Description

You can take a physical inventory of your items by using physical inventory journals.

-

Overview

The mobile user must not know the Expected Quantity of an item, but should do a "Blind Count".

This means the "Count" function marks order lines green upon registration, regardless of whether the "Expected Quantity" is fulfilled.

Handling Item-tracked Items

Setup requirements

In order to collect Lot or Serial numbers, the items "Item Tracking Code" must be set up correctly.

"Bin Mandatory" is Enabled on Location:

Then "Warehouse Tracking" must be enabled: The reason is if warehouse tracking is disabled, then "Item Ledger Entry" holds the Item Tracking information, however, this is not registered per bin on "Warehouse Entries", making it impossible to calculate the tracking lines for the journal lines

"Bin Mandatory" is Disabled on Location:

Then "Specific Tracking" must be enabled: The reason is if only tracking is registered on some "Item Ledger Entries", it is NOT possible to calculate the expected tracking lines for the journal lines

Creating Phys. Inventory Journal Batches in Business Central

Before the mobile devices can be used to register the counted items, you must create journal batches and populate them with relevant lines.

If the location is configured to use "Directed Put-away and Pick" then "Whse. Phys. Invt. Journals" is used otherwise the "Phys. Inventory Journals" is used
The work process on mobile is the same for both.
It is recommended that you create at least as many batches as you have mobile devices/people available for the inventory counting. This will allow you to perform the counting in parallel

Releasing a Physical Inventory Batch in Business Central

The "Released to Mobile" setting determines if the batch is available on mobile devices.

This checkmark should be set when the batch has been populated with relevant lines and is ready for mobile users to register.

Select a Batch Name

Use the "Release To Mobile" action

Note how the Released to Mobile checkmark is now marked.

Releasing a Warehouse Physical Inventory Batch

The "Released to Mobile" setting determines if the batch is available on mobile devices.

This checkmark should be set when the batch has been populated with relevant lines.

Select a Batch Name

Use the "Release To Mobile" action

Note how the Released to Mobile checkmark is now marked.

The Warehouse Physical Journal Batch does not show up on mobile?

The most common reasons are:

The Warehouse Physical Inventory Batch was never Released to Mobile (see above)
No un-recorded lines exist in the batch (or lines have not yet been calculated, see next section)
The user is not set up as Warehouse Employee for the Location
The Warehouse Journal Template does not match the template setup in "Mobile WMS Setup" / Count / "Whse. Inventory Jnl. Template"

Populating a journal batch

The journal batch is populated with lines using the "Functions" -> "Calculate Inventory" function. You typically set a location and bin filter to generate lines for a subset of your location.

The journal batches are typically created by a warehouse manager.

This person will not perform the counting but is responsible for organizing the inventory count and for posting the journals after they have been updated with data from the mobile devices.

The "Registered on mobile" flag tells the warehouse manager which lines that have been updated from a mobile device.

Note:

The "Registered on mobile" checkmark is used to filter the lines shown on the mobile device
Only lines that have not been registered before are shown. The flag is set when the line is posted from a mobile device
Posting from mobile does not actually post the journal. It only updates the "Qty. (Phys. Inventory)"-field.
- It is the responsibility of the warehouse manager to post the journal.

Mobile: Making Planned Inventory Counting

The "Count" function is accessed from the main menu seen in the screenshot.

The available journal batches are shown as count orders in the order list.

The list only shows journal batches that meet the following criteria:
- The batch is "Released to Mobile"
- The batch contains lines that are not "Registered on mobile"

The order is selected by double touching the order. This downloads the order lines to the mobile device.
Note:

When an order is selected on the mobile device it is locked. Other users will see the order as locked and will receive a warning if they try to access it.
A locked order can be released by activating the "Release (order no.)" function from the menu.
It is possible for multiple people to work in the same order. As long as they don't work on the same lines. If they do the person posting last will overwrite registrations made by other users. This should only be done by experienced users.

The screen above shows the count order lines for the "DEFAULT" journal batch.

Each line typically corresponds to an item in a bin and is registered through the following work process
Scan the item you want to count (or select the line manually)

Scan the bin code
If the expected bin is scanned you are allowed to enter the counted quantity.

A bin code can also be entered manually by clicking the barcode image

You are typically not allowed to see the expected quantity as you are counting the physical inventory, so the quantity is by default zero

Enter the counted quantity and register it

The order lines are now updated

Any registration will mark the line green (Blind Count)

Different from other functions, "Count" marks the line green upon registration, regardless of whether the Expected Quantity is fulfilled
This is done because the mobile user must not know the Expected Quantity, but should do a "Blind Count"

Repeat for all lines, then post the order

Posting is done from the menu
After posting the order the count order list is displayed again.

Finishing the Count in Business Central

When the count order is posted on the mobile device the registrations are transferred to the journal batch. An example of a filled journal batch is seen below.

This journal batch contains registrations for two lines.

Note:

This journal batch will still be visible on mobile devices because it still contains lines that have not been registered
If the order is selected again it will only contain the lines that have not been registered (two lines)
If the warehouse manager for some reason wants a line to be recounted the "Registered on mobile" flag can be removed and the line will reappear on the mobile device the next time the order is selected

The warehouse manager finishes the counting process by posting the journal and removing the "Released to Mobile" flag on the journal batch

Mobile: Adding a new item

Should the mobile user encounter an unexpected item, the user can add the item, using the "Add Line" function in the round blue menu.

Select the "Add Line" action from the menu

Scan the Item

Scan the Bin
Choose the Unit of Measure and finish the registration (if relevant)
The Line will now have been added to the Recording and you can register the counted quantity on the line.

Next

Physical Inventory Recordings

Browser not supported