Count inventory with physical inventory orders
Besides physical inventory journals, you can also count inventory with physical inventory orders. On top of the features from physical inventory journals, you can use physical inventory orders to segregate duties for inventory count processes. This would include the following steps:
User 1 (the warehouse manager, for example) uses physical inventory orders to prepare a list of items to count.
User 2 (the warehouse worker, for example) uses physical inventory recordings to count the items.
User 1 posts the adjustments from the physical inventory orders.
Create a physical inventory order
A physical inventory order is a document that consists of a physical inventory order header and some physical inventory order lines. The information on a physical inventory header describes how to take the physical inventory. The physical inventory order lines contain the information about the items and their locations.
To create the physical inventory order lines, you typically use the Calculate Lines function to reflect the current inventory as lines on the order. Alternatively, you can use the Copy from Document function to fill the lines with the content of another open or posted physical inventory order. The following procedure only describes how to use the Calculate Lines function:
Select the Search for Page icon in the top-right corner of the page, enter "Physical Inventory Orders", and select the related link.
Select New.
Assign a number and enter a description.
Use the Location Code and Person Responsible fields to narrow down the list of items to be counted by the warehouse workers.
Select Prepare > Calculate > Calculate Lines.
On the Calculate Lines page, if necessary, enter additional filters and select OK.
Business Central will post a positive or negative adjustment in the background.
Although the Adjust Inventory dialog is helpful when you need to quickly adjust the inventory level for a specific item, larger organizations might require a more elaborate process. That's why you can enable or disable the Adjust Inventory feature on the Inventory Setup page.
Depending on the filters you applied, Business Central now inserts one or multiple lines with the items to count.
The following video demonstrates how to create a physical inventory order.
Create a physical inventory recording
The goal of the physical inventory orders is to post differences between the current inventory and the physical count.
However, before you can post a physical inventory order, warehouse workers must first enter the quantities counted in Business Central, for which they use physical inventory recordings. These recordings are created from the physical inventory orders, and they contain basically the same information. For each physical inventory order, you can create one or more physical inventory recording documents on which employees enter the counted quantities, either manually or through an integrated scanning device.
By default, a recording is created for all the lines on the related physical inventory order. To avoid that two employees count the same items if distributed counting, it's advisable to gradually fill the physical inventory order by setting filters on the Calculate Lines batch job (see the "To create a physical inventory order" section) and then create the physical inventory recording while selecting the Only Lines Not in Recordings check box. This setting makes sure that each new recording that you create only contains different items than the ones on other recordings.
After the physical count, you enter the quantity counted on the physical inventory recordings. When everything is processed, you can set the status of the physical inventory recording to Finished. This will copy some of the data on the recoding to the physical inventory order.
When you finish a physical inventory recording, each line is transferred to the line on the related physical inventory order that matches it exactly. To match, the values in the Item No., Variant Code, Location Code, and Bin Code fields must be the same on the recording and the order lines. If no matching physical inventory order line exists, and if the Allow Recording Without Order checkbox is selected, then a new line is inserted automatically and the Recorded Without Order checkbox on the related physical inventory order line is selected. Otherwise, an error message is displayed, and the process is canceled. If more than one physical inventory recording lines match a physical inventory order line, then a message is displayed, and the process is canceled. If for some reason, two identical physical inventory lines end up on the physical inventory order, you can use the Show Duplicate Lines function to resolve it.
After checking the results, you can set the status of the physical inventory order also to Finished and post the order.
The following video demonstrates how to use a physical inventory recording, and how to post the physical inventory order.