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18 Benefits of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2017 Inventory Management

Written by Greg Miles | Thu, May 25, 2017

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2017 Inventory Management

Manufacturing and distribution companies turn to Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2017 for better inventory management flow and control. Microsoft’s strong commitment to continuous development of Dynamics NAV has earned its reputation as a robust business solution. Along with deep functionality, Dynamics NAV customers appreciate that it’s quick to implement, easy to use and has the power to support business growth. The key the popularity if for Dynamics NAV 2017 is integration and simplicity. This latest ERP solution offers significant enhancements to the core application. Achieving better Inventory Management with Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2017 and can help you gain efficiency, streamline your supply chain and meet customers’ demands.

18 Key Benefits of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2017 Inventory Management

  1. Alternative Vendors: Manage purchase of the same item from several different vendors. Set up alternative vendors for an item, specify typical lead times used by a specific vendor to deliver that item, and associate price and discount agreements for that item with each vendor.
  2. Assembly Management: Specify a list of sellable items, raw materials, sub-assemblies and/or resources as Assembly Bill of Materials that comprises a finished item or a kit. Use assembly orders to replenish assembly items to stock or capture the customer’s special requirements to the kit’s bill of materials directly from the sales quote, blanket and order line in the assembly-to-order processes.
  3. Analysis Reports - Provide company decision-makers, especially those with overall responsibility for sales, purchases, and product portfolio management, with an efficient and flexible way to get meaningful information out of the system to inform day-to-day decisions. Built on item entries, this granule provides a customizable, analytic view that enables people to add and combine analysis objects—customers, items, and vendors—according to their needs.
  4. Basic Inventory: Set up items that you carry in your stock and specify their unit of measures, costing method, inventory posting group, unit cost and price and other properties. Post item transactions, such as sales, purchase, negative and positive adjustments from item journals. Quantity and cost records of the posted transactions are stored in the inventory ledger that is the basis for inventory valuation and other costing calculations. Integrated with General Ledger and with the posting processes in Sales and Receivables and Purchase and Payables, this granule is required for the configuration of all other Inventory granules.
  5. Bin: Organize your warehouse by assigning items to bins, the smallest unit in the warehouse logical structure. Bin assignment is done as the item journals or directly on the document lines (does not apply to order lines).
  6. Cycle Counting: Manage cycle counting, a basic method of verifying inventory record data used to maintain and increase inventory accuracy. Set up cycle counting on the item or SKU level.
  7. Item Attributes: Use item attributes to add custom data, such as color, country of manufacture, size, or product dimensions, to applicable items, supplementing built-in global item fields. You can define your own type of attribute options, including list, text, integer, and decimal, along with unit of measure for the two latter numeric types. Attribute names and option list entries can also be translated to support multiple language requirements. You can also block attributes or attribute option values from being used in the future, for example, if they are no longer applicable. When you add items to sales and purchase documents, or just organize your items, you can view and filter on the attribute values to limit the list of items to choose from or take action on.
  8. Item Budgets: Make sales and purchase budgets on the customer, vendor, and item levels, and in both amounts and quantities. Prepare and record a sales budget that can serve as input to decision makers in other operational areas, such as purchasing and logistics. Decision-makers gain information about future expected demand they can use for business discussions with the customers. After budgets are made, track the actual sales performance by means of calculating the variance. The ability to move budgeted figures between the system and Excel provides additional flexibility to the budgeting process.
  9. Item Categories: Use item categories to group items into a hierarchical structure and you can define your own custom categories, assigning attributes to each category. When you add items to a category, the items inherit the attributes of the category, ensuring a common set of attributes on items in the same category, and saving you time. If required, you can still assign item specific attributes to particular items.
  10. Item Charges: Manage item charges. Include the value of additional cost components such as freight or insurance into the unit cost or unit price of an item.
  11. Item Cross References: Quickly and precisely identify the items a customer is ordering on the basis of item numbers other than your own. Cross-reference information from customers, vendors, and manufacturers, as well as generic numbers, universal product codes (UPCs), and European article numbers (EANs) that can be stored and easily accessed.
  12. Item Substitutions: Link items with the same or similar characteristics so that if a customer orders an item that is unavailable, you can offer substitute items and avoid losing the sale. Or, provide an extra service to your customer by offering lower-cost alternatives.
  13. Item Tracking: Manage and track serial and lot numbers. Assign serial or lot numbers manually or automatically, and receive and ship multiple quantities with serial/lot numbers from a single order line entry.
  14. Location Transfers: Track inventory as it is moved from one location to another and account for the value of inventory in transit and at various locations. 
  15. Multiple Locations: Manage inventory in multiple locations that may represent a production plant, distribution centers, warehouses, show rooms, retail outlets and service cars.
  16. Non Stock Items: Offer items to customers that are not part of your regular inventory but that you can order from the vendor or manufacturer on an one-off basis. Such items are registered as nonstock items but otherwise are treated like any other item.
  17. Pick: Enable warehouse workers to create a pick from the released order. Pick is managed from a separate user interface when shipping items in an order-by-order environment.
  18. Stock-Keeping Units: Manage stock-keeping units (SKUs). Identical items with the same item number can be stored in different locations and managed individually at each location. Add cost prices, replenishment, manufacturing information, and so on, based on the location.

Learn all the Features of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2017

Posted by iCepts Technology Group, Inc. An Accelos and Microsoft Dynamics NAV Partner in Pennsylvania

iCepts Technology Group, Inc. Middletown, PA

We are a Microsoft Dynamics NAV Partner offering implementation, service, and support for Microsoft Dynamics NAV in: PA, DC, DE, MD, NC, NJ, NY, OH, VA, WV, and the entire Mid-Atlantic Region. We also offer implementation, service, and support for HighJump’s Warehouse Edge (formerly Accellos One) Warehouse Management Systems in: PA, DC, DE, MD, NC, NJ, NY, OH, VA, WV, and the entire Mid-Atlantic Region.

As experienced SCM, WMS and ERP consultants and value added resellers (VARs), we provide start to finish services for the solutions we represent Microsoft Dynamics NAV for Distribution and Manufacturing, Accellos Warehouse Management System (WMS), Server virtualization, open source VOIP phone systems and infrastructure and security. We provide services that cover process analysis, implementation, training, security and networking. Naturally, we also provide full ongoing support for years after implementation to help our clients succeed. We are your one stop shop for your business technology needs.

Contact us for additional information by clicking HERE or...

Phone: 717.704.1000
Email: info@icepts.com

A previous version of this blog was posted on iCepts blog posted by Greg Miles on May 9, 2017 – Better Inventory Management with Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2017

Photo courtesy of www.freedigitalphotos.net by yodiyim