Serial Numbers Conundrum

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  • Reading time:17 mins read

A blog reader has asked me for help about an allegedly strange behavior of items with serial number tracking. They had a customer who had serial number tracking switched on for an item with FIFO costing method. Whenever they posted a sales transaction, they chose the serial number manually. Then they noticed a puzzling behavior.

No matter the specification of the serial number on the sales lines, Microsoft Dynamics NAV seemed to be closing the item entries according to FIFO method. This effectively allowed a serial number to be sold twice (or more). They called for help.

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Not-so-elementary costing: The Change

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  • Reading time:6 mins read

They say the only constant is change. I’d say that the only other constant is error. We humans tend to err. Give a repeatable task to a human, and they’ll mess it up every once in a while. Some call it the human factor.

One of the many repeatable tasks in Microsoft Dynamics NAV is setting up items. If you remember my rant about mandatory fields, and how I said they were baaad, there might be an even more baaad kind of fields: the default value fields. Because the system simply inserts a value into these fields without asking for your say, and if anything is easy, it’s only so easy to overlook these. Yep, you have a chance to voice your oppinion on these, but having got to hurry for a cup of coffe with Mary from accounting, admit it, you’re gonna leave that default FIFO costing method for an item every once in a while, even though it should really have been Average. Then you’ll start posting. Then your phone rings and starts screaming at you about a moron who screwed up items again.

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