Units of Measure are divisions of Unit Types, which are ways to measure quantity.  The default Unit Type values are Count, Length, Volume, and Weight, but you can also create your own. Any item marked Auditable, must have what Unit Type it is measured in and which Units of Measure within that type it uses configured.

Information About This Example

For the below instructions, the following scenario will be used as an example:

Product Type: Cherry Peppers for use in a Recipe item.

Business: Sandwich Shop

Packaging: Ships in Cases full of 6 Jars, which contain 1 gallon of peppers each.

Serving Size: Each sandwich sold has 1 and 1/4 ounces of cherry peppers on it.

Define the Unit Type

Before you can add Units of Measure, you need to decide what Unit Type it makes sense to measure your item in. For this example, we will set up units of measure for the cherry peppers, which are measured by Volume.

1. From Manager Console, click Inventory.
2. Double-click Units of Measure.
3. Select an existing Unit Type, or click Add to create a new one.
   • In this example we will select Volume.
4. If you are selecting an existing Unit Type, click Edit.
   If you are creating a new one, the only required field is the Description. The rest of the configurations are set as described below.

Add Units of Measure

Once you are ready to modify the Unit Type, you will define the various units in which you monitor your items such as gallons, jars, or ounces.

Define your Smallest Unit of Measure

To account for divisions within a Unit Type, you must first define the smallest unit in which you will measure any of your items with this Unit Type.

1. From Units of Measure Maintenance, click Add Unit of Measure.
2. Enter a Description for the smallest unit into which you divide this product.
   • For this example, the shop sells sandwiches with 1 and 1/4 ounces of cherry peppers, so the smallest unit type they need to create is 1/4 ounce.
3. Enter the Plural version of the unit, so it will show up correctly in reports etc.
4. Because this unit of measure is the smallest you will ever divide your product, and that unit is not variable, enter "1" into the Items Per field.
   This is not a required field. For units like bottles or cases, you might have a variable amount that comes in each. For example, you might have beer bottles that are 16oz and you might also have soda bottles that are 12oz. Although the soda and beer use the same Unit of Measure, bottles, the Items Per will vary depending on which item you're configuring. For units like these, leave this field blank.

Define the Remaining Units of Measure

Your remaining Units of Measure each contain a certain amount of your smallest unit of measure, which is either configured here globally for units like gallons, or on a per item basis for variable units like cases.

1. From Units of Measure Maintenance, click Add Unit of Measure.
   • In this example, the shop has already defined a Case with Items Per left blank.
2. Enter the Description for your new Unit of Measure.
   • In this example, the shop is configuring the Jars their cherry peppers come in.
3. Enter the plural version of this unit, such as "Jars."
4. Enter the number of the smallest unit of measure that are in this unit into the Items Per field if applicable.
   • In this example, the shop gets jars of cherry peppers by the case and these unit volumes depend on what products are in them. They would leave this blank and define what a Case and Jar means for this item in the cherry pepper inventory item itself.
5. Add any other Units of Measure you need.
6. When you are finished, click OK to save.

After you have created your Units of Measure, you are ready to configure your Auditable Inventory for tracking.  In the future, you can always add more Unit Types or Units of Measure if you create new inventory items that require them.

Configure an Inventory Item for Tracking

There are some adjustments you need to make to any inventory items you want to track.

1. From Manager Console, click Inventory.
2. Double-click Item Maintenance.
3. Select the item you want to configure.
   • In this example, we are configuring the cherry peppers, which will be used within a sandwich Recipe.
4. Click Edit.
5. From the General tab, select Auditable Inventory to make the fields available you need to manage inventory control.
6. Open the Detail Tab.
7. Configure the Reorder settings as described below.
   • Units Per Sale: This is the number of base units that should be deducted from the inventory upon a sale.
   • Reorder Uses a Build to Level: Select this to maintain a consistent inventory level. The Reorder Level and Reorder Quantity will be replaced by a Build to Level field, which means the item needs to be reordered below this level and the quantity reordered will be the number that brings the quantity on hand back to that level.
   • Reorder Level: The Item should be reordered when the quantity on hand falls below this level.
   • Reorder Quantity: The number to order when re-ordering the item.
   • Reorder Lead Days: The number of days is required to receive the item when reordering.
     
8.  
9. Open the Units tab.
10. Select the Unit Type you configured above, which is how you measure this item.
    • For this example, the cherry peppers are measured by Volume.
11. Select the Base Unit, which is the smallest amount of this item you will ever use.
    • Because the cherry peppers will remove 1 and 1/4 ounce from the inventory each time a sandwich is sold, this will be 1/4 ounce.
12. If you will be using any of the variable units of measure you created, enter how many of the Base Unit goes into each.
    • The shop gets Cases of cherry peppers with 6 one-gallon Jars when they get a shipment of them, so they would enter 512 in the Items Per Unit for each Jar and 3,072 for the Cases, indicating there are that many of the Base Unit (1/4 ounce), in each.
13. Select the Receiving Unit, which is the Unit of Measure you track when receiving this item.
    
    • The shop receives the cherry peppers by the Case, so they would select Case as the Receiving Unit.
      You must enter an Items Per Unit number into the variable units, such as jar or case, for them to be available to select from the Receiving and Audit Unit fields.
14. Select the Audit Unit, which is how you count this item in an inventory audit.
    • This shop will count the cherry peppers by the Jar because that unit makes the most sense to count.
15. Open the Vendors tab.
16. Click Add Vendor to select which Vendor you receive this item from.
17. Enter the Standard Cost for the item, which is the cost of the item per Receiving Unit charged by the vendor.
    
    • In this example, that would be a Case.
      If there are price fluctuations for the product, you can post the correct price when receiving the item and don't necessarily need to change the number here.
18. Select any other vendors as necessary.
    Activity from Receiving, Transferring and Reducing Inventory will display below in the future.
19. Click OK to save the item, which you can now receive and keep track of.