You define units of measure on the Unit Of Measure Codes form. You can establish relationships between existing units of measure on the Unit of Measure Conversion form.
All inventoried items must be associated with a unit of measure that you define on the Items form. This U/M is called the base unit of measure.
To change the base unit of measure for an item, the following conditions must be met:
The display formats for quantity fields throughout the system are defined through decimal format fields on the Inventory Parameters form. The display formats for the cost, price, amount, and amount total decimal fields are controlled by decimal format fields on the Currency Codes form. All decimal format fields have ten decimal places.
Use caution in setting up and maintaining the Unit of Measure Conversions where two units of measure have previously been defined. This becomes more apparent with the following example, where conversions have been set up at different levels.
| Level | Base U/M | Converted U/M | Conversion | Type | Item | Vend/Cust |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (a) | Box | EA | 10.00000000 | Global | ||
| (b) | Box | EA | 12.00000000 | Item | FA-10000 | |
| (c) | Box | EA | 24.00000000 | Vendor | FA-10000 | 9 |
In the above scenario, if level (a) is the existing conversion and two new conversion levels - (b) and (c) - are created, then the following happens:
The system calculates the inverse conversion value when needed. Inverse conversion records are not required or automatically created.
If an item has the same unit of measure at different sites, no conversions take place.
If an item has different units of measure at different sites, then the system will perform a Units of Measure Conversion.
| Item | Unit of Measure | Quantity | Site |
|---|---|---|---|
| XYZ | Feet | 1 | A |
| XYZ | Inches | 12 | B |
Assumptions:
The system performs the following background process prior to the Pegging Display form being displayed. During the record gathering phase, the system converts the quantities according to the base unit of measure for the item at the 'remote' Site into the 'local' base unit of measure using the local conversion table.
This means that in the above example, the quantity of item XYZ at Site B is converted from Inches to Feet by using the Unit of Measure Conversion established at Site A. The Item Availability form displays the quantities of XYZ at Site A in Feet, in this example, 1. The same form also displays the quantities of XYZ at Site B in Feet, in this example.
NOTE: We recommend that consistent Unit of Measure Conversions be established at all sites. For example, the same conversion factor for Feet and Inches should be used between Site A and Site B, AND ALSO between Site B and Site A. This will prevent rounding problems.
Creating units of measure and unit of measure conversion records