Bundles and formatting
Bundles can be created in most sales documents. The formatting feature can be used to control which contents and how these contents should be printed on print documents.
Product Bundle
A bundle is a combination of individual components into a stand-alone product. It can be created in both Sales Quote and Sales Order. For example, a bundle can be used to combine a hardware item and on-site commissioning into one product bundle. The price of the bundle is based on the prices of the components, but can be customized. Bundles can be used based on masterdata or created individually (on-the-fly).
Masterdata for bundles
For the use of fixed bundles, these can be entered as masterdata. This enables easy use, e.g. in a Sales Quote. For this purpose, a new item is created for use for a product bundle. The description of the bundle is entered in the item description. The field Bundle is set to YES.
The item representing the bundle must be set as Type=Inventory. This is a requirement of Business Central to be able to create an assembly bill of materials. However, this is not further relevant to the use of it, as only a text line is created for the item when it is used in a sales document.
Subsequently, the components for the bundle are stored via the Assembly BOM (call via Related / Bill of Materials / Assembly). In addition to the standard fields, the Print line, Line Format Style, Print Discount % and Print Quantity Only fields provide formatting options for the sales line. More details on formatting can be found here.
If a bundle item is used in a sales line and a quantity is entered, the related bill of materials is automatically rolled out. In doing so, the line with the bundle item is converted to a text line (field Bundle=Bundle), the entries in the BOM become components. At the same time, the formatting from the bill of materials is applied to the component lines. If entries are not complete, the system will attempt to complete them by reverting to the Sales & Receivables Setup.
For more details on how Assembly BOMs work, please see this part of the Microsoft documentation.
Defaults for individual bundles
To facilitate the creation of a bundle on-the-fly, defaults can be stored using the Unit Individual Bundle, Formatting Bundle Line and Print Components fields in the Sales & Receivables Setup page in the Bundle fast tab. These entries are optional. If these fields are not filled, they must be assigned when creating an individual Bundle.
Creating an individual Bundle
The procedure to create a bundle follows the same method in Sales Quote and Sales Order. In the first step, a line of the type Comment (text line) must be created. In this text line, the description is entered and the indicator in the Bundle field is changed to Bundle. The bundle is first created with the quantity 1.
In the following lines the components (items) are entered. The lines are marked as Component in the Bundle field. In the component lines, the quantities are entered that result in exactly one bundle.
The bundle can be edited in the Bundle page. The page can be accessed via the Edit Bundle function (in the Manage line menu). In the page, the unit as well as the quantity, discount and price of the bundle can be edited. Increasing the quantity in the bundle will increase all quantities in the components correspondingly.
If you want to quickly switch to the page for Bundle, you can display the Bundle Description field via personalization. Clicking on the field will open the Bundle page.
If a sales document contains multiple bundles, a selection window for assigning the component to the correct bundle will be displayed when components are entered. The bundle that is next above the component is always selected. By confirming the selection, the component is assigned to the bundle.
Prices and discounts in the Bundle
The sum of the component amounts is equal to the bundles amount. The same applies to the discount. The price of the bundle is calculated from the amount and the quantity of the bundle.
When prices or discounts are edited in a component, the values in the bundle are recalculated. in the Sales Quote and in the Sales Order, a discount can also be entered in the bundle. The discount in the components will then be recalculated. The discount amount will be distributed evenly among the components.
Dimensions of the bundle
Dimensions can be entered directly in the bundle. The behavior of dimensions for bundles can be controlled in the Sales & Receivables Setup page in the Dimensions fast tab using the Dimension Priority Bundle field.
- The Dimensions from BOM option will transfer all the dimensions of the from the bundle to the components. If there are conflicts between the Dimension Values from the Bundle and the component, the Dimension Values from the component will be overwritten. Additional dimensions stored on the component will not be changed.
- With the option Dimensions of components the dimensions from the bundle have no influence on the components.
- With the option Display selection a selection window is shown with the two options above.
Shipping a Bundle
The bundle is saved when the shipment is posted.
The quantities of the components cannot be adjusted after the first shipment. The quantity of the bundle can still be adjusted after the shipment. The fields Bundle Qty. Shipped and Bundle Qty. Invoiced can be viewed directly in the bundle.
Invoicing a Bundle
In the Sales Order, the bundle is treated as a separate product during invoicing. It can only be billed if it is shipped as a whole. Components in a bundle cannot be billed independently, i.e. only as many bundles can be billed as whole bundles have been shipped. If a bundle consists of two components and only one is shipped, this does not mean that a complete bundle has been shipped and therefore cannot be invoiced. If both components are shipped, the bundle can be invoiced. Accordingly, Qty. to Invoice is set in the components so that bundles are always invoiced as a whole.
If a component is to be explicitly invoiced individually, the bundle can be reopened at any time. To reopen a bundle, either the bundle line must be deleted or the Bundle flag must be removed.
The bundle cannot be reassembled after reopening. New sales lines must be created for the quantities that have not yet been shipped and a new bundle must be created.
Formatting
The formatting can be used to control which contents and how these contents are printed on print documents. This control allows, among other things, the printing of headings and the hiding of components. A heading can be printed bold and always on a new page. In addition, within a bundle, components can be printed without their own price or completely hidden.
The formatting can be used in the following sales documents:
- Sales Quotes
- Sales Orders
- Blanket Sales Orders
- Sales Invoices
- Sales Credit Memos
Formatting can no longer be changed in posted documents. It is adopted when posting and when creating the subsequent document. For example, the formatting is adopted when a Sales Quote is converted into a Sales Order. In the Sales Order, the formatting can be adjusted again. Further information on formatting is described here.