How to Set up Units and Conversion

Units, or Units of Measure (UOMs), are useful in managing inventory items. They allow items to be ordered and stocked in different units. For instance, washers are ordered from vendors by boxes (10 in a box), but checked out individually. 

• A site item may have a stock unit.
• It may have different order units when ordering from vendors.
• It is important that vendor units and stock units have conversion rates defined (discussed below). Otherwise, receiving orders to stock will fail with an error message of "Unit conversion failed..." including source and destination units (see screenshot below). 

 1. Unit and Conversion

Adding an entry in "Unit Conversion" will fix the error above.

• Units are defined in Inventory | Codes | Unit of Measure
• Unit conversions are defined in Inventory | Codes | Unit Conversion

2. Unit Conversion at Unit

In some cases it is possible to define a unit conversion at Units for intrinsic conversion. For instance, a unit of "Hours" has a base unit of "Minutes", and the conversion is 60. To simplify conversion maintenance, you may choose to use "Unit Conversion" screen to manage the intrinsic conversion as well.

3. Item Unit and Conversion

The Unit and Conversion in the sections above are sufficient for inventory management. However, you could choose to overwrite a conversion at item level, or simply add a new unit and conversion. For instance, 

• The conversion from "Case" to "Bottle" is 12 in the "Unit Conversion" table. 
• For item "TEST-001" the "Case" to "Bottle" is 24.
• You may add a new unit "Case24", and a new entry at "Unit Conversion" table. 
• Alternatively, you may define a conversion from "Case" to "Bottle" for item "TEST-001" only.

• Menu path: Inventory | Unit Tab | Item Uom Set
  • List of Units allowed for this item
• Menu path: Inventory | Unit Tab | Unit Conversion
  
  • Item conversions override the conversion rates in Unit and Conversion above.

4. Vendor Units

Vendor units and prices are defined based on vendor catalogs or contracts. They are used when placing orders.

• Menu path: Purchase | Open | Vendor Prices 
• You may configure conversion rates from order units to stock units when they are different. Otherwise, receiving to storeroom will fail.

 5. Stock vs. Vendor Units

Stock Unit configured in Items are used in operation while Vendor Units are used in ordering from vendors.

• Stock units are converted to vendor units when ordering parts based on min/max by Calem. 
• For instance, the stock quantity to order is 30 pieces (EA) based on min/max, while the primary vendor unit is Box-10 (10 pieces in a box). When a REQ is created by Calem based on min/max (auto-generated by configuration, or manual created from Order List by Min/Max in Inventory Report), the quantity of 3 with unit of Box-10 will be ordered from the primary vendor.
• The unit conversion can be defined from Box-10 to EA so the conversion can be done by Calem when using vendor units for ordering.

 6. Unit Refactoring Process

There are cases when a unit is not correctly set for an item. A refactoring process is necessary to correct the unit. The following is an example.

• UOM "Each" has been used by many items in an implementation.
• One item with "Each" as UOM needs correction.
• The correct UOM is "Gallon".
• The steps to refactor the UOM to "Gallon" from "Each" are:
  • Create a new UOM "Gallon" if "Gallon" does not exist.
  • Modify the Item's UOM to "Gallon" which changes the item and its inventory's UOM to "Gallon".
  • Go to the Unit tab of the item, add a conversion of 1 from "Gallon" to "Each". 
  • The conversion tells Calem how to calculate stock levels from history and current UOMs.
  • Existing transactions is still in "Each" (no change to the history).
  • New transactions will be in "Gallon".

 After modifying Item's Unit to "Gallon".

7. Item Unit Reuse

This is an advanced feature for re-use management. You can achieve the same function with Item Unit (Section 3 above). It is available as an option to reuse item unit and conversion.

It is possible to reuse the item units (section 3 above) in other items by setting the "Unit item" field. This is a convenient feature to avoid the duplicate unit and conversion entries by items.

Additional resources

• Inventory Training
• User Guide and Admin Guide (customer account required)
  
• Calem Enterprise Training Site
  
• Calem Enterprise Blogs
  
• Calem Enterprise demo