License plating in Business Central gives a pallet, carton or tote a single License Plate Number that already knows every item, lot, serial and quantity on it, so a warehouse worker moves or ships the whole unit with one scan instead of one scan per line. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central tracks inventory by item, bin and lot, but it has no native object for “this pallet”; License Plating from Insight Works adds that object as an add-on to Warehouse Insight. This article explains the prerequisite plainly, then walks through receiving to a plate, nesting plates, moving and shipping by one scan, and where the plate hands off to an SSCC label.
Does License Plating require Warehouse Insight?
Yes, without exception. License Plating is an add-on to Warehouse Insight and cannot be installed, demonstrated or sold without Warehouse Insight in place. License Plating works with every current Warehouse Insight license; there is no separate edition to buy first. WMS Express, the scaled-down configuration of the same platform, does not support license plates at all. This is a completely free app from Insight Works for Business Central. If a warehouse is running WMS Express and wants pallet-level handling, the path is a licensing step up to Warehouse Insight first.
Licensing for License Plating itself is per company rather than per device: one license per company in the tenant, used from a regular Business Central user license, on Business Central online or on-premises. Plan the implementation as a change to both the location configuration and the pick process, because both change once pallets become records.
What problem does a license plate solve in a Business Central warehouse?
Scanning volume. Business Central’s warehouse documents work line by line: a Warehouse Receipt has one line per item, a Warehouse Pick has one line per item per bin, and item tracking adds a lot or serial per line. A worker moving a mixed pallet of twelve items, three of them lot-tracked, scans a bin, then twelve item barcodes, then three lot barcodes, then types twelve quantities. The same worker with a license plate scans the plate and the destination bin.
The earlier Insight Works post on license plating for the warehouse environment states it directly: the license plate “knows the item, lot, quantity and location already, so you don’t have to worry about incorrect data being scanned.” Fewer scans is the cause; speed and accuracy are the effects. That post covers the general case; this article stays with how it behaves in Business Central.
Standard Business Central does have a partial answer for one situation. Microsoft’s guidance on transferring items between locations covers in-transit tracking between two locations, but it still moves item by item and has no concept of a container that holds several items and their lots as one record.
How does receiving to a license plate work?
The receiver builds the plate as the goods come off the truck. On the handheld, license plate receiving for Business Central follows the standard Warehouse Insight pattern: open the purchase order, transfer order, sales return order or receipt document, press Start License Plate (or scan a license plate template barcode), then scan the bin, scan the item, capture lot or serial if the item is tracked, and enter the quantity. Every line processed while the plate is active is added to it. Press Stop License Plate when the pallet is complete, and the label prints. The plate is created against a location and, where bins are in use, a bin. Mixed items and mixed lot or serial numbers on one plate are normal; the one rule at receiving is that all lines on a plate must share the same destination bin, so a pallet that splits across bins becomes two plates.
The plate label prints from the License Plate List in Business Central or from the handheld using a configurable report. On Business Central online, the handheld never prints directly; the request passes through Business Central to a cloud print service. From that moment the plate barcode is the only thing anyone needs to scan to identify the contents. When the put-away document appears, one scan of the plate assigns the whole pallet to its destination bin.
A first-hand setup detail: License Plating needs a number series defined for plate numbers and a label report selected in the Insight Works Report Selections (with the LP Label usage) before the first plate can print. Both are one-time steps, and both are easy to miss when the extension is installed by someone who is not running the go-live.
Can license plates be nested?
Yes. The Warehouse Insight feature page describes multi-level license plates: boxes nested inside a pallet, each level carrying its own barcode, with the full contents tracked at every level in Business Central. Nesting is what makes a mixed shipment manageable, because each carton keeps its own identity and contents while the pallet plate stands for all of them. Scanning the pallet at a move, at shipping verification or in an inquiry covers everything inside it; scanning a carton later, after the pallet is broken down, still resolves to the right items and lots. The license plating for Business Central page describes the behavior.
Two related mechanisms exist alongside nesting. License plate templates hold predefined dimensions and are scanned from a template barcode at the start of picking or receiving, so the pack station does not measure every carton. Production output can also be recorded straight onto a license plate from the production output application on the handheld, with lot and serial numbers attached, which is described on the license plating for production in Business Central page.
How do I move or ship a whole pallet with one scan?
For a move, the worker scans the plate and then the destination bin. Warehouse Insight moves every line on the plate to the new bin in a single transaction, and on a multi-level plate the outer scan covers the boxes inside. Both the ad hoc move and the directed movement applications accept a plate scan: for an ad hoc move that is the whole task; for a directed movement from a movement worksheet, the plate satisfies the lines Business Central generated.
