Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Scend
Integration Agency & Consultants
At scale, any lag between your financial records and the warehouse floor creates manual work that slows order processing. When Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Scend are out of step, stock inaccuracies often lead to overselling or fulfilment delays. This integration ensures that physical movements in Scend are reflected in Dynamics 365, giving your team a consistent view of inventory. By aligning your financial records with warehouse execution, you maintain control over stock valuation and protect your ability to deliver to customers on time.
Auditing system architecture and data gaps
We connect Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Scend quickly, supporting ERP and WMS/3PL integrations. Our consulting services are valuable because our system audit uncovers inefficiencies and integration gaps across Microsoft Dynamics 365, Scend, ERP, and WMS/3PL platforms. This enables our consultants and your team to take decisive action, ensuring your technology ecosystem runs efficiently. With our expertise, you can deliver a reliable, high-quality experience to your customers, confident that your systems are optimised for smooth operations and future growth.
Solution Design
The integration design for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Scend prioritises financial control and fulfilment accuracy. Dynamics 365 is established as the financial and item master source of truth, while Scend owns the real-time execution of warehouse operations. A critical design decision involves the timing of inventory updates: we typically push available stock from Scend to Dynamics 365 on a defined schedule to manage system performance. This trade-off protects ERP stability while maintaining an accurate view for financial reporting. By sequencing item master synchronisation first, we ensure that orders flowing to Scend for fulfilment always find a matching SKU. This approach means finance closes monthly figures based on Dynamics 365 records, while ops monitors dispatch performance via Scend data.
Managing order flow and item masters
The integration ensures data integrity by treating Microsoft Dynamics 365 as the authoritative source for item data and financial records. Once an order is validated in Dynamics 365, it is transmitted to Scend for pick, pack, and dispatch. As Scend completes these warehouse actions, fulfilment status and tracking details flow back to the ERP to trigger financial posting and customer notifications. We prioritise the synchronisation of SKU-level data to prevent orphaned orders. Monitoring focuses on identifying sync failures early, ensuring that stock levels in Scend match the available-to-promise figures required by your sales channels.
Secure orchestration for enterprise data flows
Leveraging IPaaS enables secure, efficient integration between Microsoft Dynamics 365, Scend, ERP, and WMS/3PL systems. With ISO 27001 and SOC 2 and above accreditations as a minimum, IPaaS ensures data protection and compliance. Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Scend integrations benefit from simplified ERP and WMS/3PL connectivity, reducing manual effort and risk. Using IPaaS accelerates deployment, supports scalability, and maintains robust security for all connected platforms.
Surfacing reconciliation gaps and sync exceptions
Standard dashboards often miss the quiet failures that happen between Dynamics 365 and Scend. Visibility is not just about seeing that the sync is running; it is about detecting when an item master change in the ERP fails to update in the warehouse, or when a dispatch in Scend hangs before posting to finance. Cogent2 surfaces these exceptions early, highlighting reconciliation gaps between physical stock and financial valuation. This proactive monitoring ensures your team sees the specific record that failed, the reason for the mismatch, and the direct impact on fulfilment timing.
Operational handover for finance and operations
Handover focuses on how finance, operations, and CX teams manage the new operating model. Cogent2 provides operational documentation that defines ownership for every data flow between Dynamics 365 and Scend. Finance teams learn to manage reconciliation and recognise how stock valuation in the ERP aligns with physical movement in Scend. Operations teams are trained to monitor fulfilment status and handle exceptions when item master data mismatches occur. Rather than technical manuals, we provide practical guides for daily and weekly checks to keep data clean. This ensures the team knows which system owns each exception and how to resolve them before they impact customer delivery or financial reporting.
Post launch governance and drift monitoring
After launch, Cogent2 provides ongoing operational support to handle sync exceptions and data drift. We monitor the health of the Dynamics 365 and Scend connection, escalating technical issues and guiding your team through complex reconciliation gaps. This is not just technical maintenance; it is an active partnership to ensure your fulfilment and financial reporting remain accurate as your business grows. By owning the monitoring and escalation process, we allow your internal teams to focus on operations rather than troubleshooting integration logs.
Common failures
Inventory latency and overselling
Operational impact: Relying on periodic inventory syncs from Scend to Dynamics 365 often results in stock levels on sales channels not reflecting true physical availability. This leads to overselling popular SKUs, increasing the workload for CX teams who must process cancellations and refunds. The disconnect also complicates demand planning, as sales data in D365 does not align with true fulfilment capacity.
