Containers and ETA in BC without Excel

Many companies that import keep track of containers in an Excel sheet next to Business Central. The sheet has the container number, vessel and expected arrival, but the purchase order in BC knows nothing about it. The result is familiar: the buyer phones the forwarder, the warehouse asks when the goods arrive, and the ETA changes without anyone updating the order. The problem is not Excel, but that the information lives in two places. In this article we go through what you should at minimum record per container, how to link it to the purchase order lines, and how to get changes in ETA out to the people who plan the receipt. At the end we show how our upcoming app, Container, gathers containers and ETA on the purchase order. It is free up to 25 containers per month and is not on AppSource yet.

What to record per container

Container number and shipping line or forwarder
Port of loading and port of arrival
Expected departure and expected arrival (ETA)
Which purchase order lines and quantities are in the container
Status: ordered, shipped, arrived, received

Link the container to the purchase order lines

A purchase order can be split over several containers, and a container can hold goods from several orders. The link must therefore sit at line level with a quantity, not only on the order header.

When the link exists, the expected receipt date on the line can follow the container's ETA. Then planning and sales show the same date as purchasing.

Get changes out to the people who plan

ETA moves. Agree who updates the date and where the warehouse sees it. A weekly overview of what arrives in the next two weeks per location removes most of the phone calls.

Keep the old date when the ETA changes. Then you can see which routes and suppliers are typically delayed.

Addverk Container

Our upcoming app gathers containers and ETA on the purchase order. It is free up to 25 containers per month and is not on Microsoft AppSource yet. Join the waiting list and we will tell you at launch.