Business Central

Empowered Business Central for Wholesale and Distribution

Empowered Business Central for Wholesale and Distribution gives users access to a set of advanced functionalities for inbound and outbound logistics, tailor-made for trade and wholesale companies.

Empowered Business Central for Wholesale and Distribution is a community-crafted collection of industry-standard solutions which enrich the Business Central experience in the wholesale and distribution industries. Features include Advanced Costing, Promotions & Actions, Inbound Logistics, Incoming Container Handling, and others, see below for more.

Functionality:

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Extended Attributes Management

Standard Business Central lets users add custom data to items and item categories. With Extended Attributes Management, users can add custom data to customers, vendors, contacts, jobs, and resources. This makes it easier to search, group, sort, and filter the data.

With Extended Attributes Management functionality, users can:

Create and link attributes
Assign attributes to customers, vendors, etc.
Filter and sort by the attribute

Create and Link Attributes

Users can assign attribute values of different types (Option, Text, Integer, Decimal, Date) and link them to the desired table (Customers, Vendors, Contacts, Jobs, and Resources). From that moment, user`s extended attributes become available in the respective cards.

Assign Attributes in the Cards

Users can enter the value for the available attributes in each customer, vendor, job, resource, or contact card.

Filter by Attributes

In the list view, users can choose one or more attributes to filter by. As a result, users receive a filtered list of customers, vendors, jobs, contacts, or resources.

Advanced Costing

When users purchase an item, they may incur additional costs such as shipping, customs clearance, and insurance. These costs can be directly booked in users` accounting system, but this can inflate their inventory value, which may not accurately reflect the true cost of the goods. Additionally, users may want to consider upcoming end-of-year volume discounts when calculating their margins and sales prices. These discounts can impact the real cost of the goods, but standard Business Central does not offer a way to handle this.

Advanced Costing functionality helps users calculate the true cost of an item, including all additional costs such as shipping, customs clearance, insurance, and volume discounts. This allows users to make more informed decisions about pricing and inventory management.

With Advanced Costing functionality users can:

Set up additional costs/reductions per item or item category
Calculate the true cost of the items, including all additional costs such as shipping, customs clearance, insurance, and volume discounts
Get more accurate margins and sales prices by accounting for all additional costs
Improve profitability by factoring in upcoming end-of-year discounts when calculating the margins
Get a real-time view of the margins for informed pricing and inventory management decisions

Advanced Cost Definition

Choose the cost base, last purchase price, or the unit cost (average) and define supplements and reductions to calculate the landed cost per item. Per type, users can choose a fixed cost per unit, fixed cost per order, or a percentage. Include supplements like taxes, insurance, currency conversion, handling fees, and all possible reductions.

View The Landed Costs on the Item Level

On the item card, the landed cost field shows the real cost based on the cost definition. Supplements are added and discounts are deducted, giving users a real-time view of the items` costs.

Sales Order Overview

This adds two columns to the sales order lines. It shows users the landed costs and the total margin per line, allowing them to see the real profitability for all orders.

Easy Item Finder

Finding items in Business Central can be difficult and filtering item categories is not always easy. This app feature improves item visibility and search by grouping items together in a clear hierarchy of categories and subcategories.

With Easy Item Finder feature users can:

Organize their items in a tree-view structure for easy browsing
View item categories and subcategories directly on the item card
Find items quickly when creating orders and invoices

View Item Categories and Subcategories

When users create a new item or open an existing one, they will see the extra category fields in the item card. Standard Business Central only offers them the Item Category Code as a field option. With the Easy Item Finder functionality, users receive an extra “Categories” screen section showing them all levels of the hierarchy. These item categories are filled in automatically based on the item category code.

Find Items Quickly When Creating Orders or Invoices

In the order screen, users will see 4 extra category columns in the lines section. When users have lots of items and don’t have the item numbers memorized, they can select the different levels in their category structure. They will then receive a filtered list which helps users to quickly find the right items. This functionality is available on all documents and input screens, such as invoices, purchase orders, etc.

Promotions and Actions

With Promotions and Actions functionality users can:

Create multiple promotions for specific items and customers
Provide extra discounts if a customer meets the promotion requirements
Provide a gift if a customer meets the promotion requirements
Provide a better product for the same price if a customer meets the promotion requirements
Provide X products purchased for free if a customer meets the promotion requirements
Easily define the target customers
Easily define the target products or product groups
Fully automate the promotions on quotes and orders
Easily track the performance of the promotions

Document Management System

Document Management System allows users to easily customize the layout of all the outgoing documents with the advanced layout editor. This gives users complete control over the document creation process and ability to create rules for document distribution. With the e-mail automation configurator and PDF manager, users have complete control over the entire process.

