Location Transfers

Move rental units between your own locations, either as an instant reclassification or as a transfer document that keeps stock on hand while units are in transit.

How it fits in

Every rental unit carries a Current Location, the location it is working from. When equipment moves between your depots, that location needs to move with it. Essential Rental gives you two ways to do this, and you choose the one that matches how the move really happens:

Reclassify the unit when it is simply somewhere else now and you just need the records to catch up. This is a single step with no in-transit stage.

Raise a Location Transfer document when the move is a real logistics event you want to track: the units leave one depot, spend time in transit, and arrive at another. Stock stays on hand throughout, and the document records the whole journey.

→
Location Transfers move units within a single company. To move rental units between companies in a group, see Global Equipment.

Reclassify a unit now

Reclassification changes a unit's Current Location immediately and records a movement entry against it, so you keep a full location history per unit. There is no in-transit stage and the unit's status does not change.

From the Rental Items list

Select one or more units on the Rental Items list and choose Reclassify Location. A short dialog asks for a New Location; on OK, each selected unit is moved to that location and a movement entry is posted for each. Leave New Location blank to clear the location instead of setting one.

The Location Reclassification Journal

For a larger batch, open the Location Reclassification Journal (search for it in Tell Me). Enter a line per unit: type or look up the Rental Item No. and the unit's current location and description fill in automatically, then set the New Location (again, blank clears it). Choose Post to move every line at once; each posts a movement entry, updates Current Location, and the journal lines are cleared afterwards.

The Location Transfer document

A Location Transfer is shaped like a Business Central transfer order. It moves a set of units from one location to another in two legs, ship and receive, so that on-hand stock never drops while the equipment is in transit. Open Location Transfers to see the list, or create a new one; each transfer takes its number from a number series automatically.

Header

General
No.
The document number, assigned from the Location Transfer number series. Read-only.
Status
Where the transfer is: Open while you build it, In-Transit once shipped, Received when every line has arrived, or Cancelled. Read-only.
Transfer-from Code / Transfer-to Code
The origin and destination locations. Only units whose Current Location equals the Transfer-from location may be added to the transfer.
Direct Transfer
Turn on to move units straight from the from-location to the to-location in one step, with no in-transit stage. Turn off to ship and receive through an in-transit location.
In-Transit Code
The location units sit at while in transit. Required unless this is a Direct Transfer, and it must be a location flagged Use As In-Transit. Pre-filled from Rental Setup.
Shipment Date / Receipt Date
The dates the ship and receive legs post under. Both default to the work date and are editable; neither blocks a post.

A read-only Transfer-from and Transfer-to address (name, address, city, post code, country, contact) is looked up from each location for reference, and a Shipment section carries an informational shipping method, shipping agent, service, and shipping time. These describe the move; they do not drive the posting.

Lines

Add a line per unit by typing or looking up its Rental Item No. A unit can only be added while the transfer is Open and only if it currently sits at the Transfer-from location. To add units quickly, use the Scan action: the Scan Units screen lets you scan each unit by its number or serial number and adds it without typing, telling you the reason in a status line if a scan is rejected so you can keep going.

Shipping and receiving

1
Ship

Choose Ship. Every open line moves out of the Transfer-from location and into the In-Transit location, and the unit's status becomes In-Transit. Because the move posts as a matched pair (out of the origin, into in-transit), total on-hand never drops. The transfer becomes In-Transit.

2
Receive

When the units arrive, choose Receive. Each in-transit line lands at the Transfer-to location and the unit becomes Available there. Receive part of a transfer if only some units have arrived: the header stays In-Transit until the rest are received, then flips to Received.

Direct Transfer: when the header's Direct Transfer is on, the In-Transit Code is cleared and the Ship and Receive actions are replaced by a single Post Transfer action that moves every open line straight from the from-location to the to-location. There is no in-transit leg and units never take the In-Transit status.

Correcting a transfer

Cancel: an Open transfer that has not shipped anything can be cancelled outright. Nothing was posted, so nothing is reversed; the transfer and its lines become Cancelled.

Undo Ship: on the lines, an already-shipped line can be undone. The unit is brought straight back to the Transfer-from location and becomes Available again, and the line reopens. The header returns to In-Transit if other lines are still shipped, or back to Open if none are.

→
A shipped or received transfer cannot be deleted. If you started it in error, undo the shipped lines or receive them first. While a unit is in transit it is locked from other stock operations (positive adjustments and similar are skipped), so its stock stays under the transfer.

Seeing where a unit is

While a unit is in transit, the Current Transfer field on the Rental Item card and the Rental Items list shows the transfer it is on. Drill down to open that document in one click. The field is blank when the unit is not in transit, and it works for both Location Transfers and Global Equipment transfers.

Configuration that affects transfers

Two fields on Rental Setup configure Location Transfers:

Setup fields
Location Transfer Nos.
The number series that assigns numbers to Location Transfer documents. Required before you can create a transfer; the Setup Wizard seeds one on a fresh environment.
Default In-Transit Code
The in-transit location pre-filled onto new (non-direct) transfers. It must be a location flagged Use As In-Transit.

Use As In-Transit is a standard Business Central flag on the Location card. Only locations with this flag can be chosen as an In-Transit Code, so tick it on the location you use for goods in transit before setting up transfers.

Related pages