About Unit of Measure

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, these conditions must be met:

  • The quantity on hand must equal zero.
  • The item must not be in use on any purchase order, history purchase order, PO requisition, transfer, or estimate.

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.

How U/M Default Values Are Assigned in Sales Order or Purchase Order Transactions

When a new sales order or purchase order line is created, the line item's default unit of measure is determined by the records in the Unit of Measure Conversion form, as follows:

Example: Unit of Measure Conversion

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 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 this happens:

  • All CO and PO transactions involving item FA-10000 use the level (b) conversion; however, any PO transactions involving item FA-10000 and Vendor 9 use the level (c) conversion instead.
  • All transactions with items other than FA-10000 use the level (a) conversion.

Reciprocal Conversion Records

When you create a conversion record, a second record is automatically created for the opposite conversion.

For example, you create a conversion record with a base unit of Pieces, a converted unit of Boxes, and a Conversion Factor of five. The system automatically creates a reciprocal conversion record with a Base unit of Boxes, a Converted unit of Pieces, and a Conversion Factor of 0.2.

The conversion record is tied to its reciprocal record and the two factors are kept synchronized. If a conversion record is modified in any way, its reciprocal is modified automatically. You can modify the conversion factor of any record as long as neither the base nor converted unit of measure has been used. If you want to modify the reciprocal conversion factor, you must open that conversion record from the Base U/M field.

Multi-Site Conversion

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 a Units of Measure Conversion is performed.

Example:

Item Unit of Measure Quantity Site
XYZ Feet 1 A
XYZ Inches 12 B

Assumptions:

  • A valid Unit of Measure Conversion has been established between Site A and Site B.
  • A valid Unit of Measure Conversion has been established between Site B and Site A.
  • A user at Site A has requested the Item Availability form for item XYZ with a view comprising of Sites A and B. In this scenario, Site A is considered to be the 'local' Site and Site B is considered to be the 'remote' site.

These background processes are performed before displaying information. During the record gathering phase, the quantities are converted 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.

In the above example, the quantity of item XYZ at Site B is converted from Inches to Feet using the Unit of Measure Conversion established at Site A. The Item Availability form shows the quantities of XYZ at Site A in Feet, in this example, 1. The same form also shows 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 between Site B and Site A. This prevents rounding problems.