What is a Item Reference in Business Central?

A cross-reference in Business Central that maps external product codes (vendor SKUs, barcodes) to internal BC item numbers.

Item References (formerly Cross-References) in Business Central map external product identifiers — vendor SKUs, customer part numbers, barcodes — to your internal BC item numbers. This allows seamless translation between how suppliers identify products and how your system tracks them.

For example, a supplier might call a product 'SKU-44821' while your BC system has it as item '1896-S'. The Item Reference table creates this mapping so that when you receive orders or invoices with the supplier's code, BC knows which internal item it refers to.

Zentriq PunchOut uses Item References extensively. When AI extracts SKUs from a supplier's cart page, it checks each SKU against your BC Item References. Matched items are automatically linked to the correct BC item number in the Requisition Worksheet line. Unmatched items are flagged as text lines for manual review.

Maintaining accurate Item References is important for procurement automation. The more references you have mapped, the higher the automatic match rate when using PunchOut or processing invoices through Document Capture.

Related terms

• Requisition Worksheet — A planning tool in Business Central used to create purchase suggestions and consolidate demand before issuing purchase orders.
• Vendor (Supplier) — A company or person from whom you purchase goods or services, represented as a Vendor Card in Business Central.
• PunchOut Catalog — A supplier's online catalog that connects to a buyer's ERP system via cXML or OCI protocol, allowing direct cart data transfer.

How Zentriq helps

Zentriq's AI tools automate many of the manual processes around item reference in Business Central. Learn about the Zentriq Agent or try Zentriq PunchOut to see how AI simplifies procurement in BC.