Suggested URL: https://aislingdynamics.com/item-setup-dynamics-gp-vs-business-central/
We’ve set up vendors (Round 13) and customers (Round 21). Time for the third pillar of master data: the item. Everything you buy, stock, and sell starts here — and every field you get right today saves a posting headache later. Valuation method, tracking, prices, sites: the item card is where inventory accuracy is born.
So how much work is one new item? Let’s count.
How You Do It in Dynamics GP
Step 1: Set up Inventory Control and your item classes. Per Microsoft’s Inventory Control documentation, setup starts before the first item exists. The Inventory Control Setup window holds your preferences — including up to six user categories for classifying items. Then the Item Class Setup window (Inventory > Setup > Item Class) defines classes that carry defaults: item type, valuation method, serial or lot tracking, price group, and accounts. Microsoft recommends building your most common class first and marking it as the default, because later classes copy from it. Sound familiar? It’s the same playbook as GP’s customer and vendor classes.
Step 2: Choose the valuation method carefully. Each class — and each item — gets a valuation method: FIFO, LIFO, or average, perpetual or periodic. Choose well, because this isn’t a field you casually edit later. Fixing a wrong method means a trip to the dedicated Change Valuation Methods window. It’s the kind of decision GP expects you to get right the first time.
Step 3: Open Item Maintenance and start the tour. Cards > Inventory > Item. Enter the item ID (permanent, so mind your numbering scheme), description, and class — the class fills in the defaults. Now the satellite windows begin. Selling prices live in Item Price List Maintenance, with price levels and unit-of-measure pricing to maintain per item. Purchasing details sit in Item Purchasing Options. Preferred suppliers get Item Vendors Maintenance. And before you can transact, the item must be assigned to your sites — another stop.
Step 4: Repeat for the next item. Each new item is the same circuit. The class does real work, but the windows are the windows.
How You Do It in Business Central
Step 1: Items > New — and pick a template. Per Microsoft’s item card guide, you open Items, choose New, and BC offers your item templates — retail goods, raw materials, services. One template? BC skips the question and fills the card. The new Item Card opens with type, base unit of measure, posting groups, and costing method already set.
Step 2: Fill in what’s left, on one page. Description, price, maybe a photo. The Item Card holds what GP spreads across the tour: costing method (BC’s name for valuation) is a field on the card, prices and discounts hang off it, vendor and replenishment details have their own FastTabs, and the Item Type field — Inventory, Service, or Non-Inventory — replaces a setup decision tree. Hover over any field and BC explains it.
Step 3: Make templates from real items. Same trick as Round 21, and it’s just as good here: build one item exactly right, choose Save as Template, and future items start from it — default dimensions included (Round 5 explains why that matters). No setup module, no class-building session. You can also copy an existing item outright to create a near-twin and tweak the differences.
Step 4: Let the extras ride along. Substitutions — “we’re out of this, offer that” — attach right to the item. Units of measure convert on the card. And because it’s one page, a new hire can complete an item without a map of which window comes next.
Side by Side
| Dynamics GP | Business Central | |
|---|---|---|
| Where setup starts | Inventory Control Setup + Item Class Setup | Items > New |
| Defaults come from | Item classes (setup windows) | Item templates (saved from any real item) |
| Completing one item | Item Maintenance + price list, purchasing, vendors, sites windows | One Item Card with FastTabs |
| Valuation / costing method | Set per class or item; changing needs a special window | Costing Method field on the card |
| Creating a template | Class setup session | Save as Template, one click |
| Default dimensions/segments | Not part of the class | Included in the template |
| Making a similar item | Re-enter through the windows | Copy an existing item |
| Field help | Manuals and muscle memory | Hover tooltips on every field |
Why BC Comes Out Ahead
GP’s item classes are genuinely smart, and shops that maintain them well get consistent items. But the effort lives in setup windows and satellite screens — prices here, vendors there, sites somewhere else — and the valuation method carries first-try-or-else pressure. That’s a lot of ceremony for “we started stocking a new widget.”
Business Central keeps the discipline and drops the ceremony. Templates deliver the consistency of classes, but they’re made from real items in one click and carry dimensions with them. The costing method is a visible field, not a buried commitment. And the whole item lives on one card, so complete-and-correct is the path of least resistance. Master data quality by default — the same win we’ve seen three times now on this master-data trilogy.
Thinking About the Switch?
Aisling Dynamics helps GP teams keep item classes and price lists tidy, and helps companies move to Business Central when a new item should take minutes, not a map. If your item setup checklist has more windows than fields, meet our team, browse the GP vs. BC hub, or contact us at (251) 293-0555.
Come back tomorrow for Round 24: inventory adjustments — GP’s Item Transaction Entry vs. BC’s Item Journals.