EDI and integrations

Bitta Consignment does its work with standard Business Central documents: sales orders, sales shipments and sales invoices, drop-shipment purchase orders and purchase invoices. An EDI connector for Business Central, for example from SPS Commerce or TrueCommerce, already exchanges those documents with your trading partners, so most consignment business runs through EDI without anything special. This page maps each EDI message to the document it belongs to, and names the consignment documents that connectors do not cover yet.

The consignment sale

A customer's order for vendor stock is a normal sales order. The connector creates it from the customer's X12 850 or EDIFACT ORDERS message, as for any other order. What makes the line a consignment line is the consignment purchasing code, CONSIGN by default:

• If an item is always sold from vendor stock, and never from your own stock or a Warehouse Mode location, enter the consignment code in Purchasing Code on the item card (under Show more). Business Central copies it to every new sales order line for the item, also on orders a connector creates, and the app fills in the vendor.
• Otherwise a user sets the code on the line, or chooses Use consignment stock in the notification, before the order is released. See Sell consigned stock.

With Availability Check set to Error in Consignment Setup, a line that asks for more than the vendor's available stock is refused when it is created, so the connector cannot import the order. Set it to Warning if orders arrive by EDI, and check the lines before you release. Posting always stops when stock is missing.

You ship from your own site, so the posted sales shipment goes out as the 856 or DESADV advance ship notice, and the posted sales invoice as the 810 or INVOIC, exactly as for your own stock.

The purchase order to the vendor

When the sales order is released, the app creates a drop-shipment purchase order to the consignment vendor, with Consignment selected. Your connector can send it as an 850 or ORDERS like any other purchase order, and receive the vendor's 855 or ORDRSP acknowledgment against it.

This purchase order records that you bought units the vendor already holds at your site. The vendor ships nothing: its purchase receipt posts together with your sales shipment.

• Agree with the vendor how a consignment purchase order is marked, so the vendor's system books a sale from stock it has with you and does not ship the goods again.
• Do not let the connector post a receipt of a consignment purchase order from an 856 or DESADV. Receiving a drop-shipment purchase order also ships the linked sales order.

At a Warehouse Mode location you sell vendor stock on ordinary sales lines, and no purchase order goes to the vendor for each sale.

Settlement

The vendor is paid on a normal purchase invoice. Create it with Consignment Settlement and post it as usual; see Settle with vendors. When the vendor sends an 810 or INVOIC, use it to check the amounts and enter its number in Vendor Invoice No. If your connector creates purchase invoices from inbound 810 messages, make sure the invoice takes the consignment receipt lines (Get Receipt Lines) or invoices the consignment purchase orders. An invoice with lines of its own leaves the receipts open on Consignment Settlement.

Usage invoices for customer sites

For customer consignment, a posted usage report creates a native sales invoice for the customer, and so does a site count whose shortages are invoiced to the customer. The connector sends it as an 810 or INVOIC like any sales invoice. The usage report's External Document No., such as the hospital's purchase order number, is copied to the invoice.

Message map

EDI message (X12 / EDIFACT)	Business Central or Bitta document	Who creates it	What the connector does
850 / ORDERS from the customer	Sales order with consignment lines	The connector	Creates the order as usual. The line needs the consignment purchasing code
855 / ORDRSP to the customer	Sales order	The connector	Acknowledges the order as usual
856 / DESADV to the customer	Posted sales shipment	You post the shipment	Sends the advance ship notice as usual
810 / INVOIC to the customer	Posted sales invoice	You invoice the order	Sends the invoice as usual
850 / ORDERS to the vendor	Drop-shipment purchase order with Consignment selected	Bitta Consignment, on release	Sends it as usual. The vendor must not ship
855 / ORDRSP from the vendor	Purchase order	The vendor	Records the acknowledgment. Nothing changes in consignment
856 / DESADV from the vendor	None for a consignment sale	Not expected	Must not post a receipt of the purchase order
810 / INVOIC from the vendor	Settlement purchase invoice	You, with Consignment Settlement	Supplies the vendor's invoice number, or an invoice that takes the receipt lines
810 / INVOIC to a site customer	Sales invoice from a usage report or site count	Bitta Consignment, when you post	Sends the invoice as usual

Not covered by connectors yet

These consignment documents are Bitta documents, not standard Business Central documents, so EDI connectors cannot create or send them today:

Message	Would become	Today
A vendor's 856 or DESADV for new consignment stock	A consignment receipt	Choose Create Receipt on the replenishment request, or enter the receipt, and post it. See Receive vendor stock
A request for more vendor stock, as an 850 or ORDERS to the vendor	A replenishment request	Print it or send it by email with the vendor's document sending profile. See Ask vendors for stock
A hospital's bill-only or replenishment order, as an 850 or ORDERS	A usage report	Enter the usage report with the hospital's order number in External Document No., or choose Import Lines from Excel or Scan Lines on it. Keep the connector from turning these orders into sales orders
Sales and stock reports to the vendor: 852, 867 or 846 (SLSRPT, INVRPT)	Sold and on-hand vendor stock	Send the Consignment Vendor Statement every month by email. See Settle with vendors

API pages for consignment stock, ledger entries, usage reports and receipts are planned for a later version. An EDI provider or partner can then map these messages to them. Until then, the read-only API queries behind the Power BI template are the way to read consignment data from outside Business Central.

What's next

Answers to the most common messages and questions: Troubleshooting and FAQ.