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Guide to Using Dates in Dynamics 365 Business Central

Dates are a useful tool, here's your guide to using dates in Dynamics 365 Business Central. They can be used to calculate delivery dates, both requested and actual. D365 Business Central also has calendars available. There are base calendars and customized calendars. The calendars may be used to determine the customers or vendors working days to calculate deliveries.

Dates for Sales / Shipping in D365 Business Central

Business Central uses a variety of dates to calculate shipments and deliveries. They are as follows:

Dates from the Sales Header:

1. Document Date – Date the order is created. This date is used to calculate the customer’s payment due date and finance charges.

2. Order Date – Date the order is created. Typically left blank to populate with the Business Central work date.

3. Posting Date – Date the order will post to the G/L, customer, and item ledger entries.

4. Requested Delivery Date – The date the customer wants the order delivered to the customer’s ship-to address on the order. Will be used in Sales Line date calculations. This may be requested by the customer or calculated by Business Central based on setup and calendars.

5. Promised Delivery Date – The date the delivery was promised.

Shipment Dates and Times:

6. Planned Delivery Date – The date the company planned the order to be delivered.

7. Planned Shipment Date – The date the customer requested, minus shipping time. This date is calculated by Business Central but can be changed.

8. Outbound Warehouse Handling Time – The time that is required to pick, pack, and label the items in an order.

9. Shipping Time – The time between when the items ship from the warehouse and when they arrive at the customer’s ship-to address.

10. Shipment Date – The date the item is ‘picked’ or leaves the warehouse.

Using the calendars in the system Business Central calculates the earliest possible date on a sales order line an item can be shipped. The calendars identify the working days to calculate the shipping date of a sales document.

Dates for Purchase / Receiving in D365 Business Central

Purchase Dates

1. Order Date – The date the item is ordered. If calculating backward from a planned receipt date, the date the vendor must ship the items to meet the planned receipt date.

2. Promised Receipt Date – The date the company has been promised receipt of the order.

3. Requested Receipt Date – The date the company requests a vendor to deliver the order.

4. Planned Receipt Date – The date the company plans to receive the order from the vendor.

5. Expected Receipt Date – The date the company expects the put-away process to finish and when the items are available for picking.

Purchasing Times

1. Inbound Warehouse Handling Time – the time that is required to receive and put away the items of an order.

2. Lead Time Calculation – The time that is between when the items are ordered from the vendor and when the items are received by the company. Otherwise, this is known as the vendor lead time.

3. Safety Lead Time – The buffer period if there are delays in the purchase replenishment lead time. This affects the date when the items are available for sale.

Calculation Notes

Forward-Calculated Dates related to product receipt are used for order date calculation when no receipt date has been requested

Backward/Forward-Calculated Dates related to product receipt are used for order promising (Available-to-Promise & Capable-to-Promise) calculations or whenever a Requested Delivery Date has been specified.

For receiving purposes, the Requested or Promised Receipt Date on the Purchase Header (or lack of both) will drive the remaining dates.

Calculations

No Receipt Date Requested:

Receipt Date Requested:

Order Promising

• Exists if a customer has requested or been promised a delivery date, and can the date be met?
• Is there existing or expected inventory available to meet the order requirements? If so, when?
• If there is not existing inventory or expected inventory, can it be supplied?

There are dates used by Business Central for Order Promising

• Promised Delivery Date – The date the company promised delivery to the customer’s address. You must manually enter this date to affect the date calculation.
• Planned Delivery Date – The date the company plans to delivery the order to the customer’s address. This date calculated automatically but can be changed.
• Requested Shipment Date – The date the customer requested, minus the shipping time. This date calculates automatically, but you can change it.
• Planned Shipment Date – The date the order is shipped from the warehouse. This date calculated automatically, but you can change it.
• Shipment Date – The date the order items are inventory and available to be picked. This date calculates automatically, but you can change it.

Date Priority

1. Promised Delivery Date
2. Requested Delivery Date
3. Shipment Date

There are two Order Promising methods in Business Central. Available-to-Promise (ATP) and Capable-to-Promise (CTP).

Order Promising is linked to several variables across the BC environment, so it is important to verify that everything is set up correctly.

These items must be setup for ATP and CTP calculations:

• Shipping Time – defines shipping agent services and shipping time accordingly.
  • Set up under the Shipping Agent
• Offset Time – the period from the current date that Business Central must wait before issuing a new purchase, production, assembly or transfer order
  • Set up under Order Promising Setup
• These items will be set up under the Order Promising Setup:
  • Order Promising Numbers – a number series for order promising calculations
    • Set up under Order Promising Setup
  • Order Promising Template – Select/Create a requisition template that will be utilized to create any proposed replenishments of inventory
    • Set up under Order Promising Setup
  • Order Promising Worksheet – Select/Create the requisition worksheet that will be utilized to create any proposed replenishments of inventory.
    • Set up under Order Promising Setup
• These items will be setup under Company Information:
  • Check-Avail. Period Calc – This period indicates the length of the period after the planned shipment date in which Business Central checks availability for the demand.
  • Check-Avail. Time Bucket – This field specifies how frequently Business Central checks supply and demand events to discover if the item on the demand line is available on its planned shipment date.
  • Base Calendar Code – This calendar specifies the working days of the company.
  • Cal. Convergence Time Frame – This field specifies how dates based on calendar and calendar-related documents are calculated.
• These items will be setup under Location:
  • Outbound Whse. Handling Time – The time that is required to pick, pack, and label the items in an order before shipping.
  • Base Calendar Code – This calendar specifies the working days of the location if different than the company base calendar on company information.

Order Promising Date Calculations

• Based on if the customer does not request a specific delivery date:
  • Shipment Date + Outbound Whse. Handling Time = Planned Shipment Date
  • Planned Shipment Date + Shipment Time = Planned Delivery Date
• If the customer requests a specific delivery date:
  • Requested Delivery Date – Shipping Time = Planned Shipment Date
  • Planned Shipment Date – Outbound Whese. Handling Time = Shipping Date

Stockout Warning

The stockout warning will display an earliest availability date if there is no inventory on hand, and if any outstanding production, purchase, assembly, transfer or sales return order exists to find the earliest date the item will be available.

If there are no outstanding documents, then the earliest availability date will be blank. This is the pint where CTP may be utilized to calculate an availability date.

ATP and CTP are very different calculations:

• ATP is used when Inventory exists (either on-hand or expected).
• CTP is used when no Inventory exists (and is not expected).
• ATP/CTP functionality calculates dates based on the Inventory availability
• ATP/CTP performs an availability check of the unreserved quantities in inventory or in planned production, purchases, assembly orders, transfers, and sales returns.
• ATP - If the items are available (either in inventory or on planned receipts), the program automatically calculates the delivery date of the customer’s order.

ATP (Available to Promise – inventory on hand or in supply chain)

These items must be setup for ATP and CTP calculations:

• Outbound Warehouse Handling Time – time required to pick, pack and label items in an order. Calculates the difference between the shipment date and the planned shipment date.
• Shipping Time – defines shipping agent services and shipping time accordingly.

CTP (Capable to Promise – no inventory on hand and no supply orders scheduled)

• Calculates the earliest date the item can be available if it is produced, purchased, assembled or transferred from another location.
• Includes capacity constraint issues in its calculation, and can be integrated with production scheduling, manufacturing, transfer, purchase and assembly planning.
• Level of CTP used depends on the model selected in the capacity scheduling engine.
• Based on this estimated availability date for this item, the program will do the following:
  • Calculate the delivery date to the customer
  • Create planning line(s) for the item
  • Reserve the inventory

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