Objectives

Many businesses forecast demand for finished assembly or production items but purchase the components required to build them. Planners need Business Central to:

• Consider both sales orders and forecast demand.
• Avoid counting sales orders twice when they are already represented in the forecast.
• Expand finished-item demand through multiple BOM levels.
• Suggest purchases for Level 1, Level 2, and lower-level components.
• Provide suppliers with visibility into expected demand over a 6 to 12-month planning horizon.

Enhanced Planning Worksheet supports this scenario through the standard Business Central MPS and MRP calculation available from Calculate Regenerative Plan.

Choose the correct planning calculation

Enhanced Planning Worksheet provides two different calculations:

Calculation	Recommended use
Calculate Regenerative Plan	Time-phased MPS and MRP planning, including multi-level BOM demand. Use this calculation to turn finished-item forecasts into purchase suggestions for components.
Calculate Purchase Plan	SKU-level purchase and transfer planning. This calculation can include forecasts entered directly against the SKU being planned, but it does not explode a finished-item forecast through multiple BOM levels.

Enhanced Planning Worksheet uses the standard Business Central planning engine when you run Calculate Regenerative Plan. For more information, see Planning Concepts and Parameters in the Enhanced Planning Worksheet.

How sales orders and forecasts work together

Business Central considers both sales orders and forecast demand, but it does not simply add the full sales-order quantity to the full forecast quantity.

Sales orders consume the forecast for the applicable forecast period. For example:

• Forecast demand: 20
• Sales-order demand during the forecast period: 6
• Remaining forecast demand: 14
• Total planned demand: 20

If sales-order demand exceeds the forecast, Business Central plans for the higher actual demand.

This prevents sales orders from being counted twice. For more information, see Design details: Balancing supply and demand.

Configure the finished item

Configure each finished item that will be forecasted.

For a manufactured item:

1. Open the Item Card.
2. Set Replenishment System to Prod. Order.
3. Assign the appropriate Production BOM and routing.
4. Ensure the BOM and routing versions are certified and valid for the forecast dates.

Forecast-driven planning is generally better suited to assemble-to-stock or make-to-stock items. Assemble-to-order items are normally supplied by assembly orders linked directly to sales orders.

For more information, see Understanding Assemble to Order and Assemble to Stock.

Configure purchased components

Configure each purchased component on its Item Card or Stockkeeping Unit Card.

1. Set Replenishment System to Purchase.
2. Select an appropriate Reordering Policy.
3. Enter the component’s Lead Time Calculation.
4. Configure any required purchasing constraints:
   • Safety Stock Quantity
   • Minimum Order Quantity
   • Maximum Order Quantity
   • Order Multiple
   • Lot Accumulation Period

When a Stockkeeping Unit exists for the item, location, and variant, planning uses the parameters from the SKU instead of the Item Card. Verify the SKU setup when results differ by location.

Recommended reordering policy

For purchased components that must follow date-phased forecast and BOM demand, Lot-for-Lot is generally the best starting point.

Lot-for-Lot replenishes net requirements and can use Lot Accumulation Period to group nearby requirements into weekly or monthly purchase suggestions. Order modifiers can then adjust the quantities to match supplier requirements.

Fixed Reorder Qty. is better suited to regularly consumed stock items that should remain above a reorder point. Its suggestions are intentionally influenced by:

• Reorder Point
• Reorder Quantity
• Safety Stock Quantity
• Time Bucket

Consequently, Fixed Reorder Qty. might suggest several fixed-quantity orders instead of producing quantities that directly correspond to the total forecasted component demand.

For more information, see:

• Setup best practices: Reordering policies
• Design details: Planning parameters
• Design details: Handling reordering policies

Create the finished-item forecast

Use Enhanced Forecasting Worksheet to calculate the forecast and transfer it to Business Central’s demand forecast.

1. Search for Enhanced Forecasting Worksheet.
2. Enter the item, location, variant, period, and historical-period filters.
3. Set No. of Forecast Periods to cover the required planning horizon.
4. Select Calculate Forecast.
5. Review the calculated Predicted Value lines.
6. Select Update Demand Forecast.
7. Select the Demand Forecast Name to update.

The Calculate Forecast action only calculates and displays forecast results. The Update Demand Forecast action creates the Business Central demand forecast entries used by planning.

Enhanced Forecasting also sets the selected forecast as the current production forecast in Manufacturing Setup.

For more information, see:

• Enhanced Forecasting Worksheet
• Create a demand forecast

Select the forecast type

When forecasting finished items, use Forecast Type = Sales Item. Sales orders will then consume the applicable finished-item forecast during planning.

A Component forecast is used when forecast quantities are entered directly for components and dependent production demand should consume that forecast.

