Dynamics 365 Business Central: How to import Physical Inventory Order Recording

In today’s post, I will be covering on how to import Physical Inventory Order’s Recording.

The Physical Inventory Order module is commonly used by companies that manage stock or inventory, providing essential functionality for counting and reconciling inventory levels.

However, as many know, importing the file isn’t as straightforward as exporting.

Understanding the Export File

Exporting the Recording lines doesn’t work like the ‘Export to Excel’ function, where the output file aligned with the page layout. Instead, it follows a fixed structure and in txt format.

Below screenshots are sample data from Physical Inventory Recording Lines and the Txt output.

Let us look at how was the output file structure.

A: Order No.
B: Recording No.
C: Line No.
D: Item No.
E: Variant Code
F: Location Code
G: Bin Code
H: Description
I: Description 2
G: Unit of Measure Code
K: Shelf No.

Understanding the Import File

In order to import successfully, we must manually insert the additional columns to the output file.

Below is the import file structure along with the additional fields.

A: Order No.
B: Recording No.
C: Line No.
D: Item No.
E: Variant Code
F: Location Code
G: Bin Code
H: Description
I: Description 2
G: Unit of Measure Code
K: Shelf No.
L: Quantity
M: Person Recorded
N: Date Recorded
O: Time Recorded

Import File Handling

In summary, we will need to add the four additional columns to the output txt file regardless of whether there is data. The columns must be there.

However, this method is not effective when dealing with hundreds or thousands of line items!

How to be more Effective?

Below are steps to consider to be more efficient on handling import process.

From Excel, open the txt file.
Use ‘Comma’ as the delimiters.
The file must be saved in csv using the format: Comma-separated Values.

Fill the columns
- L: Quantity
- M: Person Recorded *can be blank
- N: Date Recorded *can be blank
- O: Time Recorded

* None of the fields above are mandatory, however, the reason why ‘Person Recorded’ and ‘Date Recorded’ can be blank but not ‘Time Recorded’ is because a blank entry (“”) will be saved on the preceding columns when the last column is entered.