Solving Inventory Accuracy Problems in Business Central with Mobile Barcoding

Introduction

Good morning or afternoon, everyone. This is Mark here, and today we’re going to take you through how to solve your inventory problems in Business Central, and some tools you can use to improve your inventory accuracy within Business Central. So what we’re going to do today is run through a little bit about Insight Works. I’m going to spend a bit more time on a PowerPoint than I usually do on these webinars, but not too much.

It hopefully won’t bore you too badly, and then we’re going to jump into the demo and look at the software and review what you would have to pay to get this stuff, which, spoiler alert, is not much. Probably the full 60 minutes today or so, but it also depends on how many questions you have.

If you have questions as we’re going through the session, feel free to enter them in the question panel in the GoToWebinar interface, and I’ll do my best to answer them as we go through, or I’ll save some of them till the end of the session. All right, with that, let’s jump in and get her going.

About Insight Works

First of all, a little bit about us. You may know who we are — we’ve been around for just over ten years now, and we work primarily through our partners. So if you have questions, if you need quotes, check with your Business Central partner. They’re likely a reseller of ours, and if they are, they can get you all sorts of information.

We do publish pricing on the website as well. If you check the pricing details, it gives you a high-level overview of what it might cost, but your partner will be able to get you a quote, or you can contact us directly if your partner is not a reseller.

Beyond that, we’ve got a lot of applications for warehouse management, distribution, manufacturing, retail, and all of those sorts of things. Anytime you really need to physically touch inventory, we can likely help with that. There’s a whole bunch of apps here I’m not going to get into in a lot of detail — if you go to our website, there’s tons of information, videos, all sorts of things.

Free Applications

I will briefly touch on the free applications, because, hey, they’re free and you should get them. We’ll go through them quickly at a high level.

• The Enhanced Planning Worksheet, part of the Enhanced Planning Pack, and the Enhanced Forecasting Worksheet are both free. If you’re in a warehouse or manufacturing environment, these will help with your purchasing pretty dramatically — the standard Business Central tools don’t work well for that. The forecasting worksheet uses the AI model Microsoft has put out for forecasting, making sales forecasting quick and easy.
• Barcode Generator helps you print barcodes such as Data Matrix and GS1 formats directly from Business Central.
• Doc Extender allows drag-and-drop document management with Business Central, storing documents in SharePoint so they’re easily accessible — even to someone without a Business Central license, such as finding a document attached to a specific sales order.
• Order Ship Express is a free app for shipping. The app itself doesn’t cost anything, and if you don’t already have discounted rates with carriers like UPS, FedEx, and USPS, you’ll get those discounted rates through the app. It takes about ten minutes to set up, and you can generate shipping labels from Business Central, get tracking information, and get costs, all in real time. It works with domestic parcel shipping only — if you need LTL or international shipping, that’s where Dynamic Ship comes in.
• WMS Express is a free warehouse management app. If you just need the core functions — receiving, picking, inventory counts, bin movements — that’s what it does, and for many companies that’s all they’ll ever need. Warehouse Insight is the full version, but if you just need those core functions, WMS Express will do it for years.
• Safety Logbook is generally used in manufacturing for tracking HSE events and similar records.

There are also more common apps for graphical, drag-and-drop scheduling for production or picks, including views for scheduling warehouse picks, production orders, and quality assignments — generally meant for scheduling your production.

Why Inventory Accuracy Matters

Now let’s talk about why we’re here: dealing with inventory. Just to set the premise a little — everybody’s got this problem. If you’re dealing with paper-based processes, it’s going to be an issue, because you need that data to be both accurate and timely. You might have one or the other: somebody receives something and hands in the packing slip immediately but didn’t check anything and maybe received the wrong product, or they check everything on paper and hand it in a day and a half later.

In the meantime, customers are phoning asking if you have something, and yes, you’re receiving it, but none of that paper has come through yet. So you need that data to be timely and accurate, and the problem is exactly what I just described: keeping what’s in Business Central in sync with your physical world. What’s happening in the warehouse, or the manufacturing facility, should be immediately reflected inside Business Central.