If forecasts are maintained by location or variant, ensure that the forecast entries, sales orders, items, and SKUs use matching locations and variants. If location-specific forecasts are required, enable Use Forecast by Location on Inventory Setup.

Calculate the multi-level plan

1. Search for Enhanced Planning Worksheet.
2. Select the required planning worksheet batch in the Name field.
3. Select Prepare, and then select Calculate Regenerative Plan.
4. On the request page, enable:
   • MPS
   • MRP
5. Set Starting Date, normally to the current Work Date.
6. Set Ending Date to cover the required 6 to 12-month horizon.
7. In Use Forecast, select the Demand Forecast Name updated from Enhanced Forecasting Worksheet.
8. Review Exclude Forecast Before and ensure that it does not exclude required forecast periods.
9. Apply item or location filters if required.
10. Select OK.

MPS plans the finished items that have forecast or sales demand. MRP then calculates the dependent requirements for components through the BOM levels.

The planning horizon must be long enough to include the cumulative lead times of the finished item, subassemblies, and purchased components. For more information, see Run Full Planning, MPS, or MRP.

Review and create the supply orders

After the calculation finishes:

1. Review the assembly, production, transfer, and purchase suggestions in Enhanced Planning Worksheet.
2. Confirm that purchased components have Replenishment System = Purchase.
3. Review the suggested quantities, order dates, due dates, and warnings.
4. Select the appropriate Accept Action Message lines.
5. Select Carry Out Action Message.
6. Choose the document types to create and complete the process.

Business Central can create assembly or production supply for the finished items and purchase orders for the lower-level components from the same multi-level plan.

Example

Assume the following setup:

• Finished item 10297:
  • Replenishment System: Assembly
  • Assembly Policy: Assemble-to-Stock
  • Forecast quantity: 20
• Component 14989:
  • Quantity per assembly: 1
  • Replenishment System: Purchase
  • Reordering Policy: Lot-for-Lot
  • Lead Time Calculation: 30D

When the regenerative plan runs with MPS, MRP, and the forecast selected:

1. The forecast creates demand for item 10297.
2. Existing sales orders consume the applicable forecast instead of being added to it in full.
3. Planning suggests the required assembly supply for item 10297 after considering existing inventory and supply.
4. The Assembly BOM creates dependent demand for component 14989.
5. Planning nets the component demand against component inventory and existing supply.
6. A purchase suggestion is created for the remaining requirement, adjusted by safety stock and purchasing order modifiers.

The final quantity might not equal 20 if inventory, existing purchase orders, safety stock, minimum quantities, or order multiples affect the net requirement.

When to use Calculate Purchase Plan instead

Use Calculate Purchase Plan when the objective is to replenish individual purchase or transfer SKUs without recursively planning a multi-level BOM.

The request page includes Forecast Name and Forecast End Date. For each SKU, the calculation:

• Reads forecast entries for the same item, location, and variant.
• Deducts actual sales usage from the forecast.
• Compares actual demand with the remaining forecast demand.
• Uses the greater demand value.
• Applies the SKU’s reordering policy.
• Consolidates the result into a single, non-time-phased worksheet line.

It does not translate a forecast for a parent assembly item into forecast demand for its components. Use Calculate Regenerative Plan when multi-level demand must be propagated in one planning calculation.

For additional details, see How does the Planning Worksheet Purchase Plan calculate the amount to purchase?.

Troubleshooting

Forecast demand is not included

Verify that:

• Update Demand Forecast was selected after calculating the forecast.
• The correct forecast was selected in Use Forecast.
• The forecast dates fall between the planning Starting Date and Ending Date.
• Exclude Forecast Before is not excluding the entries.
• The forecast location and variant match the planned item or SKU.

Purchased components are not suggested

Verify that:

• Both MPS and MRP were enabled.
• The parent item has the correct replenishment system.
• The Assembly BOM or Production BOM is valid.
• The component has Replenishment System = Purchase.
• The component has a nonblank reordering policy.
• Existing inventory or supply is not already covering the requirement.
• Item and SKU planning parameters are configured at the correct location.

Suggestions are driven by the reorder point

This is expected when the component uses Fixed Reorder Qty. or Maximum Qty.. Consider Lot-for-Lot when the requirement is to create date-phased purchase suggestions based on forecast and BOM demand.

Demand is consolidated into one line

Confirm which calculation was run. Calculate Purchase Plan consolidates SKU demand into a non-time-phased line. Calculate Regenerative Plan uses the standard time-phased MPS and MRP calculation.

Related information

• Enhanced Planning Worksheet
• Enhanced Forecasting Worksheet
• Planning Concepts and Parameters in the Enhanced Planning Worksheet
• How does the Planning Worksheet Purchase Plan calculate the amount to purchase?
• Run Full Planning, MPS, or MRP
• Create a demand forecast