For shipping, the sequence is pick to license plate. License plate picking and shipping for Business Central starts from the Warehouse Pick that standard Business Central created. The picker scans a template barcode to start a plate (or presses Start License Plate), picks lines onto it from as many bins as the pick requires, and registers the pick from the handheld. The plate is now the shipping unit: it knows which lines, lots and quantities it holds. At the dock, a second worker opens the Warehouse Shipment and scans the plate once to confirm every line on it. Where Dynamic Ship is in use, the knowledge base describes the handoff: picked and registered lines appear in the Package Worksheet as already packed with their Packed Quantity filled in, so the packer verifies rather than rebuilds the package, and the carrier label, packing slip and bill of lading are generated from the same device. That interoperability is optional; Dynamic Ship has its own license plate handling built in and does not require the License Plating app.
Two boundaries are worth knowing before go-live, both from the knowledge base. If a pick is registered in the Business Central client rather than on the handheld, the source document is not recorded on the plate. And if a step in the pick to license plate sequence is skipped, packing proceeds normally without reference to the pick. Two setup switches make the handoff work: Update Shipment on Pick on the device configuration, and Shipment Line Visibility set to Show Picked in Dynamic Ship Setup. Both boundaries are process discipline questions, and both are easier to enforce on a scanner than on paper.
| Task | Without license plates | With License Plating |
|---|---|---|
| Receive a mixed pallet | Scan each item and lot, type each quantity | Scan items once into a plate; plate label printed at the dock |
| Move a pallet between bins | One scan per item plus bin, one posting per line | Scan plate, scan destination bin, one transaction |
| Pick for a customer order | Pick line by line into an unlabeled carton | Pick to a plate started from a template barcode |
| Break down a pallet | Recount and rescan | Scan the carton plate; contents already known |
| Hand off to shipping | Packer rebuilds the package contents | Registered plate lines appear as packed |
| Retire old plates | Not applicable | Archive by status, date or location, with restore |
What happens at a Directed Put-away and Pick location?
License Plating works with the bin configuration the location already has, and Business Central still generates the put-away, pick and movement documents. The plate is the unit the worker scans to satisfy those lines, and it carries its bin as it moves. The behavior that changes between a basic bin location and a Directed Put-away and Pick location is in how Business Central creates the documents, not in how the plate is scanned. Because Directed Put-away and Pick adds zones, bin rankings and put-away templates, confirm the specific plate behavior for your location setup during implementation rather than assuming it matches a basic location; Microsoft describes the two configurations in its warehouse management overview.
How does a license plate become an SSCC pallet label?
A license plate is an internal identifier; an SSCC is the external one your customer’s receiving dock scans. GS1 describes the Serial Shipping Container Code as identifying a logistic unit, “for example a case, pallet or parcel” (SSCC on gs1.org), and it is an 18-digit key minted from a GS1 Company Prefix that your company licenses. License Plating itself does not generate SSCCs; no software can without that prefix. Where Dynamic Ship is in use, it generates the SSCC from your prefix, extension digit and a serial reference and stores it on the license plate, so the GS1-128 label and the EDI 856 carry the same number. The handoff is covered in the GS1-128 and SSCC labels article in this series, and the license plating for Business Central feature page describes the plate side.
Frequently asked questions
Does License Plating require Warehouse Insight? Yes. It is an add-on to mobile warehouse management for Business Central through Warehouse Insight, and it works with every current Warehouse Insight license. WMS Express does not support license plates.
Can I move or ship a whole pallet with one scan? Yes. Scan the plate and the destination bin to move it; pick to a plate and register the pick to make it the shipping unit, then scan it once at the dock to confirm the shipment lines. Boxes on a multi-level plate move with their pallet.
What are nested license plates? Multi-level plates: boxes nested inside a pallet, each with its own barcode, with contents tracked at every level. The pallet plate moves everything at once; each carton keeps its own identity and contents for later.
Does Dynamic Ship need License Plating? No. Dynamic Ship’s license plate handling is built in. Where both are in use, registered pick lines appear as packed in the Dynamic Ship Package Worksheet.
Does License Plating generate SSCC numbers? No. An SSCC needs your licensed GS1 Company Prefix. License Plating supplies the pallet record; Dynamic Ship generates the SSCC from your prefix and stores it on the plate.
Can a license plate hold mixed items and lots? Yes. A plate can hold several items and several lot or serial numbers, and the plate label is the one barcode a worker scans to identify all of them.