The easiest way to do that is barcoding, or more accurately, mobile scanning — because technically you can scan without barcodes. Nowadays you can scan text almost as quickly as barcodes, but barcoding is still the most accessible technology. There’s also RFID, which we support as well, and for bulk operations and high-volume work, that might be a good fit. But generally speaking, barcoding is the easiest way to get information into the system in real time and keep it accurate, because you’re doing physical verification of everything you do. I pick up a box or product, I scan it, and I know I’ve grabbed the right product — I’ve physically verified what I’m doing in the warehouse. That keeps your inventory as accurate as possible.

Approaches to Adopting Automated Data Collection

When you go to barcoding, you’ve got some choices in how you adopt an automated data collection system. There are three approaches:

• You can change the way you work to accommodate the system — sometimes the way you’re doing it may not be ideal, and adopting the way the system presents it to you is okay.
• You can get a system that adapts to the way you need to do things, retaining the best practices you’ve spent years refining, to keep things efficient.
• People often add additional software or processes to fill the gaps — a common one is inventory counts, since the standard Business Central capability for counting isn’t great. People end up firing up Excel and doing reconciliation there instead.

Figure out the most efficient way to physically work in the warehouse, because that’s where your costs are — running around the warehouse, having to recheck things, is going to cost you money. Get software that adapts to those processes, ideally without a massive amount of development, just configuration. One exception is inventory counting — don’t keep doing it the way you’re doing it today. Adopt the Advanced Inventory Count module, which will make your life way easier and save you from staying at work until 2 a.m. on inventory count days.

Barcode Strategy

For automated data collection, you need something on the packaging or product that allows you to identify it — a manufacturer barcode, vendor barcode, or your own barcode printed from Business Central. Barcodes should account for lot numbers, serial numbers, and similar details. A lot of people are moving to the GS1 barcode standard, which we support, and it includes a whole bunch of different pieces of information in the barcode.

There are also situations where you may not even need barcodes, which is ideal if you’re starting a new project and don’t have barcodes on your racking or products yet. We can scan text as quickly as we can scan a barcode, so you don’t have to relabel all your racks with barcodes if they already have text labels, or if a product has a human-readable printed lot or serial number that isn’t included in the barcode itself. We can scan that serial number in and print a barcode for it afterward if you like.

Hardware Considerations

As part of this, you also have to decide on the equipment you’re going to use. We can run on Windows or Android devices — most warehouse devices today are Android. If you have questions about what kind of scanners you might need, you can go to our website and check the hardware section, which has a buyer’s guide walking you through the decisions involved, along with device costs. You can order devices from us as well.

Warehouse and Manufacturing Software Overview

So we’ve covered why you want automated data collection and barcoding — you want real-time, timely, and accurate information. Next is the software that ties all of this together. This applies to both warehouse and manufacturing environments.

The Enhanced Planning Worksheet and Enhanced Forecasting help you plan your purchasing to bring inventory into the warehouse. Order Fulfillment Worksheet helps you plan your fulfillment — what has to go out of the warehouse — so you can plan both what’s coming in and what’s going out, and automate the execution of your fulfillment.

From there, WMS Express is the lightweight version, which may be applicable to roughly 70% of companies, who could likely use it forever. Warehouse Insight is the full version, which we’ll look at today. It’s very adaptable, with a no-code or low-code development capability that’s highly configurable, so you can adapt it to your specific process without a ton of effort. It already works with everything in Business Central, but you’re able to change or extend it as needed.

Once inventory is managed within the four walls, you need to get it out the door. For that we use Order Ship Express, for domestic parcel shipping, or Dynamic Ship, which handles LTL, international, and a whole lot more — getting close to 30 different connectors, covering somewhere around 500 to 600 carriers. Dynamic Ship also facilitates barcode scanning for a final verification step, confirming that the product being shipped matches what was picked. This is useful when people bypass scanning during picking and pick from paper instead — Dynamic Ship catches that at the shipping stage.

