Items and catalog
Units of measure and conversion factors
Create units such as piece, carton or kilogram, give an item several units with conversion factors, and understand how stock is always kept in the base unit.
3 min readLast updated
In this article
Units let you buy by the carton, sell by the piece and count by either, while the system keeps one consistent balance. You create the units once for the company and then attach them to each item with its own conversion factor.
Create a unit
Open Inventory › Catalog › Units. The Item units list shows every unit with its abbreviation and decimals.
Select Add unit.
Enter the Name, for example Carton, and the Abbreviation, for example CTN.
Enter the Decimals, from 0 to 6: the number of decimal places the unit is meant to carry. A piece usually has 0, a kilogram 2 or 3.
Select Save.
To change a unit, open its row menu and select Edit. To stop using it, select Delete and confirm Deactivate unit. A deactivated unit disappears from the pickers, and items that already use it keep it.
Give an item more than one unit
Units are attached to an item on the item form, in Classification & units:
The first row is the Base unit. Stock is always stored in this unit, so choose the smallest unit you count in.
Each extra row has a unit and a Conversion factor: how many base units one of it contains. A carton of 12 pieces has a factor of 12.
Each unit receives its own barcode, so scanning a carton barcode books a carton.
How conversion works on documents
When you enter a document line in a unit other than the base unit, the system multiplies the quantity by the conversion factor before it touches stock.
You enter | Factor | Stock moves |
|---|---|---|
3 cartons | 12 | 36 pieces |
1 dozen | 12 | 12 pieces |
250 grams, base unit kilogram | 0.001 | 0.25 kg |
The transfer form shows this conversion live, for example Moves 36 base units, so you can check it before you save. Prices follow the unit too: the cost of a carton is twelve times the cost of a piece.
Common questions
A quantity looks twelve times too big or too small. The document line used a different unit from the one you expected. Check the unit on the line and the item's conversion factors on the Stock tab of the item profile.
Can I change a conversion factor later? The form allows it, but do it only before the unit is used. Past documents were converted with the old factor, so a later change makes old and new lines disagree.