An overview of Documents and Journals for Basic, Simple and Advanced Warehouse

This is what happens in the video

Business Central uses different documents and journals for inventory and warehouse handling depending on which checkmarks you set on the location card. The setup falls into four levels: basic inventory with no warehouse checkmarks, simple functionality with bins and inventory pick/put-away, advanced functionality with warehouse receipt and shipment, and full WMS functionality with directed put-away and pick.

With no warehouse checkmarks, you handle everything directly on the documents. Sales orders, purchase orders, transfer orders and the item journal cover your inbound, outbound and internal transactions.

When you add bin and put-away/pick checkmarks (but not receipt and shipment), you get the inventory pick and inventory put-away documents that work directly against the source document.

When you add the receipt and shipment checkmarks, you move to warehouse documents: warehouse shipment, warehouse pick, warehouse receipt and warehouse put-away.

When you set the directed put-away and pick checkmark, you enable WMS functionality with warehouse-specific journals and worksheets such as the warehouse internal pick, movement worksheet and warehouse physical inventory journal.

Note that service orders and production orders both require the Microsoft premium license.

Inventory documents and journals with no warehouse checkmarks

Let’s start with what you can call the basic functionality, where you work without any warehouse setup on the location card.

On the outbound side, the sales order is the primary document. You also have the outbound transfer order, the purchase return order and the service order. These are all meant for outbound handling. Be aware that the service order requires the premium license from Microsoft.

On the inbound side, the purchase order is the primary document. You also have the inbound transfer order and the sales return order. These all handle the inbound side.

Internally, you have several journals:

• Item journal for many different transactions, including positive and negative adjustments to inventory.
• Item revaluation journal for changing the cost value of items in stock.
• Bin creation worksheet and bin content creation worksheet for setting up bins. You could argue these are not strictly part of the basic functionality, but they belong here because they are part of the setup if you run a warehouse.

For assembly orders, you post consumption and output directly on the order. You also have production orders, which require the premium license from Microsoft. On the production order, you have the production journal directly on the order for consuming and outputting items. Alternatively, you can use the separate consumption journal and output journal alongside the production order.

All of these documents and journals work with plain inventory, meaning no warehouse checkmarks on the location card.

Simple functionality with bins and inventory pick and put-away

If you move on to what you can call simple functionality, you set checkmarks on the location card that include the bin, put-away and pick options, but not the purchase receipt and warehouse shipment checkmarks.

On the outbound side, you get the inventory pick, a document for picking directly on the sales order. It also applies to assembly orders and production orders.

On the inbound side, you get the inventory put-away for putting items on stock. It also applies to assembly orders and production orders. From the assembly order you need to create it manually, which we show in other videos.

Internally you have:

• Physical inventory order, an order document for inventory counting where you calculate the count on an order. You then do physical inventory recordings, so you can count in many different recordings and add them to the count before posting.
• Internal movement, which creates inventory movements to control movement on inventory. It works a bit like a small journal that generates the movement.
• Item reclassification journal for reclassifying and moving items.
• Physical inventory journal for counting inventory.

Advanced warehouse documents with receipt and shipment

Moving on to the advanced checkmarks, you enable the warehouse documents.

On the outbound side, you have the warehouse shipment and the warehouse pick, which are only used if you have the shipment checkmark on the location card. You also have the pick worksheet, which you can use to create a warehouse pick. These apply to production orders and assembly orders as well, although creating the warehouse pick is a more manual process there.

On the inbound side, you have the warehouse receipt and the warehouse put-away. The put-away can be created from a put-away worksheet or from the warehouse receipt. It also applies to assembly orders and production orders.

There are no journals specific to the advanced functionality. The advanced level reuses all the journals already used in the simple and basic functionality.

WMS functionality with directed put-away and pick

In the WMS functionality, meaning you set the directed put-away and pick checkmark on the location card, you get functionality that applies only when that checkmark is in place.

• Warehouse internal pick, a manual function for creating a warehouse pick without a source document.
• Warehouse internal put-away, the equivalent for put-away.
• Movement worksheet for creating controlled warehouse movements on your inventory.
• Warehouse item reclassification journal, which resembles the item reclassification journal but applies only at warehouse entry level.
• Warehouse item journal for positive and negative adjustments. After posting here, the entries are posted in the item journal.
• Warehouse physical inventory journal, where you count inventory and afterwards post it in the item journal.

These documents apply only when you have the directed put-away and pick checkmark set.

Overall, there are quite a few documents and journals for working with inventory and warehouse in Business Central, and the right ones depend entirely on how you configure your location card.

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