If you have been tracking batches in SAP Business One or considered tracking batches and found that the process is a bit cumbersome, you are probably not alone. With the Boyum Usability (B1UP) Pack, batch automation for SAP B1 is possible.
Boyum Usability (B1UP) is an addon for SAP Business One is probably the most popular addon in the industry. It extends the capabilities of SAP Business One to allow you to customize and automate processes without having to do programming. With the right talent, you can enhance your user experience and make your users more efficient.
Recording a Batch Transaction
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Purchase Order Goods Receipt
Let’s take a look at the process of recording a batch transaction in SAP Business One. There are a number of strategies for assigning batch numbers to product. You can pick a scheme that works for you. Some like to use a date, or a form of date, to be able to easily recognize when the batch came from. Others don’t like to display the date of the product as a batch. The Julian date is often used as well. Another common approach is to use a sequential alpha-numeric sequence. The FDA does not care which method of assigning batch ID’s that you use, they just want them to be uniquely identifiable.
First-in-First-Out. Industries which sell time-sensitive product typically employ a First-In-First-Out for First-Expired-First-Out method of picking and delivering their product. FIFO is the easiest one to deal with if you want to streamline your batch tracking by automatically assigning the batch ID. For the purposes of our demonstration, we’ll use the date of receipt in the format of ‘20200617’ and will have an alpha character at the end in case there is already a batch that has been received for the day. So, the first batch would be ‘20200617A’ and the second batch would be ‘20200617B’.
When receiving product on a PO Goods Receipt in Sap Business One, you can invoke the batch allocation window by moving to the quantity field and then choosing Batch/Serial Numbers from the right click menu. To create a batch number, simply type if in the Batch field, then tab to the Qty field. The total will automatically fill in. If you have pre-defined numbering methodology, batch automation for SAP B1 can be achieved with Boyum’s Usability package. See our video of this in action.
Sales Deliveries
We will demonstrate how to record a Delivery Note and assign batches to the items delivered. While each form in SAP Business One has some uniqueness, they all resemble each other and the batch selection process is the same.
Let’s enter a delivery for 35 packs of labels.
Currently, we only have 25 packs in the oldest batch, which we want to use first.
How to Select Batches
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In order to bring up the batch allocation window in SAP, you either click the Add button for the Delivery and the window for batch allocation will come up, or, you can right click on the quantity field on any line in the delivery and choose Batch/Serial Numbers from the menu. If you want to allocate automatically assign batches based on batch number order, just click on the “Auto Select” button, then click update.
Automatic Allocation without Batch Window
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The easiest method of allocating batches is to automatically allocate them sequentially in order of batch IDs. With B1UP, you can accomplish this without ever having to go into the batch window. Assuming you have strict adherence to a FIFO picking philosophy, then, this method will allocate batches based on the same way product moves off your shelves. See the video below of Boyum in action to automate the batch allocation process.
From the previous screenshots, we see that the quantity of 35 that needs to be delivered will need to be picked from two different batches, since the oldest batch only contains 25. Watch Boyum in action in the video below as the assignment to the two oldest batches is done with the click of a button.
Check our our Batch Traceability Reports for SAP B1 here.