Item Ledger Entry Part Two: A Deeper Dive into How ILE’s Work

/ Business Central Features, Dynamics 365 Business Central, Inventory and Manuacturing / By

This is the second blog covering an overview of the ILE’s. In the previous blog we spoke about ILE’s, key fields and what it means if an Item Ledger Entry is ‘open’. This one will focus on inventory and the key fields associated with it. Building on from this, let’s consider further how Business Central deals with additional features that bolster the usefulness of Item Ledger Entries. We recommend reading the first post on ILEs before continuing with this post.

Value entries

Each Item Ledger Entry can have a number of financial values associated with it. which Business Central holds in a sub table, with their aggregated value being displayed on the ILE. A typical example would be:

  • Purchase cost
  • Associated purchase variance cost
  • Freight charges

Consider this example from the previous blog after purchasing 10 widgets at £11 each, where the Widget’s standard cost is £10. There is also a related freight charge associated with this purchase of £7. Here is the purchase order:

The purchase order is then Posted. Reviewing the ILE, we get a purchase of 10 Widgets at a standard cost of £10 each.

This is the value entry against the ILE that is the sale of the six widgets. The associated value entries against the individual ILE can be viewed from the ILE. From the ILE page, click ‘Related’, ‘Entry’ and then ‘Value Entries’.

Note that there are four value entries here:

  • The incoming 10 inventory, costed at £11 each. This amounts to an Cost Amount (Actual) cost of £110.
  • The freight charge of £7
  • the variance value is associated with the Widget having a standard cost of £10. Subtracting the actual cost from the standard cost leaves us with a sum like this:
    • £10-£11=-£1. As we have purchased 10, we have to multiply this figure accordingly.
    • -£1×10=-£10
  • Similarly, in this instance the freight charge of £7 will also generate a corresponding variance of -£7 to maintain the Widget standard cost of £10.

As was stated earlier the Cost Amount (Actual) on the ILE record is an aggregated sum of the value entries. So, the Cost Amount (Actual) on the ILE of £100 is the sum of the 4 value entries. These are: £110, £7, -£10 and £-£7.

Applied Item Entries

The ‘Applied Item Entries’ feature holds a historical record of the outgoing inventory against an incoming ILE record. The highlighted line refers to an earlier purchase of 10 Widgets where we can see all 10 have been used by the business leaving the remaining quantity at 0 and the ‘Open’ field set to being un-ticked. 

The Applied Item Entries gives the historical detail record of this usage. From the ILE page, highlight the bottom entry, click ‘Related’, then ‘Application’ and finally, ‘Applied Entries’.

The above image shows where the 10 originally purchased Widgets have gone:

  • Sales 102216 for a quantity of -6 on the 06/04/2020
  • Sales 102217 for a quantity of -4 on the 06/04/2020

Similarly, if we highlight the ILE for the sale of 6 Widgets, then review ‘Related’, ‘Application’ and then ‘Applied Entries’.

Entry number

Each individual ILE has its own unique ‘Entry No’. Take our example from above for the item Widget.

Looking at the posting date we can see that all these transactions took place on 06/04/2020. To establish the historical order these transactions took place is quite straightforward. Simply sort the Entry No. into chronological order. This can be done by selecting the small arrow on the corner of the field and then select ‘ascending’ after several options appear. The ILEs will then be ordered, with the oldest at the top.

Tracked items

Just before we wrap up part 2, in all our above examples we have been processing Non-Tracked items. If an item is serially tracked, then each individual serial number will have a unique item ledger entry. So, if the purchase receipt is for a serial tracked item with a quantity of five, the system will create five separate ILEs.

A lot tracked item will create an ILE grouped by lot number. So, if a purchase receipt is for five lot tracked items with a lot number of ‘1234’ and a separate quantity of seven, under lot number ‘7429’, the system will create two ILEs.

Closing remarks

So that wraps up part two! If you have any queries, let us know. Following us on LinkedIn is the best way to never miss one of our posts. Last but not least, feel free to contact us if you have any comments or queries.

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