inventory movement” and, on the other, “ Warehouse location” / “Warehouse pick” / “Warehouse movement” </ em> (or just Location / Pickink / Move in RTC NAV).
Given this differentiation, we must look at the second word of the name to differentiate whether we are talking about the Inventory or Warehouse type. We will detail the characteristics of each one:
Inventory (Order to order)
Of the two types the inventory is the simplest. It serves to manage a basic warehouse activity in which, when receiving purchase orders, a single warehouse document is generated that we call “ Inventory location” to indicate that we have received the material and put it on the shelf (or location).
Equivalently, it happens in the moment before sending the sales orders, in which the picking has to be generated to collect the material, with the document “Picking inventory” to carry out the material output. These warehouse documents are associated one by one with that of your purchase or sale, so it does not allow you to make a grouped management of several picks , send multiple sales or place multiple receptions in the same process , among others.
Hence, it is not necessary to configure different storage areas and, specifically, the reception and shipping areas. Another implication that follows is that we cannot use the “direct transit” functionality.
The following scheme shows the cycle of documents involved:
In conclusion, this level is a simple type of warehouse that is used only to manage the shelves where we store / remove the material . It is usually useful to see the relationship between warehouse documents and the corresponding purchase / sale documents, but it does not help us to group several orders / sales into a single warehouse document.
To configure it in Business Central, you must check the “Required location” and “Picking required” fields but not the “Location. and pick. Direct ” as shown in the following image. We can also indicate if we want to manage the bookshelf, marking or not the “Location. mandatory ”.
Note: For manufacturing or assembly documents, the “picking inventory” is generated by the product “factory outlet” from the manufacturing / assembly location indicated in the configuration of the warehouse , while for the components a “inventory movement” is carried out from the shelf to the manufacturing / assembly location.
Warehouse (Multiple orders)
It is already considered as an advanced level of warehouse management . The Picking and Location documents are still made to move the material. Unlike the “Picking inventory ” and “ Inventory location” documents discussed in the previous point, the current ones do not record the exit or entry of the material, but they only serve to move it between the different internal zones of the warehouse. The new documents “Warehouse receipt” and “Shipment shipment” are used to enter or exit material in the warehouse.
The circuit for purchases would be the following: From an order (or grouping several of them) a document of “Warehouse receipt” is generated, the record of which we make the entry of the material in the “reception area”. But here it is not yet located on the shelf. To perform this step, the Location document comes into play, which does not make any stock movements, but that does cause a warehouse movement to move it from the “reception area ”To its corresponding shelf.
Location documents are generated one for each Reception when we register the latter , but we can deactivate its generation if you want to use the ” location worksheet ” to group several Receptions into a Location (uncheck field“ Use location job sheet ” in the store).
For the sales circuit the flow would be similar. From the order (or grouping several) we generate the “Shipment shipment” document. Unlike the Receptions on purchases, at this point we cannot register the document. We have to generate a Picking , either from the Shipment or by grouping several with the “picking worksheet”. Once Once the Picking is registered, the material moves from the shelf to the “shipping area” , from which we can register the Shipping created at the beginning.
We see these steps in the following image:
In conclusion, this level of advanced warehouse serves to be able to group different documents, be they those of purchase / sale or those of warehouse . It has several subconfigurations, such as that we can use shelves or not (if not, we can do not require picking or location), we can use worksheets or not and we can even activate the possibility of using “direct transit ”
To configure it, you must select the “Location and pick. direct ” as shown in the following image. All other options will be selected automatically.
Note: For manufacturing or assembly documents, the “warehouse shipment” is generated by the product “factory shipment” from the manufacturing / assembly location indicated in the configuration of the warehouse, while for the components a “picking” is made from the shelf to the manufacturing / assembly location.
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