Another frequent customisation that simplifies the system is to restrict NAV to only reserving what’s on inventory. By default NAV is all or nothing, setting reservations against purchase orders, production orders, planning worksheet lines and even, horrifically, against sales return orders. It will assume that any source of inventory is fair game and use it to promise to your customer!
As a consequence of this the system also restricts your ability to change source orders once reservations exist. Changing a date on a purchase order can be a nightmare when twenty sales orders have reservations against it because NAV expects you to find and cancel those reservations first so that you are free to change the supply date. While the theory that you should re-promise your customers might be correct in practise it just not practical especially when the date is coming forward.
So the compromise is to just reserve against inventory, which is when it’s in your control. Beyond that it’s an indication based on first come first served against the different sources of supply. The system will track but not reserve (with none of the restrictions relating to change applying to tracking entries).
You will need a routine that reserves the oldest demand when inventory is receipted into stock. Actually this allows you to have a priority system so that orders replacing quality issues for instance are replaced before new orders leading to invoices being paid quicker and customers being happier than they otherwise might be.
Note
This post is part of a 6-part series. A link to rest of the posts in this series are below (updated as published);
Author: James Crowter
I’m passionate about how businesses can improve their efficiency by getting process optimal more of the time. For the last twenty five years I’ve worked to help organisations of all sizes and types implement the ERP & CRM software that typically they decide they need when things are going wrong. I’ve seen that work unbelievably well and enabled those organisations to rapidly grow but I’ve also had some hard projects over that time where it’s felt more like warfare at times.
Since 1996 (and version 1.01) I’ve been working with a small Danish product called Navision that’s now become Microsoft’s Dynamics NAV and I’ve also been using and consulting around Microsoft CRM since 2005. As managing Director of one of the longest established first Navision and now Microsoft Dynamics partners I’ve been involved in the complete history including numerous product councils and system design reviews. It’s my privilege to know many of the key Microsoft executives and product designers and have insight into both where the products are now and their future direction.
So colleagues & clients have asked me to start this blog to share some of the insight that both this knowledge (obviously where not restricted by NDA’s or client confidentiality) and experience can help. Specifically I want to concentrate not on the specifics of how (there are some great blogs already for that) but why. If any user helps their business make better decisions or consultant can give better advice then that will be objective achieved.
I founded Technology Management in 1992 and have led from the front ever since. Helping clients use technology to grow their business is my passion through explaining technology in terms that everyone can understand.
My interest in computing began at the age of eight, long before my school had the equipment to cope. Throughout school and university I developed software commercially.
I hold many IT certifications, such as Microsoft Dynamics NAV (for over 17 years), Microsoft Dynamics CRM (for over 10 years), as well as Microsoft Windows Server, Exchange and SQL. In October 2015, I was awarded the title of Most Valuable Professional (MVP), a title given to a select few individuals (31 currently) across the world specifically for Dynamics NAV.
After years of working with a range of distribution and manufacturing software for hundreds of organisations, I focus on understanding the business requirements of an organisation, what it will take to deliver the systems required to maximise their potential.
Follow me online via my other social channels:
- Twitter: @jamescrowter
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Or email me directly at james[.]crowter[@]tecman.co.uk.
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