Set Up Locations

If you buy, store, or sell items at more than one place or warehouse, you must set up each location with a location card and define transfer routes. Business Central uses locations to help keep track of inventory in both simpler cases and the more complex warehouse processes.

You can then create document lines for a specific location, view availability by location, and transfer inventory between locations. For more information, see Manage Inventory.

Location cards

The location card specifies information about a location, such as a warehouse or distribution center. You give each location a name and a code that represents the location. You can then enter the location code in other parts of the program when you want to record transactions for a given location.

You can enter information about bins and warehouse policies for each location. Based on the warehouse policies you select, you can use the options on the Bins FastTab to define the bins that will be used as default bins when you are performing transactions. If you are using directed put-away and pick, you use most of the options on the Bin Policies FastTab to define how you would like to use the various advanced warehousing features.

Some option fields are grayed and disabled by other settings in the Location Card page to restrict unsupported setup combinations.

Choose the Zones or Bins action to view information about zones and bins that may be defined for the location.

To create a location card

Choose the icon, enter Locations, and then choose the related link.
Choose the New action.
On the Location Card page, fill in the fields as necessary. Hover over a field to read a short description.
Repeat steps 2 and 3 for every location where you want to keep inventory.

Note

Many fields on the location card refer to the handling of items in inbound and outbound warehouse processes. The fields are not relevant for companies that do not require the more complex warehouse functionality. For more information, see Setting Up Warehouse Management.

You can change the configuration of a location later, but you cannot edit the setup of locations that have item ledger entries.

Next, if you have multiple locations, you can define transfer routes between locations.

To create a transfer route

Choose the icon, enter Transfer Routes, and then choose the related link.
Alternatively, from any Location Card page, choose the Transfer Routes action.
Choose the New action.
On the Location Card page, fill in the fields as necessary. Hover over a field to read a short description.

You can now transfer inventory items between two locations. For more information, see Transfer Inventory Between Locations.

Bins

Bins represent the basic warehouse structure and are used to make suggestions about the placement of items. When you have created your bins, you can define precisely the contents that you want to place in each bin, or the bin can function as a floating bin without specified contents. Bins are predominantly used in basic and advance warehouse operations. If you manage inventory in a more simple setup, you probably do not need bins.

To use the bin functionality at a location, you first activate the functionality on the Location card by selecting the Bins Mandatory field on the Warehouse FastTab. Then you design the item flow at the location by specifying bin codes in setup fields that represent the different flows.

Note

Before you can specify bin codes on the location card, the bin codes must be created.

For more information, see Create Bins and Set Up Bin Types.

Zones

If you want to structure your bins under zones, you can do that in the Zones page.

Business Central copies the fields that you set for any particular zone to the bins within it. This way, you can assign a zone to a bin or a bin template (bin creation filter), and several other fields are then filled in automatically.

However, you can choose to set up just one zone and to organize your warehouse according to bins alone. For more information, see Setting Up Warehouse Management.

Set Up Locations

Location cards

To create a location card

Note

To create a transfer route

Bins

Note

Zones

See Also