Business Central Sales Line Dates User Guide

Accurate Sales Order Line dates in BC are crucial, as they impact planning worksheet calculations, shipment timing, on-time delivery reporting, and forecasting. Correct dates also ensure customers and sales teams have reliable shipping and delivery information.

• Forecasting calculations that use historical data should rely on the requested delivery date rather than the posting date on shipments to ensure accuracy in predicting when items are needed, rather than when they were shipped.
• Accurate Shipment Dates facilitate planning worksheet calculations, helping to align demand with supply and reduce the occurrence of reschedule, cancel, or new messages.
• On-time delivery can be assessed using both the Promised Delivery Date and the Requested Delivery Date, allowing for measurement based on commitments made as well as customer requests.

Sales Line Date Fields 

• Requested Delivery Date: customer requested delivery date, if you change this date it will recalculate the related dates, if a promised date is set you cannot change the requested delivery date.
• Promised Delivery Date: If you enter the promised delivery date it will lock the requested delivery date and not allow it to be changed.
• Planned Delivery Date: If you change this date it will recalculate all dates except the requested delivery date. This date is originally set = requested delivery date.
• Planned Shipment Date: This is the date the order is planned to ship. It is calculated as planned delivery date – Shipping Time
• Shipment Date: This is the date materials need to be ready for shipping to pack/prep for shipment. It is used by planning. The calculation is Planned Shipment date – Outbound Warehouse Handling time which is usually set to 1 Day.

Date Modifiers 

The date modifiers can be entered as below to default to the sales order / lines. The values are also user editable on the sales line by the user.

• Shipping Time / Customer Card: This is used to calculate the Planned Shipment Date which is Requested/Planned Delivery – Shipping time. Note- the shipping agent service can also control shipping time for example an overnight parcel service might be set to 1 day which will update the sales line when selected.
• Outbound Whse Handling Time / Inventory Setup / Location Card: This is used to calculate the Shipment Date which is Planned Shipment date – Outbound Whse Handling time. This setting on the location will override the Inventory setup value if it is populated.

Sales Order Line Date Change Process Flow Scenarios 

A New Sales Order requires 10 days for shipping time on the customer and 1 day for outbound warehouse handling at the location.

Scenario 1 - Customer places order, confirmed with new date and then supply issue arises that effects delivery:

Customer places and order with a Requested Delivery date of 10/27/2023 – Enter sales line with a requested delivery date of 10/27/2023.

Requested delivery Date: 10/27/2023

Promised Delivery Date: Blank

Planned Delivery Date: 10/27/2023

Planned Shipment Date: 10/17/2023 (Planned Delivery date – 10 days shipping time)

Shipment Date: 10/16/2023 (Planned Shipment date – 1 day outbound warehouse handling time)

Purchasing / Production Cannot meet the delivery date and best date is 11/10/2023 – Promised delivery date is entered as 11/10/2023 and the order acknowledgement is communicated to the customer.

Requested delivery Date: 10/27/2023

Promised Delivery Date: 11/10/2023

Planned Delivery Date: 11/10/2023

Planned Shipment Date: 10/31/2023

Shipment Date: 10/30/2023

Supplier calls and cannot deliver the raw material until 11/17/2023 so now best delivery date is now 12/01/2023. Planned Delivery Date is set to 12/1/2023. This allows the CSR to see the new expected delivery to the customer will be 12/1/2023.

Requested delivery Date: 10/27/2023

Promised Delivery Date: 11/10/2023

Planned Delivery Date: 12/01/2023

Planned Shipment Date: 11/21/2023

Shipment Date: 11/20/2023

Scenario 2 - Customer places order, order confirmed, Customer calls to move order out:

Customer places and order with a Requested Delivery date of 10/27/23 – Enter sales line with a requested delivery date of 10/27/23.

Requested delivery Date: 10/27/2023

Promised Delivery Date: Blank

Planned Delivery Date: 10/27/2023

Planned Shipment Date: 10/17/2023 (Planned Delivery date – 10 days shipping time)

Shipment Date: 10/16/2023 (Planned Shipment date – 1 day outbound warehouse handling time)

Purchasing / Production agrees to meet the delivery date and best date is 10/27/2023 – Promised delivery date is entered as 10/27/2023 and the order acknowledgement is communicated to the customer.

Requested delivery Date: 10/27/2023

Promised Delivery Date: 10/27/2023

Planned Delivery Date: 10/27/2023

Planned Shipment Date: 10/17/2023

Shipment Date: 10/16/2023 

Customer calls and requests to move the order out to 11/10/2023 and Boyd agrees. The Promised and Requested Delivery Dates are changed to 11/10/2023.

Requested delivery Date: 11/10/2023

Promised Delivery Date: 11/10/2023

Planned Delivery Date: 11/10/2023

Planned Shipment Date: 10/31/2023

Shipment Date: 10/30/2023