About converting items to lot control

While the stricter lot control requirements of Food Manufacturing & Distribution provide a greater level of traceability throughout the system, they enforce a greater level of discipline on the part of users. Once an item ledger entry has been made for an item with an item tracking code, every additional transaction on which the item appears must have an assigned lot number before it can be posted. It is therefore important that a company has the proper procedures in place and can maintain the necessary control before lot tracking is introduced. An organisation cannot begin the process of lot-controlling an item, discover it requires too much effort on the part of users, and then turn this feature off.

In environments where it is not possible to maintain this level of discipline, users can choose not to track items. This brings about a different set of issues in that standard Dynamics NAV does not let users introduce lot tracking requirements to an item if ledger entries already exist without an assigned tracking number. This prevents a company from initially choosing not to lot-control an item and then implementing this requirement at a later date.

Food Manufacturing & Distribution offers a solution by letting you convert a non-lot-controlled item to lot control using the Convert Lot Controlled Items batch job. This batch job assigns a single lot number to every existing ledger entry for a non-lot-controlled item. Once this initial lot number is assigned, all future ledger entries can be given specific lot numbers.

The Convert Lot Controlled Items batch job is convenient because it gives a company the option of waiting until the proper procedures are in place to effectively enter and maintain transactions using lot-controlled items.

For more information on how to convert an item to lot control, see How to: Convert Items to Lot Control.