Prevention / Action: Define Dynamics 365 as the source of truth for 'Available to Sell' inventory, which may differ from the physical stock in Scend by including stock buffers and allocation logic. The integration logic must then feed this calculated figure to sales channels. For high-volume SKUs, consider event-driven updates from Scend for key stock movements, rather than relying solely on a scheduled batch sync.
Inconsistent master item data
Operational impact: When item master records are not perfectly aligned, fulfilment grinds to a halt. If Dynamics 365 holds the master definition for a SKU, but Scend does not recognise its unit of measure (e.g., 'Case' vs 'Each') or its composition as a bundled kit, pick lists are incorrect. This causes significant delays in the warehouse, requiring manual intervention from the ops team and delaying order dispatch.
Prevention / Action: Establish Dynamics 365 as the single source of truth for all item master data, including SKUs, barcodes, units of measure, and bill of materials definitions. The integration must ensure any new or updated item record in D365 is successfully created in Scend before any related transactions, like Sales Orders, are processed. Implement exception reporting to flag any order lines that reference a SKU or UoM that is unrecognised by Scend.
Fulfilment and invoicing status conflicts
Operational impact: A common failure occurs when an order is prematurely marked as 'Invoiced' or 'Complete' in Dynamics 365 before Scend returns a tracking number. This race condition leaves the Sales Order in D365 without critical tracking data, preventing automated dispatch notifications to customers and complicating CX team enquiries. Finance teams may also see invoiced orders that have not physically left the building.
Prevention / Action: Design the integration to manage order state carefully across both systems using status flags. The Sales Order in Dynamics 365 should not be advanced to a final, closed status until the integration layer confirms receipt of a valid shipment confirmation from Scend. Using a staging status in D365, such as 'Awaiting Dispatch Confirmation', can ensure all necessary data is captured before the financial record is closed.
Misaligned warehouse location codes
Operational impact: If warehouse codes in Dynamics 365 do not exactly match the corresponding location identifiers in Scend, inventory and order routing will fail. This can lead to stock counts being ignored from an entire fulfilment location or Sales Orders being held in an error queue indefinitely. The fulfilment team will be unaware of these orders, and the operations team must perform manual data correction to resolve the issue.
Prevention / Action: Maintain a strict mapping of warehouse location codes between Dynamics 365 and Scend, with D365 acting as the master record. This mapping should be part of the core integration configuration and subject to change control processes. The integration should include validation and exception handling to immediately flag and halt any transaction that references an unrecognised location code.
Frequently asked questions
We use Dynamics 365 as our item master. How does the integration keep Scend updated with the correct SKU data?
Microsoft Dynamics 365 acts as the single source of truth for the item master, ensuring data consistency. When an item record is created or updated in Dynamics 365, the integration automatically pushes the change to Scend. This prevents order processing failures that occur when a sales order arrives in Scend for a SKU that does not exist or has incorrect details.
We sell products as both individual units and in cases. How does the integration handle different units of measure?
Defining how units are handled is a critical step, as mismatches often cause errors. The integration correctly maps 'Unit of Measure' (UoM) conversions from Microsoft Dynamics 365, ensuring Scend understands if '1' unit means a single item or a full case. This prevents scenarios where a sales order for a case is picked as a single item, which would lead to incorrect shipments and inaccurate stock records.
How do we prevent overselling if Scend's stock updates aren't in real-time?
To prevent overselling, stock level information must flow from Scend back to Microsoft Dynamics 365 on a frequent, scheduled basis. While Scend handles the physical inventory, Dynamics 365 requires these timely updates to maintain an accurate master stock ledger for all sales channels. This frequent synchronisation is essential for avoiding the revenue loss and customer dissatisfaction caused by selling out-of-stock items.
How does our finance team know when an order has been dispatched by Scend?
Once Scend confirms an order dispatch, the integration automatically updates the corresponding Sales Order in Microsoft Dynamics 365 with the shipment status and tracking numbers. This completes the final step of the order-to-cash process without manual intervention. It gives the finance team a clear, up-to-date view of dispatched orders directly within the ERP, which is crucial for accurate revenue recognition and invoicing.
Our wholesale prices need four decimal places, but Dynamics 365 defaults to two. Can the integration manage this?
Yes, this is a common failure point in B2B implementations that requires specific configuration. We ensure that price lists from Microsoft Dynamics 365 are synchronised to Scend while preserving the necessary decimal precision for complex pricing. This prevents rounding discrepancies on sales orders, which would otherwise create reconciliation challenges for the finance team during month-end close.