On barcode formats: we don’t care what the barcode format is or what’s encoded in it. It’s just configuration to say, “I’ve got this custom barcode with these pieces of information — can you read it?” Absolutely, we can pull whatever data we need out of those barcodes.

Configuring Business Central and Warehouse Insight

Let’s jump in and have a look at the system. I’m going to start in Business Central to show a couple of things about adaptability. There are two things you can do: first, standard Business Central locations let you configure the documents and processes you need — for example, whether you have a single-stage pick where it ships as soon as you’re done, or a two-stage process where you pick everything, drop it at a packing station, and someone else manages shipping. Those processes are configured within standard Business Central locations.

Within Warehouse Insight, there are a lot of tools to configure the application — adding new fields, adding new menus for custom actions, building your own applications, or modifying existing applications with overrides (extensions). The application wizard lets you build a new application for Warehouse Insight without writing any code, including offline capability.

There’s also an add-on catalog — a growing set of solutions you can plug into Business Central and the handheld devices to extend capability, such as fat boxes, printer selection, or full applications like Shop Floor Insight or a quality management module. You just click one, click install, and it becomes available on the handheld device. Proof of Delivery is one example — a full application that lets you capture signatures and photos as you drop off product. It’s all free, with the documentation and code available; you install it and go. If there’s no add-on for something, you can build your own or have Insight Works build it.

On the device itself, applications shown include things like Fixed Asset Count, an add-on installed with a click, and Requisitions, a custom application created with the application wizard that lets you scan into the requisition worksheet. Printer Selection is another add-on plugged into the system. Devices can vary widely — the demo used a Honeywell handheld and a Datalogic Memor K device, but tablets and other form factors all work with Warehouse Insight.

Application Overview

All of the applications shown map to functionality within Business Central, and everything is real time. Here’s a brief overview of what’s available:

• Item Inquiry — scan a barcode to look up information about an item or bin, including serial numbers and quantities.
• Bin Inquiry — scan a bin code to see what’s supposed to be in that bin, including license plates.
• Inventory Count — two modules are available: a basic count using built-in Business Central counting functionality, and the Advanced Count module. Counting audits your inventory accuracy; it doesn’t ensure it. If you’re scanning everything you do, your inventory is already accurate — the count just proves that’s the case.
• Receiving and Put-Away — works with any location configuration, whether bins and warehouse documents are enabled or not. It works fine in a retail environment without bins set up, all the way up to directed put-away and pick (advanced warehousing), where receiving and put-away, or picking and shipping, are handled as separate steps. All of this is configurable — you can pick and ship in one step, put away while receiving, or receive directly into a bin.
• Bin-to-bin movement — move products from one bin, or multiple bins, to others.
• Manufacturing capability, including consumption and output for production orders, and job consumption for working with projects in Business Central.
• Assembly Orders — for assemble-to-stock processes, using standard picks.
• License Plating — a more advanced module that groups products together, typically onto a pallet, for moving through the warehouse. It’s often used in outbound processing to build up a pallet or package being shipped to a customer, but it can also be used for receiving or building up a pallet of components to consume into production. There’s also a package number capability in Business Central, a lighter alternative to license plating, useful for tracking individual cartons for things like catch weights — license plating is a more comprehensive solution and typically isn’t used just for tracking individual cartons.

Demo: Receiving

Opening the receiving application gives a list of all the purchase orders or warehouse receipts to receive against, depending on what you want the view to show. Anything in the system can be tailored to what you want to see on a specific device — you can add or hide custom fields, and an individual user can tailor the screen and even push that configuration back up to Business Central to make it global, with the right permissions.

Opening a purchase order creates a warehouse receipt if one doesn’t already exist, or finds the existing one. This is the grid view, one of three views available in the system. It’s compact, showing core details without using much screen space, with easy sorting by item number, quantity, or other fields. There’s also a card view, often used in picking scenarios like forklifts with fact boxes, and a tile view, similar to a multi-line grid seen in smartphone apps. The grid view is generally the most efficient, giving you all the data you need with the ability to manipulate and sort it.

