Negative inventory in inventory tracking
The quantity of an item to be issued for an outbound order, such as a sales order, may exceed the available inventory quantity. In such cases, the excess quantity is expressed as the negative inventory quantity.
See Negative inventory for details about supporting negative inventory in LN.
This topic provides an overview of handling negative inventory in inventory tracking. See To handle negative inventory in inventory tracking for step-by-step instructions.
Create negative inventory tracking unit
To specify the country of origin for the negative quantity, you must select or manually create a negative inventory tracking unit.
For example, the available inventory quantity is 50 and you need to ship 150 for sales order SLS00100. Outbound advice is generated for 50, because outbound advice can only advise quantities registered in LN.
Therefore, you manually increase the advised quantity to 150, which results in a negative inventory of -100.
For the negative quantity of -100, you create negative inventory tracking unit ITN0015. For the available quantity of 50, you select an existing inventory tracking unit ITU00012 with the appropriate country of origin.
After releasing the outbound advice, consumption records are created for ITN0015 and ITU00012 and you complete the shipment procedure for sales order SLS00100.
Replenish negative inventory
When the negative inventory is replenished by one or more receipts, the negative inventory tracking unit is adjusted accordingly. After confirming a receipt, this process is performed:
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An inventory tracking unit is created or updated. The received and available quantities of the inventory tracking unit are increased with the receipt quantity. See Overview of the inventory tracking receipt process for details.
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LN looks for consumptions linked to negative inventory tracking units with matching item and country of origin. In the previous example, this would be the consumption record created for negative inventory tracking unit ITN0015.
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If found, these actions are taken:
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An inventory tracking receipt is created for the negative inventory tracking unit linked to the consumption for the quantity of the consumption. For example, if the consumed quantity is 20, the quantity of the inventory tracking receipt will be 20.
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The negative inventory tracking unit is updated with the quantity received of the inventory tracking receipt.
Thus if the received quantity is 20, the received and available quantities of the negative inventory tracking unit are increased by 20.
If the total available quantity of the negative inventory tracking unit is -20, the available quantity is updated to 0 (zero).
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A consumption record is created for the inventory tracking unit created or updated in step 1 for the quantity that was updated to the negative inventory tracking unit.
For example, if 20 items were used to replenish the negative inventory tracking unit, a consumption record for 20 items is created.
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Any activities subsequent to the confirm receipt activity in the inbound process, such as inbound advice, put away, and inbound inspections, are automatically completed for the quantities used to replenish the negative inventory tracking unit.
For example, if the quantity of the confirmed receipt line is 100 and 20 were allocated to the negative inventory tracking unit, the inbound advice and put away activities are set to Partially in the Inbound Line Status Overview (whinh2119m000) session.
This is because the quantities updated to the negative inventory tracking unit were already shipped.
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Various situations can occur when received quantities are used to replenish negative inventory.
If the quantity on a confirmed receipt line is less than the quantity of the matching consumption linked to a negative inventory tracking unit, the entire received quantity is used to replenish the negative inventory tracking unit.
For example, if the received quantity is 20 and the matching consumption is -100, the available quantity of the negative inventory tracking unit is updated to -80. The inbound activities such as inbound advice and put away are automatically completed.
The quantity on a confirmed receipt line can also replenish more than one matching consumption related to a negative inventory tracking unit.
For example, a receipt line with a quantity of 100 is confirmed. Two matching consumptions linked to the same negative inventory tracking unit are found, one with a quantity of 70 and the other with 50.
For the first consumption, the linked negative inventory tracking unit is updated with a quantity of 70. The quantity received is increased to 70 and the available quantity is increased to -50.
For the second consumption, the negative inventory tracking unit is updated with a quantity of 30, because now the total received quantity is used up. The quantity received is increased to 30 and the available quantity is increased to -20.