When an item uses lot or serial number tracking, the tracking information may not yet be posted in Business Central when a quality inspection needs to be completed.

A common example is production where Quality Inspector inspections occur at intermediate routing operations, but the item is not posted to inventory until output is recorded at a later or final operation.

Quality Inspector can support this scenario using the Tracking Before Finishing setting.

Example scenario

Consider a production routing with multiple operations:

1. An item is produced using serial number tracking.
2. A Quality Inspector inspection is required at an intermediate operation.
3. Another inspection is required later in the routing.
4. The item’s serial number is assigned before the intermediate inspection, but the production output that creates the item ledger entry is not posted until a later operation.

Without allowing pre-posted tracking, Quality Inspector cannot validate the serial number as posted item tracking when the first inspection is completed.

The Tracking Before Finishing setting controls how Quality Inspector handles this situation.

Configure Tracking Before Finishing

Open Quality Inspection Setup and locate Tracking Before Finishing.

The available settings are:

Allow Missing Item Tracking

The quality inspection can be finished without a lot or serial number.

Use this when item tracking does not need to be known when the inspection is completed.

Posted Item Tracking Only

The lot or serial number must already exist as posted item tracking before the inspection can be finished.

This setting is generally not appropriate when inspections must be completed during production before the tracked output has been posted.

Reservation or Posted

The lot or serial number can be accepted when it either:

• already exists as posted item tracking, or
• has been assigned through Business Central item tracking/reservation entries but has not yet been posted.

This is normally the appropriate setting for production scenarios where the serial or lot number is assigned before the final output is posted.

For example, if a serial number has already been assigned to the production order’s output but the corresponding output has not yet been posted, Quality Inspector can use that tracking information for an inspection performed at an earlier routing operation.

Any Non Empty Value

Quality Inspector requires a lot or serial number, but the value does not need to exist as either posted or reserved item tracking.

This provides the least restrictive validation while still requiring a tracking value.

Use this option when the lot or serial number needs to be recorded during inspection but Business Central does not yet contain a corresponding reservation or posted tracking entry.

Recommended setup for intermediate production inspections

For a routing where Quality Inspector inspections occur before the final production output is posted:

1. Assign the item’s lot or serial number in Business Central before the inspection needs to be finished.
2. In Quality Inspection Setup, set Tracking Before Finishing to Reservation or Posted.
3. Perform the Quality Inspector inspection at the applicable routing operation.
4. Complete the remaining production operations and post output normally.

This allows the quality inspection to be associated with the intended lot or serial number even though the finished item’s tracking has not yet been posted to the item ledger.

Which setting should I use?

Use Reservation or Posted when the tracking number has already been assigned in Business Central but the related transaction has not yet been posted.

Use Any Non Empty Value when the tracking number must be recorded on the inspection even though it has not yet been established through Business Central’s item tracking or reservation records, such as performing inspections on intermediate steps or checkpoints prior to the last operation before the lot or serial is known.  This can allow anticipated lot/serials to be used or placeholder lot/serials that can later be changed to the final lot/serial.

Use Posted Item Tracking Only when inspections should only be completed against tracking numbers that already exist in posted inventory.

Use Allow Missing Item Tracking when finishing the inspection without a tracking number is acceptable.

For additional details about this and other Quality Inspector setup options, see Quality Inspection Setup.