There are a few receiving scenarios. If a product has no barcode at all — for example, raw material — you can set up the system to not require scanning for specific items or item types, entering a quantity directly instead. Alternatively, you can require scanning during receiving but not picking, or vice versa — those rules are all configurable. Where products don’t already have barcodes, you can print whatever barcodes or labels you like directly from the handheld, then scan them in. For items with lot numbers, you can scan or enter the lot number first, then print a barcode that includes it afterward.

Ideally, items already arrive with barcodes, generated using the Barcode Generator tool’s sample list feature, which can produce square Data Matrix codes or any other format. These are handy because they’re error-resistant — they can get smudged and will likely still scan, and with the right scanner, a two-inch square barcode can be read from significant distances.

Scanning a barcode can optionally show a picture of the item, so if the wrong barcode is on the box, the error is caught immediately before it propagates through the warehouse. You then enter the received quantity — you can default it to the expected quantity, default it to zero so someone always has to enter a value, or require scanning every individual unit for certain items or item types, including serial numbers where required. Once entered, the quantity updates Business Central immediately.

For items with a lot number and serial number together, scanning brings both in automatically, along with expiration date, quantity, unit of measure, variant code, or anything else configured to be pulled from the barcode — all of it is just configuration. If a required lot number isn’t in the barcode, the field is highlighted so you can scan a secondary barcode or type it in manually, or have the system generate one. Basic quality information can also be entered at the point of receipt, and this is expanded further with the Quality Inspector application for more comprehensive inspections at receiving or production.

Unit of measure can be defaulted from the barcode, the purchase line, or the put-away unit of measure, and an alternate unit of measure can be received with a built-in calculator handling the math. Some items are configured so scanning a barcode is required rather than allowing manual quantity entry, ensuring physical verification of what’s being received, picked, or moved — others allow manual entry without scanning.

Additional menu options include license plating — building up pallets while receiving — and a Take Picture capability, useful for documenting damaged product before or after receiving. Photos automatically upload and attach to the purchase order, so the purchaser has what’s needed to start a claim with a vendor or carrier. RFID is also supported for high-volume receiving, such as receiving fifty boxes in a single scan rather than fifty individual barcodes. Printer selection can also be changed on the device, defaulting to the receiving printer but switchable as needed.

Scanning without a barcode is also possible — text printed on packaging, such as an item number or lot number, can be scanned directly, almost as fast as scanning a barcode, without needing a barcode present at all. For frequently scanned items like lot numbers, though, printing an actual Data Matrix barcode afterward is usually more accurate and readable from a greater distance.

Demo: Picking

Picking works basically the same way as receiving. Opening a warehouse pick — which could also be a sales order, inventory pick, or transfer order — brings up the same grid view interface, compact and configurable, with sorting available by fields like weight if that column is included. Interfaces can be extended further; for example, a landscape-mode fact box can show a picture of the item, which can be tapped to view full screen — useful on a larger screen like a tablet. Header and footer information can also be customized through configuration.

The basic process: scan the bin being picked from, scan the item being picked, and enter the quantity. This gives physical accuracy — confirmation that the correct product was picked because the barcode was scanned. The same applies to lot numbers and serial numbers when required. If inventory turns out to be inaccurate and an item can’t be found in its expected bin, you can drill down to see where else that product might be located, with a fact box always visible showing relevant details. Additional menu options let you update pictures in Business Central, create cross-references (for example, mapping a vendor barcode to your own item numbers), and use license plating to build up packages or pallets while picking, along with tote picking.

Alternate Interfaces

Beyond the grid view, there’s a tile view, better suited to a tablet-sized screen, showing more information without multiple columns — fully configurable in terms of what’s displayed, including whether pictures are shown. It works the same way: scan a barcode, enter the quantity, and continue. This is a good fit for richer retail-type environments, while the grid view tends to be preferred in warehouse settings with less scrolling.

