Selling Inventory Items in Assemble-to-Order Flows

If the Assembly Policy field on the item card of an assembly item contains Assemble-to-Order, the sales order process assumes that the item isn't in inventory and must be assembled for sales orders. When you add the item to a line on a sales order, Business Central creates an assembly order that's linked to the sales order. To learn more about how to sell assemble-to-order items, go to Sell Items Assembled to Order. However, if some of the sales order quantity is already available in inventory, you can decrease the assembly order quantity by changing the Qty. to Assemble to Order field on the sales order line.

It's relatively rare for businesses to sell inventory items as assemble-to-order items. Assemble-to-order items typically aren't standard. They're customized to meet specific customer requirements. However, you might have quantities of assemble-to-order items in inventory due to returns or order cancellations. Those quantities should be picked and sold before new ones are assembled.

You can do similar things when you're selling assembly items from inventory and some or all of the quantity isn't available. You can supply the missing quantity through an assembly order. To learn more about selling inventory and assembly items, go to Sell Assemble-to-Order Items and Inventory Items Together.

In this procedure, you replace assemble-to-order quantities with inventory quantities on a sales order line. The following steps provide an overview:

1. Determine availability.
2. Reducing that quantity from the linked assembly order.
3. Reserve the inventory quantity to make sure that it's picked and shipped for the order.

To sell inventory items in assemble-to-order flows

1. Choose the icon, enter Sales Orders, and then choose the related link.

2. Create a sales order. To learn about creating sales orders, go to Sell Products.

3. On a sales order line that contains an assemble-to-order item, in the Quantity field, enter the quantity.

4. In the Sales Line Details FactBox, determine whether some of all of the quantity is available.

5. In the Qty. to Assemble to Order field, deduct the available quantity so that only the unavailable quantity is assembled to the order. The Reserved Quantity field is decreased accordingly to reflect that the order-to-order link, or reservation, only applies to the quantity to be assembled.

6. On the Lines FastTab, choose Functions, and then choose the Reserve action.

7. On the Reservation page, select the item ledger entry line or lines that contain the available quantities, choose the Reserve from Current Line action, and then choose the OK button.

   On the Sales Order page, the Reserved Quantity field now shows that the full quantity for the order line is reserved. The Qty. to Assemble to Order field still reflects the quantity to assemble.

8. Release the sales order to make the items available for picking and for assembly of the unavailable items. To learn more about assembling items, go to Assemble Items.

See also

Assembly Management
Reserve Items
Work with Assembly BOMs
Inventory
Warehouse Management Overview Work with Business Central

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