Units of Measure
Businesses rarely count in one unit. You might buy cloth by the roll, hold it in metres and sell it by the metre; or buy drinks by the crate, hold them in bottles and sell either. Units of measure let each document use the unit that suits it, while your stock is counted in exactly one.
The base unit
Every item has a base unit, chosen when you create it. That is the unit your stock is held and reported in, and it never changes with the document.
Pick the smallest unit you would ever sell or count. If you sell single bottles, the base unit is the bottle, even when most of your buying is by the crate.
Warning
Adding a unit
Units are shared across the organization. Go to Settings → Lists → Units, or add one without leaving the form you are in: any unit picker offers Add new unit at the top of the list.
Each unit carries:
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Name | What people pick from the list, for example Box |
| Symbol | The short form shown beside quantities, for example pcs or kg |
| Decimal places | How precisely stock is counted in this unit |
| Allow fractional quantities | Turn off for units that only make sense whole, like pieces |
Conversions on an item
A conversion says how much of the base unit one alternative unit holds. Open the item and, under the base unit, add a row for each:
1 Box = 12 Pieces
1 Dozen = 12 Pieces
1 Pallet = 240 Pieces
An item can carry as many conversions as it needs, and they belong to that item. A box of pens and a box of paper do not have to hold the same number, because the conversion lives on the product rather than on the word "box".
Using a unit on a document
Once an item has conversions, its lines let you choose the unit. Sell 2 Box and the document reads 2 Box, while stock falls by 24 pieces. Everything downstream, meaning valuation, reorder levels, stock reports and available quantity, is in base units, so the two never disagree.
The conversion is worked out on the server, so a document can never be saved with a quantity that does not match its unit.
Note
Rounding and whole units
Converted quantities are rounded to the base unit's decimal places. If the base unit does not allow fractions, a conversion that would produce a part unit is rejected rather than quietly rounded, because half a piece is not a thing you can pick.
Units when you pack and ship
A package shows what is left to pack in the unit the customer ordered in, not in base units. An order for 2 boxes shows 2 left to pack, and packing 1 box moves 12 pieces off the shelf.
That keeps the paperwork honest in both directions: the picker reads the order in the customer's terms, while stock moves in yours.
Where units show up
- Items: the base unit, and the conversions available to documents.
- Sales and purchase documents: the unit per line, and the quantity in that unit.
- Packages: remaining to pack, in the ordered unit.
- Stock reports and valuation: always base units, so totals across documents are comparable.
A worked example
You stock bottled water. The base unit is Bottle, and one Crate holds 24.
- You buy 10 Crates on a bill. Stock rises by 240 bottles.
- You sell 3 Bottles on one invoice and 2 Crates on another. Stock falls by 3, then by 48.
- Your stock report reads 189 Bottles, because every movement was converted to the base unit as it was saved.
At no point did anyone have to do the arithmetic, and no document had to pretend a crate was a bottle.