Inventory

For each physical product that you trade in, you must create an item card of type Inventory. Items that you offer to customers but do not keep in inventory you can register as catalog items, which you can convert to inventory items when necessary. You can increase or decrease the quantity of an item in inventory by posting directly to the item ledger entries, for example, after a physical count or if you do not record purchases.

Inventory increases and decreases are naturally also recorded when you post purchase and sales documents respectively. For more information, see Record Purchases, Sell Products, and Invoice Sales. Transfers between locations changes inventory quantities across your company's warehouses.

To increase your overview of items and to help you find them, you can categorize items and give them attributes to search and sort by.

Note

The physical handling of items is referred to as warehouse activities. For more information, see Warehouse Management.

Planning for items to fulfil demand is covered as part of supply planning functionality. For more information, see Planning.

Inventory Reconciliation

When you post inventory transactions, such as sales shipments, purchase invoices, or inventory adjustments, the changed item costs are recorded in item value entries. To reflect this change of inventory value in your financial books, the inventory costs are automatically posted to the related inventory accounts in the general ledger. For each inventory transaction that you post, the appropriate values are posted to the inventory account, adjustment account, and COGS account in the general ledger. For more information, see Reconcile Inventory Costs with the General Ledger.

Even though inventory costs are automatically posted to the general ledger, it is still necessary to ensure that the costs of goods are forwarded to the related outbound sales transaction, especially in situations where you sell goods before you invoice the purchase of those goods. This is referred to as cost adjustment. Item costs are automatically adjusted when you post item transactions, but you can also adjust item costs manually. For more information, see Adjust Item Costs.

The following table outlines related tasks.

To See
Create item cards for inventory items that you trade in. Register New Items
Structure parent items that you sell as kits consisting of the parent's components or that you assemble to order or to stock. Work with Bills of Material
Maintain an overview of items and help you find and sort items by organizing them in categories. Categorize Items
Assign item attributes of different value types to your items to help you sort and find items. Work with Item Attributes
Create special item cards for items that you offer to customers but do not maintain inventory for. Work with Catalog Items
Perform physical counting of your inventory with the Physical Inventory Order and Physical Inventory Recording pages. Count Inventory Using Documents
Perform physical counting, make negative or positive adjustments, and change information, such as location or lot number, on item ledger entries. Count, Adjust, and Reclassify Inventory Using Journals
View the availability of items per location, by period, by sales or purchase event, or by their use on assembly or production BOMs. View the Availability of Items
Transfer inventory items between locations with transfer orders, to manage warehouse activities, or with the item reclassification journal. Transfer Inventory Between Locations
Reserve inventory or inbound items for sales orders, purchase orders, service orders, assembly orders, or production orders. Reserve Items
Assign serial numbers or lot numbers to any outbound or inbound document or journal line, for example to track items in case of recalls. Work with Serial and Lot Numbers
Set up a vendor's or customer's own item description on your item card so that you can quickly insert their item description on trade documents. Use Item Cross-References
Find where any serial or lot number was used in its supply chain, for example in recall situations. Trace Item-Tracked Items
Block items from being entered on sales or purchase lines or from being posted in any transaction. Block Items
Manage business operations in sales offices, a purchasing departments, or plant planning offices across multiple locations. Work with Responsibility Centers
Use resources with specific skills for various services and service items. Set Up Resource Allocation

See Also

Warehouse Management
Purchasing
Sales
Working with Business Central
General Business Functionality

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