Set up inventory

Path: Business functionality > Set up Business Central > Set up inventory · tier official · system inventory · narrative reviewed (checked by Opus)

Overview

This section covers the setup work that prepares Business Central to manage inventory. It starts with company-wide policies on the Inventory Setup page, such as automatic cost posting, cost adjustment, average cost calculation and the default costing method. It then moves to the master data: items, units of measure, categories, locations and stockkeeping units.

For items, one page explains the three item types (Inventory, Non-Inventory, Service) and another covers creating item cards, including costing methods, pricing, replenishment, variants and substitutions. Further pages show how to copy existing items, organize items in categories with attributes, and bulk import item pictures from a ZIP file.

Location-related pages cover locations with bins, zones and transfer routes, stockkeeping units for location- and variant-specific data, and responsibility centers for administrative units assigned to users. Start with “Setting up inventory” for the overview, then Inventory Setup, item types and item cards.

Key points

• The Inventory Setup page sets Automatic Cost Posting, Automatic Cost Adjustment, Expected Cost Posting to G/L, Average Cost Calculation, Default Costing Method and concurrent posting.
• Items have one of three types: Inventory, Non-Inventory or Service, and the type determines which costing, tracking and other features apply.
• Item cards cover costing methods, pricing and discounts, replenishment, variants, substitutions, vendor data and item templates.
• The Copy Item function creates new items from existing ones, using number series for item numbers.
• Item units of measure include a base unit, alternate units, translations, rounding precision and defaults for sales and purchasing.
• Locations support bins (bin mandatory toggle, bin policies), zones, transfer routes, direct transfer and default dimensions.
• Stockkeeping units hold location and variant specific data, including production BOM and routing overrides and manufacturing policy.
• Responsibility centers act like cost or profit centers, can be assigned to users with a default, and filter sales, purchase and service documents.

Learn pages

• Create item cards for goods or services: You create item cards for services that you sell as hours and for physical products. Examples include assembly items and finished goods that you sell from your inventory.
• How to Copy Existing Items to New Items: When you add a new item, to save time, you can use the Copy Item function to copy an existing item to use as a template for a new item.
• How to set up stockkeeping units: Use stockkeeping units to record information about your items for a specific location or a specific variant.
• How to work with responsibility centers: Responsibility center as administrative centers help companies set up user-specific views of sales and purchase documents related exclusively to each center.
• Import Multiple Item Pictures: To import multiple item pictures give picture files names corresponding to item numbers, compress them to a ZIP file, and use the Import Item Pictures page.
• Organize items in categories: To help you search for and find items, you can assign item attributes and organize items in categories.
• Set up general inventory information: Describes how to define the general inventory setup so that you can manage your warehouse and stock.
• Set up item units of measure: You can set up multiple units of measure for items.
• Set up locations: If you buy, store, or sell items in more than one place, you can set up each place as a location.
• Setting up inventory: Describes how to set up your stock and inventory processes, including transfer routes and locations, such as warehouses.
• Understand item types: Learn about the types of items you can manage in inventory.

Videos, posts and code changes

Linked by a Haiku matcher with a grounding quote from the item’s summary (link/topics.ts); machine-generated.

• #11155 Fix missing default item journal batch in Contoso Inventory setup (code change): “Inventory’s default item journal batch is now created with its template”
• #12124 Fix default bin assignment when creating purchase orders for drop shipments (code change): “Prevent default-bin assignment for drop shipments during validation”
• #9933 [MAIN]-Fix-Bug 644909 Cant modify Item Template after Item deletion (code change): “Item Template validation no longer fails with warehouse entry errors”
• How to Use the Copy Location Feature in Business Central 2026 Wave 1 (BC28) (community post): “warehouse setup; location management; configuration; business central 2026”

Business Central pages and reports

The pages, reports and queries this hub’s Learn pages name (ms.search.form, API reference), joined to the code by exact object id (data/index/docs-objects.json); a page shows the table it runs on.

• Page 30 “Item Card” · on Table 27 “Item”
• Page 31 “Item List” · captioned “Items” · on Table 27 “Item”
• Page 32 “Item Lookup” · captioned “Items” · on Table 27 “Item”
• Page 35 “Item Translations” · on Table 30 “Item Translation”
• Page 346 “Item Picture” · on Table 27 “Item”
• Page 456 “No. Series” · on Table 308 “No. Series”
• Page 461 “Inventory Setup” · on Table 313 “Inventory Setup”
• Page 1378 “Select Item Templ. List” · captioned “Select a template for a new item” · on Table 1382 “Item Templ.”
• Page 1383 “Item Templ. List” · captioned “Item Templates” · on Table 1382 “Item Templ.”
• Page 1384 “Item Templ. Card” · captioned “Item Template” · on Table 1382 “Item Templ.”
• Page 5401 “Item Variants” · on Table 5401 “Item Variant”
• Page 5404 “Item Units of Measure” · on Table 5404 “Item Unit of Measure”
• Page 5716 “Item Substitution Entry” · on Table 5715 “Item Substitution”
• Page 5717 “Condition Entry” · captioned “Condition” · on Table 5716 “Substitution Condition”
• Page 5718 “Item Substitution Entries” · on Table 5715 “Item Substitution”
• Page 5719 “Sub. Conditions” · on Table 5716 “Substitution Condition”
• Page 5720 “Item Substitutions” · on Table 5715 “Item Substitution”
• Page 5730 “Item Categories” · on Table 5722 “Item Category”
• Page 5733 “Item Category Card” · on Table 5722 “Item Category”
• Page 5845 “Inventory - G/L Reconciliation” · on Table 367 “Dimension Code Buffer”
• Page 9091 “Item Planning FactBox” · captioned “Item Details - Planning” · on Table 27 “Item”
• Page 9297 “Inventory - G/L Recon Matrix” · captioned “Inventory - G/L Reconciliation” · on Table 367 “Dimension Code Buffer”

Source: Microsoft Learn (CC BY 4.0). Descriptions are Learn’s own.