Industries · Distributors
Business Central for Distributors
Connect purchasing, multi-location inventory, warehouse fulfillment and finance in Dynamics 365 Business Central. Scope the costing, EDI and storefront workflows your distribution business needs before implementation.
The pattern
What we hear from distributors
Inventory you can't trust
Counts drift between the warehouse system and the GL. Cycle counts surface variances every month and nobody can explain them.
Multi-warehouse blind spots
Stock at the second location takes a phone call to confirm. Transfers post late or not at all, and reorder points lag real demand.
Margin guesswork
Landed cost is approximated. Vendor rebates live in spreadsheets. Sales reps quote off stale price lists.
After
After Business Central is live
Inventory and warehouse controls
Your team ships from stock it can trust: locations, bins, transfers and item tracking set up around receiving and fulfillment, with the reservation and availability rules your warehouse agreed.
Purchasing and landed cost
Freight, duty and other costs land on the receipts they belong to through item charges, so inventory value and margins reflect what each item actually cost.
Connected order-to-cash
Orders from EDI, Shopify or other sources arrive with customer and SKU mapping, acknowledgments, shipment updates and invoicing, and every exception has a named owner. EDI runs through an app or integration we scope.
Migration with a stock reconciliation
You go live on opening quantities and values that match an agreed count by item and location, with lots, serials, units of measure and open orders carried over.
An operating model for the first close
Purchasing, warehouse, customer service and finance work one end-to-end process, with named approvers for stock adjustments, credits and pricing exceptions through your first close.
Next steps
Plan your next step
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Is Business Central a fit for our distribution business?
It is worth evaluating when purchasing, inventory, fulfillment and finance need shared controls across locations or sales channels. Fit depends on warehouse complexity, transaction volumes and specialist requirements. Bring examples of a standard order, return, transfer and landed-cost adjustment to discovery so we can distinguish standard setup from apps and custom work.
Do EDI, barcode scanning and warehouse automation come with the implementation?
Only when explicitly scoped. We assess the Business Central warehouse configuration alongside your scanning devices, labels, carrier tools, EDI providers and trading partners. Third-party apps, hardware, onboarding fees and specialized automation are identified separately and tested as complete workflows.
How do you validate inventory during migration?
We agree the source quantities, values, costing methods, locations, units and tracking requirements, then trial-load and reconcile them. Open receipts, shipments, purchase orders and sales orders need an explicit transition plan. Your operations and finance owners approve the reconciliation and final cutover.
What changes the implementation cost for a distributor?
Companies, warehouses, item-data quality, tracking requirements, historical depth, pricing rules and integrations all affect scope. Published implementation bands begin at $28,500, with a written quote after scoping. A paid readiness assessment can establish risks and a plan before you commit to implementation.
Can you improve a distributor's existing Business Central system?
Yes. Start with a scoped Health Check or a defined inventory, integration or AL backlog. We review the existing configuration and dependencies before recommending remediation, a new app or a support transfer. Existing work is retained where it meets the agreed requirements.