Hi,
You're raising a common concern: when a purchase order is linked to a project, the items are still physically in inventory, but BC deducts them immediately upon receipt. This can make it difficult to monitor true on-hand quantities, especially when trying to reconcile warehouse stock with project allocations.
Let’s break down what’s happening and how to improve visibility:
1. Why items are deducted after PO receipt
When you post a receipt for a project-linked PO, BC creates two item ledger entries:
- One for the receipt
- One for an immediate negative adjustment to reflect consumption by the project
This means the item is technically no longer in inventory, even though it’s still physically in the warehouse. It’s treated as consumed for project costing purposes.
2. How to monitor inventory levels more accurately
To get a clearer picture of what’s physically available vs. what’s allocated to projects:
- Use the Item Availability by Location or Item Availability by Event pages to see real-time stock
- Consider enabling Item Tracking (lot/serial numbers) to trace which items are consumed by which projects
- Use the Outstanding Orders and Amt. Rec. Not Invoiced fields on the Project Card to track items received but not yet invoiced
3. Optional: Delay consumption until invoice posting
If you want to keep items in inventory until they’re actually used or invoiced:
- Post the receipt only, and delay the invoice posting
- This keeps the item in stock and avoids premature consumption
- You can then post the invoice when the item is truly consumed by the project
This approach requires coordination between warehouse and finance teams but gives more control over inventory visibility.
Here’s a helpful link showing how BC handles project-linked purchases and inventory tracking:
Manage project supplies – Microsoft Learn
Monitor inventory and transaction flow – Prisma Informatik
Track items used in projects – Dynamics 365 Lab
If you find this helpful, feel free to mark this as the suggested or verified answer.
Cheers
Jeffrey
