Round 51 of our Dynamics GP vs. Dynamics Business Central: Functionality Face-Off series.
Yesterday we brought inventory in the door. Today it goes back out.
In Round 50 we compared receiving and put-away. Picking and shipping is the mirror image: the order is sold, and now somebody has to pull the right items off the right shelves and get them on the truck. GP breaks that into a chain of steps with their own vocabulary — allocate, fulfill, print the picking ticket. Business Central gives each location a choice of four outbound methods, from one-click posting to a full pick-and-ship workflow. Let’s walk an order out the door in both.
How you do it in Dynamics GP
GP’s outbound flow is built on two concepts you set up in advance: allocation and fulfillment.
- Allocate the items. Allocation reserves the quantity in inventory. When you set up each order ID, you choose how it happens: by line item (reserved as each line is keyed, shortages handled one at a time), by document or batch (checked all at once later, with a shortage option chosen when you allocate), or none (allocation waits until the order transfers to an invoice).
- Fulfill — maybe as a separate step. Fulfillment verifies that the right quantities actually came off the shelf. Whether it is separate is baked into the order ID setup: if not, items fulfill automatically at allocation; if yes, someone opens the Sales Allocation-Fulfillment Options window (Sales >> Transactions >> Sales Transaction Entry >> Options >> Allocate or Fulfill) and marks Fulfill after the warehouse confirms the pull. With multiple bins, the fulfillment step is also where bin quantities get verified in the Bin Quantity Entry window.
- Print the picking ticket. Warehouse staff work from printed picking tickets — paper that tells them what to assemble for the order. GP’s Advanced Picking module can print bulk and individual tickets by site for bigger operations.
- Transfer and post. Once fulfilled, the order transfers to an invoice, and posting the invoice is what records the shipment leaving inventory — a flow we covered in Round 17 on shipping.
It works, and thousands of warehouses run on it. But the sequence lives in setup windows and habits: which order IDs allocate by line, which fulfill separately, whose job it is to mark Fulfill after the paper comes back.
How you do it in Business Central
BC asks one question per location: how much warehouse structure do you want on the way out? There are four outbound methods, mirroring the inbound four from Round 50.
- Method A — post from the order. No warehouse documents. Open the sales order, post the shipment. Right for a small stockroom.
- Method B — inventory picks. Turn on Require Pick and the pick becomes a document. Open the sales order and choose Create Inventory Put-away/Pick, or release the order and let a warehouse employee pull it from the Inventory Picks page. The pick lists the items and bins; the worker enters Qty. to Handle and posts — and that single posting records both the pick and the shipment. The allocate-fulfill-transfer chain collapses into one document.
- Method C — warehouse shipments. Turn on Require Shipment and the dock gets its own document, just like receipts on the inbound side. Create it from the order with Create Warehouse Shipment, or pull many released orders onto one shipment. Fill Qty. to Ship and post — several orders leave on one truck, posted in one pass.
- Method D — shipments plus warehouse picks. For the full workflow, the shipment generates warehouse pick documents that tell each picker what to take and from which bin. Pickers register their picks, and the Pick Worksheet batches picking across many shipments at once. Post the shipment when the truck is loaded.
- Grow when ready. These are toggles on the location card. The storeroom posts from the order while the distribution center runs shipments and registered picks — no add-on module, no re-implementation.
Side by side
| Dynamics GP | Business Central | |
|---|---|---|
| Reserving stock | Allocation rules set per order ID (line, document/batch, none) | Handled by the pick document and item availability |
| Confirming the pull | Separate fulfillment step, marked in an options window | Pick document posted or registered by the picker |
| Direction on the floor | Printed picking tickets | Pick lines with item, quantity, and bin on screen |
| Many orders, one truck | Handled order by order | One warehouse shipment consolidates released orders |
| Batching pick work | Advanced Picking module by site | Pick Worksheet across shipments |
| Scaling up | Setup options and add-ons | Four methods per location, toggle by toggle |
Why Business Central comes out ahead
Give GP credit: allocation rules, separate fulfillment, and Advanced Picking give a disciplined warehouse real control, and the paper trail is familiar to any crew that grew up on it. The pieces are all there.
The difference is how many pieces there are. GP spreads the outbound flow across setup decisions, an options window, a printed ticket, and a document transfer. Business Central puts the same control into documents the warehouse works directly: a pick that posts the shipment with it, or a shipment that consolidates the whole truck. The floor sees its work on a screen instead of a printout, quantities post when the work is registered, and the whole thing scales by flipping location toggles — the same sites and bins foundation we set up two rounds ago.
Ready to walk your orders out the door?
Aisling Dynamics has helped GP warehouses trade the allocate-fulfill-print routine for Business Central picks and shipments sized to each building. See what we offer, or contact us at (251) 293-0555 to map your outbound flow.
Next round: site-to-site transfers — GP’s in-transit transfers vs. Business Central’s transfer orders.