When Dynamics 365 Business Central Knows the Order but Not the Delivery

It usually starts with a straightforward question: “Where’s the truck?”

At first glance, it seems like a routine question. Someone needs to call the driver, check with the carrier, pull up a spreadsheet, ask the warehouse, or ping the dispatcher.

But when a company is running Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, that simple question can point to a bigger issue.

The sales order is in the system. The warehouse shipment is set up. The paperwork is done. From Business Central’s perspective, everything looks fine: the order is being processed, the goods are being prepped, and things are moving along as they should.

But the actual delivery is a whole different story.

The Invisible Gap

Delivery details can live in all sorts of places: a dispatcher’s Excel sheet, an email chain with a carrier, a phone call with a driver, a separate carrier portal—or just in the head of whoever assigned the trucks that day.

Technically, the process exists. But it is nearly invisible to Business Central. This creates a gap between what the ERP system knows (the order) and what’s actually happening in the real world (the delivery). It might see some documents and status updates, but ERP typically has no visibility into vehicles, drivers, routes, time windows, capacity, costs, carrier relationships, delays, proof of delivery, and a whole list of decisions that happen after the order is created.

Two Ways to Bridge the Gap

In my experience, companies approach this problem in one of two ways. Let’s look at both.