Imagine this: You have a product that you manufacture using Production Orders. However, there are many different variations of this product based on the country that the product was ordered from.
You might think that you would need to create new item numbers for each of these variations of the same product. While that could work, if you wanted to keep the same high-level part number, you can do that. Business Central allows the user to have multiple BOMs for the same item, based on the Variant Code that is selected when setting up the production order. To accomplish this, we will need to utilize Stockkeeping Units, Variant Codes, and ensure the Variant Mandatory code is turned on inside of the Item Card.
The Variant Mandatory Field
This field is a new feature added within one of the latest versions of Business Central. Historically, when adding an item to a document (production order, sales order, purchase order, etc.), and a variant exists, users could forget to set the variant code. This would cause confusion when processing that document. So, adding this field is excellent; it will force the user to select a variant if it exists, preventing the problem.
Variants
Variants are a great way of maintaining the same part number but allowing for different options of that particular part. The most common example to understand this is having a part number for a t-shirt, but you have variants for the different colors. This way, you still have a single part number for your sales team to utilize, but there are options that go along with it. It’s a much simpler way of handling this than having different part numbers for each shirt color.
To get started with Variants, navigate to the item card, go to Related > Item > Variants:
This will bring up the Variant List Page. Here, the user can add each Variant Code that they would like to keep track of in inventory. This is important if you have enabled the Variant Mandatory flag on the item card, as this is what the user will have to select when interacting with this item. For this example, I’m going to use the different languages we have of this product:
Production BOMs
Now that we’ve created the variants, we can create the different Production BOMs for each Variant of this item. Each Variant can have its own production BOM. This is very useful in this situation where we want to change a few items on the BOM based on the language. Navigate to Production BOMs and create a BOM for each variant.
Stockkeeping Units
Now that we’ve done the setup, we can create the different SKUs on the Item Card. This is what will allow us to assign the different BOMs to the variants we created. Navigate to the Planning section of the Item Card and select the text that is hyperlinked next to Stockkeeping Units Exist:
In the new window, select New:
While there are a lot of options here, we’re going to focus on just a few. You’ll notice that the Stockkeeping Unit Card looks very similar to the Item Card. In the general section, select the Variant Code that you want to assign a BOM to: 
And then under the Replenishment section, select the Production BOM that you want to assign:
Repeat this for each Variant that was created.
Production Orders
Navigate to Released Production Orders and select New. You will want to open the Personalization Settings and make sure to add the Variant Code field, as it is not visible by default:
I prefer to place it below the Source No. field so it’s a reminder to select the variant when creating the production order.
Now, when the production order is refreshed, it will have the BOM of the variant that was selected! By utilizing Variants and SKUs, Business Central allows the user to have many different ways to configure an item without having to create many different part numbers for the same item.
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