Stock transfer (SAP Business One)

E-invoicing in Germany: How to implement the obligation with SAP Business One

One Stock transfer in SAP Business One serves to move items between different warehouses or between bin locations within the same warehouse. With the addition of the document, the system automatically creates a Journal entry, which debits the value on the stock account of the target warehouse and credits it on the stock account of the issuing warehouse.

Purpose and Areas of Application

Stock transfers represent the physical movement of inventory within a system – without a sale or purchase taking place. Typical scenarios:

Between camps Transfer of stock between different warehouse locations, such as from a central warehouse to an external warehouse or between production sites.
Between pitches Rebooking within a warehouse, for example from the goods-in area to the picking zone.
Consignment stock Relocation to a customer's warehouse, where items are physically stored at the customer's premises but remain on the company's balance sheet—with sales occurring at a later date from this warehouse.

Booking logic

When adding a stock transfer, SAP Business One automatically generates a journal entry that documents the value shift in the general ledger:

Debit The target warehouse's stock account is debited.
Haben (Credit): The stock account of the issuing warehouse is debited.

Das ist ein klassischer Activity swapAn asset account grows, another shrinks by the same amount. The total balance sheet remains unchanged, no value flows outwards.

Important: Manual journal entries on inventory accounts only affect the G/L account, not the logistical inventory. Inventory adjustments are therefore generally made via inventory documents such as stock transfers – never via direct journal entries.

Setting up a stock transfer

In the SAP Business One Web Client, the asset is created in four steps:

Open tile: Click on „Create stock transfer".
General tab Enter required information (e.g. Business partner on consignment, price list).
Tab „Inhalt": Record articles, origin and destination warehouses, as well as quantities, serial/batch numbers, and other details.
Optional „Copy from": Existing requests for stock relocation can be adopted — articles, warehouses, and serial/batch numbers are transferred directly into the new document.

Limitations and Correction

After adding, there is an inventory transfer no longer directly changeable. Reason: The voucher has already triggered a journal entry, and a subsequent change would compromise the traceability of stock and value movements.

Corrections are therefore made exclusively via Balancing movements — so another stock transfer in the opposite direction, or a stock adjustment. This way, the complete history is preserved, and each correction step is documented individually.

Practical tip

Use the function „Copying" consistently, if regular reallocations between the same warehouses take place — this saves time and prevents typing errors with articles and Batch numbers. For recurring internal movements (e.g. daily replenishment transfers to the picking zone), stock transfer requests are particularly efficient as templates.

Demarcation

An inventory relocation is not a Despatch or Goods receipt posting — with these, the value leaves or reaches the company, while with the reallocation it remains internal. It is also not a Inventory or File correctionThese are used when Quantity of an article (e.g. after an inventory count or due to shrinkage). Relocation from one Delivery to a customerEven with consignment stock, the item remains on the balance sheet as own stock – only the subsequent consumption posting from the consignment warehouse triggers the actual sale.