Easily Reserve and Maintain Your Inventory with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management’s Inventory Visibility/Allocation

Posted on: October 25, 2023 | By: Fred Liu | Microsoft Dynamics AX/365, Microsoft Dynamics Manufacturing

Does your business have limited inventory that needs to be reserved for channels or customers without having specific orders placed? If so, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management’s Inventory Visibility/Allocation functionality is here to help.

Let’s start with an overview of what Microsoft’s Inventory Visibility is. Microsoft’s Inventory Visibility is a cloud-based software solution that enables organizations to have a total view of their inventory across multiple systems and warehouses. The goal is to provide your business with one single source of truth when it comes to accurately viewing your inventory.

Within Inventory Visibility, there is the capability to enable the Inventory Allocation feature. This feature allows you to allocate inventory across multiple channels (online, brick and mortar stores, customers, regions, etc.). This functionality can be extremely powerful in helping with inventory protection and oversell control in situations where you have key customers or limited inventory that needs to be allocated.

When the Inventory Allocation feature is enabled, Allocation groups can be created. An example of this could be key customers. Once the group is created, allocation group values (Customer accounts) can be assigned. You can create multiple groups and could assign them to an allocation hierarchy structure as needed.

Let’s walk through an example of an allocation hierarchy.

Example:

We have a quantity of 2,000 on hand for a specific item and would like to allocate 1,500 and leave 500 unallocated. We can create two level 1 allocation groups by channel. We can allocate 900 to the Web group and 600 to the DC group.

Under each of those groups, we can create allocation groups for customer accounts. Under the Web group, we will create a Customer A group and allocate 500 and a Customer B group which we allocate 400. Under the DC group, we will create a Wholesaler D group and allocate 300 and a Wholesaler E group where we allocate 300.

We could create another level of groups, splitting out the customer groups by region if we needed to. When orders are placed for a customer group, B for example, the items will be reserved against the B group’s allocated 400 and its Web channel’s 900.

This functionality will help make sure an order cannot be placed for Wholesaler E group for 2,000 items leaving your web customers with no available inventory.

Previously this has been accomplished by potentially utilizing virtual warehouses or inventory statuses to split out and allocate inventory, but the Inventory Allocation feature for Microsoft’s Inventory Visibility now solves that problem.

Next Steps:

If you want to learn more about how to easily reserve and maintain your inventory with Microsoft Dynamics 365’s inventory visibility/allocation in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, contact us here to learn how we can help you grow your business. You can also email us at info@loganconsulting.com or call (312) 345-8817.

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