Partial deliveries: retain open quantities and prevent duplicate billing

Retain five quantities even when they share one order

“Partial” says little when nobody knows what remains. For each product and packaging, record ordered, shipped, customer-accepted, pending and canceled quantities. Invoicing and payments carry separate amounts. Goods may leave the warehouse complete but arrive incomplete; the order needs to retain both pieces of evidence without treating a general signature as acceptance of every unit.

Business Central documents partial shipments subject to the customer’s acceptance setting, and quantities to ship and invoice in related steps. This describes that product. Your company must decide whether it bills shipped, accepted or contractually agreed quantities and verify how its system represents the difference, rather than infer it from a “delivered” status.

Worked example: twenty units, a rejection and canceled balance

The two rejected units return identified and under review; they do not automatically increase availability for another sale. The ten pending in step 3 are a commercial obligation, while the two returned units have a physical location and condition: do not add both records as though twelve units remained to deliver. The inventory-between-warehouses guide explains transit and receipt conservation.

Under this example’s policy, the first billing document covers 10 × 100 = 1,000 and the second 6 × 100 = 600. The final total is 1,600. Repeating REC-1 must not generate another 1,000 charge. If the buyer prepaid 2,000, the 400 difference remains subject to review and a credit or refund decision; canceling four units does not prove that money has been returned.

A pending balance needs a date and owner

Assign the pending quantity a next action: replace two rejected units, purchase shortages, confirm a new date or request cancellation. Show the buyer quantities and promised dates separately; avoid leaving them waiting under an order that merely says “partial.” When delivery and sales use different systems, identify who controls accepted quantities and how corrections reach billing.

When the customer requires complete delivery, stop the first partial dispatch or obtain specific authorization. An exception belongs to PD-208 rather than silently changing every order for that customer. Also decide how additional delivery charges work: do not add a second shipping fee without an approved visible policy.

Test receipt, repetition and order changes

1. Normal: a complete accepted delivery leaves zero pending and one receipt reference.
2. Partial: accepting ten of twelve shipped retains eight unshipped and two rejected; identify what remains in transit or has returned.
3. Retry: when REC-1’s response is lost, look up and repeat the same reference; quantities and billing change only once.
4. Excess: attempts to accept more than shipped or deliver more than pending stop for review.
5. Change: cancellation after physical receipt preserves that receipt, limits cancellation to the remaining quantity and displays any pending financial correction.
6. Conflict: two people record different quantities for REC-1; retain evidence and require review before replacing the accepted value.

Use an actual order to choose the first improvement

The downloadable worksheet includes ten synthetic tests. Run the sequence with anonymized operations and record dispatch, receipt and billing references. A correct total without related documents still allows mistakes on the next attempt. For rejection details in transit, review delivery proof exceptions; for the earlier commercial decision, see quote to order.

A customer portal can provide a place for the buyer to check accepted and pending quantities when data and access permit. Before pricing that connection, identify where each quantity is recorded today, who authorizes discrepancies and which access the existing system allows. Bring a partial order that caused a billing question; it provides a more useful starting point than a general feature list.