Selling Multiple internally different items as the same item to customers

Business Central/NAV User Forum
1

Hi,

I have the following situation and I am exploring ways to handle it:

We manufacture an item from two different plants with different BOM and ROUTING, we want to be able to track the standard cost at the different plants, but I want it so when it comes to the customer orders, Navision treats the two items as the same. Maybe build in preference based on location, but overall I just want to be the same externally.

Our current process: We use one item number for all of the products produced, but we have different BOM and Routing. This method is a pain because we have to manually switch the BOM and Routing based on the location and it does not allow different standard cost for different locations.

I have received a recommendation from our NAV provider who is recommending a modification of the SKU card so everything will be location specific. The feature sounds promising, but the amount of modifications I imagine will require is concerning and it seems redundent to reproduce all the feature of the item card when the item card is already there!

The idea I’m exploring is just create two different items for the locations so we have all the features we need (no modification on item side), but manage this on the sales order level so when a customer orders item 123, we can ship item 123A or 123B. I am wondering about what functionality in NAV will support this, I am exploring kitting and cross reference. I imagine other would have encountered the same problem as me and I’d like to hear about your solutions. Bascially what I want is only to have item 123 on the invoice, but internally we can pick 123A or 123B. Are there any other feature of Navision that may support this?

Thanks!

Version V5 SP1

2

Hi,

You can use kitting but you will still need modification. We did this for one of our customers. The idea - you create 2 kits that has one item let say - KIT123A → Component 123A and KIT123B → component 123B. On Salesorder Line you will select item 123 and Kit No. based on what you want to ship - 123A or 123B.

Use FIFO cost for 123.

The good thing - it is very light modification and picking + costing are working native.

3

One more thing. If you use standard cost i will not reccomend make modification on SKU… Will be creasy when you start moving item from one location to another…

4

Johnny,

First quick idea that hit my mind reading your post - what about Item Variants?

It should be examined closer, how it all fits in Prod.BOM, quick lookup showed only Prod.BOM lines have Variant field, not “header” - but it seems to be a less painful modification… Maybe it’s worth looking in this direction?

added: Cross-reference is for different purposes, mainly used for different external codes, i.e. Vendor catalogue code if you use your own instead, different barcodes and like.