Inventory Management in Business Central
Posted on: August 31, 2021 | By: Jim Bertler | Microsoft Dynamics Business Central
Business Central is a great software solution for inventory management. However, because of the vast capabilities of this ERP, it can be difficult to fully understand the tools users have access to in order to reap the complete benefits of Business Central. In this blog post, we are going to go over how to manage your inventory in Business Central using five easy steps.
Aged Inventory
In the Business Central dashboard, select Aged Inventory. Once you’ve done this, you can see what inventory items have been present for over 120 days, giving you insight over the efficiency of your warehouse. If you want to get specific, you can see the total length and time that each item has been in inventory to better inform your analysis.
View Top Selling Items
Once you’ve gained insight into the efficiency of your inventory mobility, it’s important to determine what your best selling items are. To do this, start at your Business Central dashboard and select Items. Here, select Report, then Inventory, then Inventory Statistics, and finally select Inventory – Top 10 List. You now should be looking at a report of your best selling products, knowledge that can aid you in making smarter decisions for future inventory needs.
Check Inventory and Vendor Lead Time
After determining what products are selling successfully for your business and what products are having a slow turnover rate, it’s crucial to determine the vendor lead time for these items. In other words, we need to get a better sense of the time from when a purchase order is made to when the item is assembled and ready to be distributed to buyers. If you don’t determine this data, you run the risk of being out of stock for your most popular items, a key source of revenue.
To figure out the vendor lead time, use the search function in Business Central located at the top right corner of your screen and search for Purchase Advice. This generates a report that shows the total number of orders for your company’s items as well as the actual number in stock for each of these items.
If you see an item that’s out of stock, go to your dashboard again and select Vendors. From there, select Report, then Purchase, then Vendor/Item Purchases. Now you should have access to a Vendor/Item Purchases report that will show the lead time of all vendors.
Easily Restock Items
Through just a few simple clicks, you have a better understanding of what is selling for your company, what isn’t, and the general turnaround time for all of these products. Knowing this information is great, but utilizing it to benefit your company is what makes Business Central so beneficial for inventory management.
Using the insight you’ve gained on all inventory, you can easily enter purchase invoices for items that are out of stock or close to being out of stock. Simply select Vendors from the dashboard screen and find the vendor you are looking for. Once this is done, select Purchase Invoice, and enter the vendor invoice number along with the items purchased. Once posted, the invoice is complete, and you don’t have to worry about being behind on inventory restock.
Future Inventory Stock
Now that you have all present needs satisfied using past data, you can start leveraging the information on inventory movement given to you by Business Central to predict future inventory needs. Within Business Central, you can use helpful tools to visualize future business needs.
Go to your dashboard and find the Forecast application. Select the Forecast menu. Here, you can look at the Sales View and Inventory Forecast.
The Inventory Forecast gives you visibility and insight about upcoming inventory needs using data in Business Central. It provides predictions for when certain items will be out of stock by analyzing current inventory and consumer trends for your company.
Next Steps
Business Central comes equipped with a myriad of tools, not just inventory management, to give your company better insight into data and trends in order to make more informed decisions. If you are interested in learning more about the power of Business Central, contact a consultant at Logan Consulting today.