Using Multiple Locations and Responsibility Centres in Microsoft Dynamics NAV provide multi-site companies with the ability to manage their business operations in the most flexible, yet optimal way.
Multiple locations allows companies to manage their inventory in multiple locations using one database. Two concepts, locations and stockkeeping units, are the cornerstones of this granule. A location is defined as a place that handles physical placement and quantities of items. The concept is broad enough to include locations such as plants or production facilities as well as distribution centres, warehouses, showrooms and service vehicles. A stockkeeping unit is defined as an item at a specific location and/or as a variant. Using stockkeeping units, companies with multiple locations are able to add replenishment information, addresses, and some financial posting information at the location level. As a result, they have the ability to replenish variants of the same item for each location as well as to order items for each location on the basis of location-specific replenishment information.
Responsibility centres extends the multiple locations functionality by providing users the ability to handle administrative centres. A responsibility centre can be a cost centre, a profit centre, an investment centre, or other company-defined administrative centre. Examples of responsibility centres are a sales office, a purchasing department for several locations, and a plant planning office. Using this functionality, for example, companies can set up user-specific views of sales and purchase documents related exclusively to a particular responsibility centre.