Changing Item Tracking Code

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Posted on by ehaeb

Hi,
Does someone have experience with changing the tracking code of an item that has item ledger entries?
What table entries need to be modified if the item tracking code changes from lot tracking to no lot tracking?

Best regards,
ehaeb

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Dynamics 365 Business Central

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ehaeb 86 on at

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Changing Item Tracking Code

Hi, thank you all for the answers, i am now more convinced not to try bypass the BC logic and better to create an new Item.

Best regards,

ehaeb.
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Tech-Lucky 1,101 on at

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Changing Item Tracking Code

As far as I know, once an item has ledger entries with tracking (lot or serial), you cannot simply change its item tracking code to "None" due to the historical tracking requirements enforced by the system. You have two possible approaches:

Create a New Item:

Create a new item with the desired tracking setup (e.g., without lot tracking), then perform a negative adjustment for the old item and a corresponding positive adjustment for the new item to transfer inventory, ensuring cost is handled appropriately.

Customization (Not Recommended Without Caution):
You could technically bypass standard validations through customization—this may involve altering validations in the item tracking code logic and possibly modifying data in tables like Item Tracking Code, Item Ledger Entry, and Reservation Entry. We’ve implemented a similar approach in a specific case, but this method requires extreme caution to avoid data integrity and audit issues.
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YUN ZHU 85,982 Super User 2025 Season 1 on at

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Changing Item Tracking Code

Hi, hope the following can give you some hints.
Dynamics 365 Business Central: How to create Item Tracking Lines automatically during an inbound transaction (Customization)
https://yzhums.com/7943/
Item Tracking in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 Technical White Paper
https://lnkd.in/g7heGgT7
Microsoft Dynamics™ NAV 5.0 Item Tracking Technical White Paper
https://lnkd.in/gqPmMisy

Thanks.

ZHU
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KasparsSemjonovs 4,446 Super User 2025 Season 1 on at

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Changing Item Tracking Code

Of course the safest and recommended approach would be to nullify the inventory for this item, rename it to something else (if the orginal number is must have) then create a new item card with the changed values, and post the inventory if anything was left.

A workaround (and I think works only with FIFO costing method for the item) would be to nullify the inventory for this item, then using configuration package You can change the Item Tracking Code on this item card (uncheck the validation checkbox for this field on Item Table line) and apply the entry. If there are no custom modifications done around this area, and no corrections will be done on previous transactions for this item, then no problems should arise, but anyway would be better to first try it out in TEST system (or copy of company) just to make sure and avoid unneeded problems.
Sohail Ahmed 4,829 on at

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Changing Item Tracking Code

Hope this might be helpful:

Changing the Item Tracking Code for an item that already has Item Ledger Entries (ILEs) is an extremely complex and generally unsupported direct modification in Business Central, particularly when going from Lot Tracking to No Lot Tracking.

Why it's so complex and risky:

Data Integrity: Item Tracking (Lot No., Serial No.) is fundamental to how inventory is managed, costed, and traced. Modifying it directly for items with history will corrupt your inventory ledger, costing, and traceability.

Layered Entries: Item Tracking information is stored not just on the Item Ledger Entry, but also on Value Entries, Reservations, and potentially Bin Contents, Production Order Components, Sales/Purchase Lines, etc. All these related entries rely on the tracking dimension.

No Standard Feature: Business Central does not offer a standard function to change the Item Tracking Code on an item with existing inventory or posted transactions precisely because of the data integrity risks

What would theoretically need to be modified (and why you shouldn't directly):

If you were to force this change, you'd be looking at modifying data in:

Item (Table 27): The Item Tracking Code field itself.

Item Ledger Entry (Table 32): Lot No., Serial No., and Item Tracking Code fields on existing entries.

Value Entry (Table 5802): Lot No., Serial No. fields.

Reservation Entry (Table 337): Lot No., Serial No. fields if any reservations exist.

Bin Content (Table 7302): Lot No., Serial No. fields if warehouse management is used.

And potentially: Production Order Components, Sales Line, Purchase Line, Transfer Line (for any outstanding documents linked to the item).

from Lot Tracking to No Lot Tracking is particularly problematic because you'd be trying to remove a dimension that existing records rely on. This is fundamentally different from changing between two tracking codes (e.g., from one Lot No. code to another, or one Serial No. code to another), which might have slightly less catastrophic but still significant implications.

Recommended (and generally only safe) approach:

The only truly safe and supported way to effectively change the item tracking for an item with history is a phased approach, often requiring a "new item" strategy:

Zero Out Inventory: Ensure the inventory quantity for the existing item is zero. This means selling, adjusting out, or transferring all quantities.

Block the Old Item: Once inventory is zero, set the old item to Blocked to prevent further transactions.

Create a New Item: Create a new item number with the desired Item Tracking Code (e.g., "No Lot Tracking").

Transfer/Adjust: If you must bring in "old" physical inventory under the new tracking, you would effectively adjust out the quantity from the old item (with its lot tracking) and adjust in the same quantity to the new item (without lot tracking). This clearly separates the historical tracking.

Update Masters: Update any Bill of Materials, production routings, sales agreements, recurring sales/purchase lines, etc., to use the new item number.

Directly modifying table entries to change the Item Tracking Code on an item with existing Item Ledger Entries is highly discouraged and will lead to data corruption. The robust approach involves creating a new item and managing the transition of inventory and future transactions. If you absolutely must try a direct data manipulation, it would require significant customization and data migration expertise from a Microsoft Partner, performed only in a test environment, with full understanding of the extreme risks.

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