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When you create sales orders in Business Central, you often need to know whether the items are available, whether you can ship them to the customer, and when. Business Central has several tools that give you that answer directly from the sales order. This article walks through the availability notification, the demand overview, and the planning function, and explains what each one tells you and when to use it.
Availability notification when you enter a quantity on a sales order line
The simplest way to check availability is built right into the sales order line. When you enter a quantity, Business Central checks inventory and shows a notification in the header if there is a problem.
Say you create a sales order and add a line for item number 1000 with a quantity of 80 on 25 April. As soon as you enter the quantity, a notification pops up in the header telling you that the available inventory is less than the entered quantity. You can click Show details to see what is going on.
In this example the available inventory is 73, and the shortage is 70 because there are other demands on the item. There is no earliest availability date calculated, so it is not easy to say when the item becomes available.
If you add another line, for example item number 1100 with a quantity of 32, the notification appears again. This time, when you click Show details, the system can actually calculate an earliest availability date, because the item is available on that date. From the same notification you can create a purchase order directly if you want to. Both of these are production items.
This notification is the easiest way to get an overview of an availability problem without leaving the sales order.
Demand overview for the items on a sales order
The demand overview gives you a picture of the specific items on the sales order and everything that is happening with them. You can see all the events, what your demand is, how much is reserved if you use reservations, and so on.
You can specify periods to narrow down what you see, and you can choose to include all demands, which also shows dependent demand. With all demands turned on the view becomes more detailed, but it tells you exactly what is happening and when.
Planning and creating production orders from the sales order
The planning function opens a window where you can both see the actions by events and create production orders. It is a manual but quick way to create production orders directly.
If you view your items per event, for example item 1000, you can see everything that is happening, your projected available balance, and your forecasted inventory if you use forecasting. You can scroll down to a specific date to see what is happening and which other customers are pulling on the item.
From here you can open the related documents, such as the sales order or the production order, and you can create production orders directly. That makes it an easy way to get a clear overview and quickly create a production order by hand.
Order promising for more complex availability scenarios
For more complex situations there is also order promising, which calculates delivery dates based on capable-to-promise and available-to-promise logic. That function is more advanced and is covered separately.
Q&A
How do I check item availability when creating a sales order in Business Central?
Enter the quantity on the sales order line. If the available inventory is less than the entered quantity, a notification appears in the header. Click Show details to see the available inventory, the shortage, and the earliest availability date if one can be calculated.
Why does Business Central sometimes not show an earliest availability date?
If there is no future supply that covers the shortage, the system cannot calculate an earliest availability date. When the item is available on a given date, the notification will show that date instead.
Can I create a purchase order or production order directly from the sales order?
Yes. You can create a purchase order from the availability notification, and you can create production orders from the planning window. Both let you cover a shortage without leaving the sales order context.
What is the difference between the demand overview and the planning function?
The demand overview shows you all events and demand for the items on the sales order, including reservations and dependent demand if you include all demands. The planning function lets you see actions by event and also create production orders manually.