This is a continuation of my last post where I described the Copilot Inventory Queries extension that I developed (available for free in AppSource). I have now taken that concept and applied it to the Planning Worksheet in Business Central. With this you get a Copilot user interface that can help explain the suggestions created by the material planning (MRP). I created this in a way that the AI model includes all the suggestions for the same item number, location and variant code for each query. So, if the plan makes multiple suggestions for the same item, you have the...
As we all know, Microsoft is adding Copilot features to everything these days. Every new version of Business Central has more Copilot than the last version and soon there is not a single place in the application that does not have a Copilot feature. This is great and most people are excited about it. The Copilot features and the underlying AI capabilities are what get people talking when we present Business Central to customers. Most of what I work with are manufacturing companies and almost all of them have their own AI initiatives, sometimes those are just around being creative...
This blog post is to describe how fields can be added to the Item Tracking Lines in Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Adding additional fields to this page is a common requirement; it could for example be to add a vendor lot number, some quality measurements, a manufacturing date or any other type of property that should be stored against an inventory lot or serial number. When you first look at it seems like a simple modification but it is actually a bit (or a lot) more involved than just adding the field to the table and the page. The Item Tracking...
Being able to handle consignment inventory in Microsoft Dynamics NAV is a common requirement. There are four scenarios of consignment inventory that I frequently bump into; 1. Inventory at a Customer 2. Inventory at a Vendor 3. Customer Owned Inventory 4. Vendor Owned Inventory Some may argue that case 2 and 3 is not consignment, and they might be right, but nevertheless they are cases that needs to be handled and to me the overall concept is closely related to consignment inventory and therefor I included them here. Case 2 and 3 are typically found in relation to subcontracting or...
This is the first part of a series of blog posts about the subcontracting functionality in Microsoft Dynamics NAV. It describes how to setup and use the basic functionality, which is something that is very common to use for manufacturers (3 out of 4 places I go to uses some kind of subcontractors to perform operations that they can’t or don’t want to do in-house). Future posts on the subject subcontracting will describe things like how to ship the products to the subcontractor in a proper way, how shipping charges can be applied, how to receive subcontracted parts using warehouse...
A common request is to activate item tracking (lot numbers and/or serials numbers) for items that already have transactions (item ledger entries). In Microsoft Dynamics NAV you can’t really do this without going ‘behind the scenes’ and tweaking the data. What I have done a couple of times is to change the check on the item tracking code to only check for open item ledger entries. This way you can adjust the inventory out, change the item tracking code, and then put the inventory back in with the lot and/or serial numbers. This is a one line code change that...
How Microsoft Dynamics NAV posts into the general ledger from production orders is something that you must know when implementing it in a manufacturing environment. It is critical in order to get the posting groups and their related accounts correctly defined. This blog post will focus on the general ledger accounts and the amounts, for details about what dimensions that are used, see my previous post; Dimensions on Production Orders. The examples that are described are using the expected cost posting (setup in the inventory setup), which to me is the preferred way to setup Dynamics NAV. Without the expected cost posting...
In school we where told that when you invoice (voucher) received inventory you get a debit transaction against the inventory account and a credit transaction against the accounts payable. Well, in Microsoft Dynamics NAV you also get two transactions in the P&L, a debit against the purchase account and a credit against the direct cost applied account. What are those used for? Wouldn’t they always be the same and net each-other out? Not necessarily. There is a special case to consider where the two transactions in the P&L are not the same and therefore a discrepancy between the two accounts will occur....
Items in Microsoft Dynamics NAV can have multiple units of measures, you can for example sell in one unit of measure and purchase in another unit of measure. This is great, but there are some things to be aware of when setting an item up with different unit of measures. An item must have a base unit of measure. The base unit of measure is how the inventory quantities are displayed and how the inventory is valued. It is also how it is produced (you can have a Production BOM in a different unit of measure, but the Routing and...
The item charge functionality in Dynamics NAV gives you the option to include additional costs such as freight, insurance, fuel charges, etc. in the unit cost or unit price of an item transaction. Item charges are something that most companies that handles any type of inventory would benefit from using. When implementing item charges there are a couple of things to be aware of. (more…)