With Document Management System functionality, users can:

Customize and modify document layouts
Manage outbound rules for the documents
Send documents to multiple receivers
Send documents in PDF or XML
Combine a document with general conditions

Customize and Modify Document Layouts

Users can change the layout of all outgoing documents, including the text blocks, column headers, font, logo, cover page, and table column widths. users can also use multiple languages and translate the text blocks and column headers.

Manage Outbound Rules for the Documents

Users can create rules to determine how documents are handled, including the recipient(s), format (PDF and/or XML), and whether or not to add general conditions.

Complaint Management

With Complaint Management functionality users can:

Define the type (e.g., product quality, billing, shipping), status (e.g., open, solved, closed), and priority level for each complaint or non-conformity
Set different status steps per complaint type
Add comments, link documents, and assign tasks to employees
Contain all the information about the complaint in the complaint card
Track all interactions with the complaint contact

Define the Type of Complaint

Users can create different types of complaints to better categorize the incoming complaints.

Set Complaint Status

For each complaint type, users can define different status steps in line with their internal workflow.

Registration of Complaints

The claim card contains all information about the claim: type, reason, priority, and a title with description. Users can link the claim to a contact (customer, vendor) and to a document (order, invoice, …). Users can also keep track of the status and assign a responsible employee. Finally, users can link documents and block them.

Log Interactions

Users can log interactions with the complaint contact, choose the type of communication and link this to a default template if needed.

Advanced Pricing and Discounts

In competitive markets, flexible pricing strategies are essential to attract and retain customers. Business Central only allows one discount per line, and always chooses the cheapest price. The Advanced Pricing and Discounts functionality gives users more control, letting them to combine multiple discounts and define them at different levels (customer, customer group, item, item group, or a combination of these). For example, users could set a standard discount for a customer group and an extra discount for a specific customer-item combination. They could also give a customer a high discount for one item group and a lower discount for another.

With Advanced Pricing and Discounts functionality users can:

Apply 3 levels of discount percentages at the same time
Manage different price and discount groups per customer, item or item group
Combine different types of discounts
Make maintenance easy
Improve transparency of margins

Apply 3 Levels of Discount Percentages

Advanced Pricing and Discounts functionality allows users to work with 3 levels of discount percentages at the same time. The percentages can be cumulative or multiplied, depending on user configuration.

Combine different types of discounts

Sales discounts can be based on a variety of factors, such as customer, customer group, item, item group, order date, currency, and order quantity. With this functionality, users can combine multiple discount criteria to create complex pricing strategies.

Easy Maintenance

Users can define their pricing structure at the customer group level. This allows users to easily categorize customers into different price and discount groups based on customer purchase behavior for different items. This makes it much easier to maintain the pricing structure.

Transparent Margins

Users can view their margins on all levels, so price calculations can be done more accurately.

Lifecycle Management

Lifecycle Management allows users to create and manage custom lifecycles for items, customers, and vendors. For each lifecycle status, users can block or allow certain processes in Business Central. This gives them more control over how their data is managed and used.

For example, users could create a lifecycle for items with the stages “New”, “Active”, “End of Life”, and “Inactive”. Then, users can block the sales quotes from being created for items in the “End of Life” stage. This would prevent the sales team from offering discontinued products to customers.

Users could also create a lifecycle for customers with the stages “New”, “Active”, and “On Hold”. Users could then require a credit check to be completed for new customers before shipping their first order. This would help to protect their business from financial losses.

The Lifecycle Management feature can help users improve the efficiency and accuracy of their business processes.

With Lifecycle Management functionality users can:

Create different statuses
Add the status to the items
Keep track of status changes
Block certain processes such as sales quote, order, shipment, purchase order, receipt, invoice, etc.

Create Different Statuses

Users can define as many lifecycle statuses as they need and configure these lifestatuses to block or allow specific processes in Business Central simply by ticking the boxes.

Add the Statuses

Add and edit the statuses in the item cards.

Keep Track of Status Changes

Lifecycle Management allows users to require to provide a reason when changing a lifecycle status. The system will keep a log of all status changes and the reasons provided.