Setting up locations in Business Central, from card to transfers

Create the location card for locations in Business Central

Search for Locations and choose New. Give the location a short code and a clear name. Staff print the code on documents and type it into filters every day. The Address and Contact FastTab matters more than it looks. Business Central uses the address as the ship-to on purchase orders and the ship-from on shipments.

Decide early what counts as a location. A separate building almost always does. A zone inside one building usually does not, and bins handle it better. Stock that you own but a logistics provider holds is a good case for its own location. Then the quantity stays visible and apart.

Inventory posting setup for locations in Business Central

You cannot post stock at a new location until the Inventory Posting Setup page has a line for it. Each line pairs the location code with an inventory posting group. It names the inventory account, plus interim and work in process accounts where you use them. Missing combinations are the most common first-day error.

You may point every location at the same inventory account, or give each its own. That depends on how finance wants the balance sheet to read. If you switch on Location Mandatory in Inventory Setup, every item transaction must carry a location code. That stops stock building up under a blank location.

How much warehouse process locations in Business Central need

The Warehouse FastTab holds a set of switches. They are Require Receive, Require Put-away, Require Shipment, Require Pick and Bin Mandatory. With all of them off, stock moves straight from the purchase or sales order. Turn them on one at a time, and you add separate warehouse receipt, put-away, pick and shipment documents.

More switches mean more control and more clicks. So match them to the people and the volume at that site. A small stockroom may need bins and nothing else. A busy distribution center may use Directed Put-away and Pick. There, zones, bin types and bin ranking tell staff where to go.

Bins, staff and default bins for locations in Business Central

When Bin Mandatory is on, create bins from the location card. You can add them one by one, or use a bin creation worksheet that builds codes from rack, row and shelf. The Bins FastTab then sets default bins for receipts, shipments and production. So documents arrive with a sensible bin already filled in.

List warehouse staff on the Warehouse Employees page for each location they work in, and mark one as their default. Without that record, a user cannot open warehouse documents there. You can also give items default bins through bin contents. That speeds up picking without directed processes.

Transfers between locations in Business Central

Stock moves between sites on transfer orders. They ship from one location and receive at another. For that you need an in-transit location, which is a card with Use As In-Transit switched on. You also need the Transfer Routes page. It names the in-transit code and shipping agent for each pair of sites.

Finish by setting defaults, so users rarely pick a location. A customer card and a vendor card each carry a location code. Company Information holds one for the business, and responsibility centers can set one for each branch. Where planning differs by site, stockkeeping units hold reorder settings per item and location.

Frequently asked about locations in Business Central

Can I change warehouse settings for locations in Business Central after go-live?

Some of them, yes. Switching on bins or warehouse documents at a location that already holds stock needs open documents cleared. It also needs quantities moved into bins. So plan it as a small project, rehearse it in a sandbox copy and pick a quiet moment. Tell the warehouse team what will change before the day arrives.

Do we need a location if we have one warehouse?

It is still worth creating one. A named location lets you switch on Location Mandatory. A single site still leaves the door open for a second site or an outside store later. You also avoid the clean-up that comes from stock posted under a blank code.

What is an in-transit location for?

It holds the quantity and value of goods that have left one site and not yet arrived at the other. Without it, stock on a truck would belong to neither place. Only transfer orders use it, and you cannot choose it on sales or purchase lines. So it never confuses ordinary document entry.

How do locations differ from bins?

A location is a site with its own address, posting setup and handling rules, and Business Central plans item availability for each location. A bin is a place inside a location, such as a shelf. Bins record where something sits, but they share the location's setup. So use bins for shelves and locations for sites.

Can users be limited to their own location?

Partly. Warehouse Employees controls who can work on warehouse documents at each location. Responsibility centers with User Setup can limit the sales and purchase documents a user sees. Hard data separation needs security filters. Design and test those with care, because a gap there is hard to spot later.

Related inventory topics

Locations in Business Central are the base for warehouse processes, transfers and planning. The pages below go further into each of those areas. They also cover the units and policies that sit on the item card. Read them when you add a second site, because the location choices you make now shape how stock moves later. Our consultants can talk through your sites and suggest a setup that your warehouse team can run without extra clicks. For the product detail, see Set up locations, on Microsoft Learn.