Other patterns

The previously discussed pattern with journals and documents is by far the most important transaction structure. But Microsoft Dynamics NAV also has other structures as well.

The three most important other patterns are CRM, jobs, and manufacturing. These areas are all umbrella structures for other processes.

Relationship management

Microsoft Dynamics NAV RM helps you to maintain master data and analyze transactional data. It is both at the very start of the data process and at the end.

We have already seen the customer, vendor, and bank master data records. But what if a vendor is also a customer, or vice versa. We don't want to maintain the same data twice. We might also want to keep extra information such as contact persons and the interests of our customers and vendors. We'll see more of that in Chapter 4, Relationship Management.

There is also a need to analyze the data we have created with the document and journal structure.

Jobs

Sometimes, a project can be more comprehensive than just a purchase and/or a sales document. A project can take from several weeks to over a year and requires multiple documents.

The job structure in Dynamics NAV allows you to handle this. Every document and journal transaction can be attached to a job, making it easy to analyze profit and loss and even schedule your jobs.

The jobs module also allows you to do a calculation before you start the project and balance this calculation throughout the process.

Manufacturing

When you produce your own items, you have different needs in your ERP process than when you only purchase the items you sell.

The manufacturing module of Microsoft Dynamics NAV allows you to handle this process. Basically what it does is create an item out of one or more other items and resources.