Card View and Voice Picking

Opening a pick with tile view and card view enabled shows one entry at a time, along with voice picking instructions. Voice guidance can be embedded in any application — there’s a standard voice picking add-on that can be installed with a click. As an example, once a bin is scanned, the system speaks the bin code and the item to pick along with the quantity, and a barcode scan or hotkey can repeat the instruction.

This is useful for visually impaired workers or wearable setups — wearing a scanner on the wrist in a holster, with a ring scanner on the other hand and a headset, allows hands-free picking guided entirely by voice. The system can be configured to automatically assume the picked quantity once an item is scanned, or to require manual quantity verification before moving to the next pick. The card view, showing one entry at a time, is especially handy for forklift operations or directed picks where you don’t want to show workers everything they need to pick on a single screen — it steps them through the pick one entry at a time until complete.

Offline Functionality

Everything done on the handheld is real time with Business Central while online. There are two ways offline situations are handled. If you’re in a dead spot in the warehouse, everything scanned keeps retrying automatically, syncing with Business Central as soon as you’re back in range. There’s also a full offline mode — if the network is down for hours, picking, receiving, and other activities can still be performed on the handheld, syncing back up with Business Central once the network returns.

With the device in airplane mode, an icon indicates offline status, and picks can still be opened and executed exactly as normal. Once back online, everything syncs automatically. Generally speaking, all standard warehouse activities available in Business Central can also be done offline on the device. That said, constant connectivity is still the recommended approach — offline and store-and-forward capability is there for emergency or unusual situations, but getting Wi-Fi coverage sorted to avoid dead spots leads to a better experience overall.

Demo: Inventory Counting

Opening the Advanced Count module lists all the available count sheets. Different approaches are supported — for example, assigning one team a specific list of items to count (typical for cycle counts), while another team is simply told to go to a bin and scan everything found there, which works well for full physical inventories or cycle counts by bin.

The counting process: scan the bin, scan the item in that bin, enter the quantity, and move to the next bin. The system can then reconcile results, showing exactly which items are extra or short, and which lot or serial numbers are missing or extra. Custom fields, such as a manufacturer part number pulled from a custom field on the item card, can be added to the view through configuration.

If inventory counting is currently done in Excel or through the physical inventory journal, the recommendation is to stop and adopt the Advanced Inventory Count module instead. It doesn’t require the full Warehouse Insight application — it runs on WMS Express, so the handheld functionality is free, and only the Advanced Count module itself needs to be purchased. Counts can also still be done using paper-based methods run out of Business Central, if preferred.

Why Choose Insight Works

There are a lot of warehouse management solutions out there, so why choose Insight Works? The company has been around for a long time, with customers ranging anywhere from two devices up to 200 devices in a warehouse. The capability goes beyond automated data collection and barcode scanning — it’s a whole suite of solutions that can be purchased in pieces, such as the Order Fulfillment Worksheet for automating fulfillment, shipping, planning, quality management, and shop floor functionality, all working together rather than being a single standalone barcode scanning tool.

There’s also the free version to consider. Unlike a typical loss-leader model, more customers actually move from paid products down to the free version once they realize it covers their requirements — WMS Express being the free option that many companies end up using long term, unless their needs change down the road. Between the interface options, development tools, customization capabilities, and offline support, there’s a strong case for the platform’s capability within Business Central.

On the services side, Insight Works supplies the software and can handle implementation directly, although partners often manage that themselves; when Insight Works does it, it’s a fixed-price implementation project. Post-implementation support is also provided, along with hardware supply — hardware purchased through Insight Works includes mobile device management, and support is available regardless of where an issue originates.

Pricing

Apps can be purchased individually rather than as a massive bundle — for example, Order Ship Express is free on its own. Going with an annual subscription provides a significant discount. On the website, each product page includes a pricing details link near the top that jumps to pricing information at the bottom of the page, giving an indication of cost, though a concrete price requires talking to Insight Works or a partner directly.