Yes, good point - setting the Default Quantity to Ship field to Remainder will populate both the Qty. to Ship and Qty. to Invoice fields on sales lines prior to any posting, and also after posting on a sales lines, not only after posting.
Personally, I would say setting it up to Blank or Reminder is really dependent on the business processes, as opposed to generally setting it to Blank. Sure, there are instances where it can cause issues, but there also a dozen scenarios where setting up to Blank requires manually populating the Qty. to Ship and Qty. to Invoice fields which is just a waste of time if its not required.
As to the Qty. to Invoice field being populated with the amount that was shipped when a sales line is shipped - as far as I can tell this does not happen in the NA version of BC that contains no extensions/customizations. If you have the Default Quantity to Ship set to Reminder and you fully ship a sales line, then yes, in that case the Qty. to Invoice will equal the Quantity Shipped. However, if you ever partially ship you would run into issues assuming that Qty. to Invoice = Quantity Shipped. This is what I see:
For example, if I partially ship a sales line:
- Default Quantity is to Ship set to Blank:
- I created a sales order with a quantity of 10 -> Qty. to Invoice remains blank
- I change the Qty. to Ship to 5 -> Qty. to Invoice remains blank
- I ship the 5 -> Qty. to Invoice remains blank
- Default Quantity is to Ship set to Reminder:
- I created a sales order with a quantity of 10 -> Qty. to Invoice changes to 10
- I change the Qty. to Ship to 5 -> Qty. to Invoice changes to equal the Qty. to Ship, which is 5
- I ship the 5 -> Qty. to Invoice changes to 10
Essentially:
- If Default Quantity to Ship is set to Blank
- Qty. to Invoice is never populated
- If Default Quantity to Ship is set to Reminder
- If you initially populate the Quantity field in a new document -> Qty. to Invoice will equal the value in the Quantity field
- If you change/update the Quantity field -> Qty. to Invoice will change to the new Quantity
- If you change the Qty. to Ship field -> Qty. to Invoice will change to Qty. To Ship + Quantity Shipped
- When you ship without invoicing -> Qty. to Invoice changes to the remainder (Quantity - Quantity Invoiced). So the Qty. to Invoice will only equal to the Quantity Shipped if the line is fully shipped.
Valentin Castravet
Zander ERP Services