An overview of Documents and Journals for Production using Basic, Simple, Advanced or WMS Locations

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The way you post consumption and output from production in Business Central depends entirely on which warehouse functionality you have enabled on the location card. This article walks through the four levels: basic (no bins), simple (bins and inventory picks/put aways), advanced (require shipments and receipts), and full WMS (directed put away and pick).

At the basic level you use the consumption journal, output journal, or the production journal directly from the production order. The production order itself requires the Premium license from Microsoft.

At the simple level you create an inventory pick to post consumption and an inventory put away to post output, both directly from the production order. Posting the pick or put away also posts the consumption or output automatically.

At the advanced level you create a warehouse pick directly from the production order without a sales or warehouse shipment. You still use the inventory put away for output, even though it is normally a simple warehouse document.

At the WMS level the warehouse pick posts a movement into the production order rather than the consumption itself, so you post consumption separately through a journal. You cannot pull the production BOM into internal picks or movement worksheets, so you enter the lines manually.

Posting Consumption and Output at the Basic Level Without Bins

If you have no checkmarks on your location card, you work with the basic documents. There are no bins and none of the warehouse checkmarks are set.

You use the production order, which requires the Premium license from Microsoft. From there you have three options for posting:

• Consume materials from a consumption journal
• Post finished items in an output journal
• Use the production journal directly from the production order to handle both consumption and output in one step

Simple Warehouse Level With Bins and Inventory Picks

The simple level applies when your location card has checkmarks in Bin Mandatory, Inventory Picks, or Inventory Put Aways, but not in Require Shipment or Require Receipt. This is typically the first step into warehouse management, where you start using actual bins to track where your items are.

For consumption you have a few options:

• Create an inventory pick directly from the production order. When you post the inventory pick, it also posts the consumption for the production order.
• Use an inventory movement to move the items into the production area, then use the normal consumption journal to post the consumption.
• Consume directly from the production order.

For output you create an inventory put away from the production order. The put away moves the items back into the warehouse, and when you post it, it also posts the output on the production order if you have not already done so. You can also post output directly on the production order.

Advanced Warehouse Level With Require Shipment and Receipt

The advanced level applies when you set Require Shipment and Require Receipt on the location card. Here you create a warehouse pick directly from the production order, without a sales shipment or warehouse shipment in between.

The flow for consumption works like this: you create the warehouse pick, register it when you are done, and then register or post the consumption from the production order. The warehouse pick moves the items into the production order.

You still have alternatives. You can consume directly on the production order, or you can use the internal movement functionality to create an inventory movement and then post the consumption directly on the production order. One thing to note here: you cannot calculate the bill of material from the production order into the internal movement, so you have to create the movement lines manually, one line at a time.

For output you create an inventory put away directly from the production order. The inventory put away posts the output while also moving the item into the correct bin. Even though the inventory put away is normally intended for simple warehouse functionality, it is also used here in the advanced setup.

Full WMS Level With Directed Put Away and Pick

The last level is full warehouse management, set with the Directed Put-away and Pick checkmark on the location card. This works a little differently from the advanced level.

You create a warehouse pick from the production order in the same way as in the advanced setup. But when you post the warehouse pick here, it posts a movement into the production order rather than the consumption itself. After the movement is posted, you post the consumption through the production journal or one of the other journals.

You can also create a warehouse internal pick manually if you want to move the goods into the production area. From the internal pick you can create a warehouse pick without a source document. Alternatively, you can use a movement worksheet and enter the lines manually to create a warehouse movement. As with the advanced level, you cannot pull the production BOM from the production order, so all lines have to be entered manually.

Output at the WMS level is a two-step process:

• First you post the output in a production journal, so the items are posted and placed on the production bin.
• Then you use the warehouse internal put away functionality to create the output line manually and generate a warehouse put away. This warehouse put away lets your warehouse staff move the item from the production bin into the warehouse.

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