This is what happens in the video
When you ship goods on a sales order in Business Central, you can post the shipment for the quantity you have ready without invoicing the customer and without finishing the underlying production order first. This is useful when production has produced the items physically but hasn’t yet posted the production order in the system.
To ship more than you have in stock, you need to enable negative inventory posting in the Inventory Setup. This lets you post the shipment even though the produced items aren’t formally in inventory yet.
After posting the shipment, the Quantity Shipped field updates, and the Quantity to Ship shows the remaining items the customer still needs. You can ship resources and G/L account lines on the same order alongside the items.
Shipping a partial quantity on a sales order
The scenario is a sales order made for the customer Bikemaster Copenhagen. The order has several lines, including items, a resource, and a G/L account. You’ve produced 18 pieces of one item through a production order, but you want to ship those 18 pieces to the customer now without waiting to finalise everything.
You enter the quantity you want to ship directly on the sales order line. In this case, that’s 18 pieces of the produced item, plus the resource and the G/L account line. Then you post the order as a shipment only. You’re not invoicing anything at this stage, just shipping the goods to the customer.
Why the production order isn’t finished yet
You’ve produced and finished 18 pieces, but you haven’t posted the finish on the production order. This is common in practice. The production floor often writes down progress on paper, and the system isn’t updated in real time. That means the produced items aren’t posted to inventory at the moment you want to ship them.
Enabling negative inventory posting in Inventory Setup
Because the items aren’t formally in inventory yet, you need permission to post a negative quantity on inventory. This is a setting in the Inventory Setup. When you allow negative inventory posting, Business Central lets you ship the 18 pieces on the sales order even though the production output hasn’t been registered in stock yet.
What happens after posting the shipment
Once you post the shipment, the Quantity Shipped field fills in with the quantity you shipped. The Quantity to Ship field then shows the remaining quantity the customer needs, which is the part you haven’t produced yet.
At this point you can send the package to the customer. The next step is to go into manufacturing, finish the production order, and put the item properly in stock so your inventory is correct.
Q&A
Can you ship a sales order without finishing the production order first?
Yes. You can post the shipment for the quantity you have ready even if the production order hasn’t been finished in the system. You need to enable negative inventory posting in the Inventory Setup so Business Central allows posting a negative quantity on inventory.
How do you ship only part of a sales order quantity?
Enter the quantity you want to ship directly on the sales order line, then post the order as a shipment only. The Quantity Shipped field updates with what you shipped, and the Quantity to Ship field shows the remaining quantity the customer still needs.
Where do you allow negative inventory posting in Business Central?
You enable it in the Inventory Setup. This setting lets you post negative on inventory on a sales order, which is needed when you ship items that have been produced but not yet posted to stock.
Can you ship a shipment without invoicing the customer?
Yes. When you post the sales order, you choose to post the shipment only. This ships the goods to the customer without creating an invoice at that stage.