Cycle Counts for Dynamics 365 Business Central
Weekly counts picked from Business Central’s own usage, counted blind by someone who never signs in, reviewed and closed, and a variance that becomes an adjustment only when a person posts it in a physical inventory journal.
Purchasing & inventoryUpdated Oct 202620 ERPs
See it work on Business Central.
Click through the steps. Fictional data, in Business Central’s terms; the real thing runs on Business Central.
Something gets counted every week, picked from usage. Monday’s list: the top 25 drywall items, handed to J. Alvarez.
The problem, as it happens in Business Central.
Everyone agrees the yard should count a little every week. Nobody has a way to pick what, hand it to a counter who doesn’t have a login to Business Central, and know on Friday whether it got done. A physical inventory journal was built for the annual physical, not for Monday’s top twenty-five.
So the counting happens once a year, over a weekend, and the variance is a surprise. In between, Business Central says sixty-one pails of joint compound are on the shelf when there are fifty-eight, the reorder never fires, and the pro desk finds out when the shelf is empty.
How it works.
- 1
Pick the SKUs
A weekly list picked from Business Central’s usage, by method: top sellers this week, randomised by usage, a bin, a category. Monday’s top-25 drywall items, if that’s what you asked for.
- 2
Hand it to a counter
A printed sheet or a phone link. Counters never sign in. Counts are blind: the quantity Business Central has on hand is hidden until review.
- 3
Review and close
Variances over your threshold get a recount. Close freezes the figures. A variance becomes an adjustment only when a person posts it in a physical inventory journal.
- 4
During a physical
A running variance board read from a physical inventory journal, so the controller sees the book moving while the yard counts, and a recount is called while the counter is still in the aisle.
How it connects to Business Central.
Lunica reads the item card, on-hand quantities by branch, bin locations, sales and receipt history, and a physical inventory journal through Business Central’s API, under a user that can only read. The weekly pick is made from what moved. The blind sheet carries the item and the bin, never the quantity, and during a physical the posting is read as the yard keys it, so a variance is seen while there is still time to recount.
Nothing is posted to Business Central on its own. A closed count is a list of variances with the counter’s name and the recount beside each one; it becomes an adjustment only when a person posts it in a physical inventory journal, and Lunica sees the new on-hand the next morning and closes the loop. The reorder alert goes to the buyer you enrolled, and the Friday count email to the people you named.
What a week looks like.
- Something gets counted every week.
- Counters are accountable by name, in a Friday email.
- Variance stops being an annual surprise.
- The buyer gets a daily reorder alert, with an all-clear on quiet days so silence means a fault.
Questions
Does it adjust quantities in Business Central?
No. A variance becomes an adjustment only when a person posts it in a physical inventory journal. Lunica sees the new on-hand and closes the loop.
Do counters need a login?
No. A sheet or a link, nothing else. Nobody in the yard signs in to anything.
How does it pick what to count?
By the method you set: top sellers this week from Business Central’s sales history, randomised by usage, a bin, a category. An item doesn’t come up twice in a cycle unless its variance put it back.
Can we count in Business Central’s own physical screen instead?
Yes. Count there and review here; the variance board reads a physical inventory journal as it is keyed.
What’s in the Friday email?
Whether the week’s counts got done and what each counter counted, by name. It goes to the people you enrolled.
Who gets the reorder alert?
The buyer you enrolled, once a day, with every item at or under its minimum in Business Central. On a quiet day it still goes, as an all-clear, so a missing email means something broke.
Where does it run?
On one server inside your network, whether Business Central is in Microsoft’s cloud or on your own server. It reads Business Central over the LAN; counters open a link or carry a sheet, and nothing comes in from outside.
Does it need a server?
Lunica runs on one server inside your network, whether Business Central is in Microsoft’s cloud or on your own server, set up and maintained by Lunica. It reads Dynamics 365 Business Central through Business Central’s API, under a user that can only read. There is no inbound connection from outside your network.
What does Lunica read in Business Central?
The customer card, open items and terms, purchase orders and receipts, the item card, quotes and order history, as each workflow needs them. Read-only, and only the rows a task is about.
Can it post to Business Central?
Nothing lands in Business Central without a person. What belongs in Business Central goes back as a Business Central API call or import where one exists, or keyed by your team from what Lunica prepared.
What about our documents?
Invoice copies and scans keep living in the attachments on the record. Lunica reads them when a workflow needs one and never writes to them.
The same workflow, on another ERP.
Cycle Counts is written for every system on the list. You’re reading the Business Central version.
Lumber and building materials
Wholesale distribution
General business
- Dynamics 365 Business Central
- NetSuite
- Sage 100
- QuickBooks Enterprise
- Acumatica
- SAP Business One
- Epicor Kinetic
Another system? Tell us which →
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