About units of measure and conversions

You use the Units of measure (CS203100) window to define units of measure that can be used globally for all items.
You can add new units of measure to the unit conversion reference table in this window and specify how they are converted to units already defined in the table if applicable.
The global UoMs specified in this table can be used throughout Visma.net ERP, including when a user is selecting default UoMs for a new item class or item.

If (for each item class, which is defined and modified in the Item classes (IN201000) window) the Multiple units of measure functionality in the Enable/disable functionalities (CS100000) window is enabled, you can specify the base, sales, and purchase units to be used by default for items of the class:

• Base unit:
  The unit of measure used for stock keeping and to calculate unit costs.
  Quantities of the stock item at warehouses are counted using the UoM specified as the base unit for the stock item.
• Sales unit:
  The unit of measure typically used when your company sells the product.
• Purchase unit:
  The unit of measure typically used when your company purchases the product.

You can select globally defined units of measure or type a class-specific UoM. For all units selected for the class, unit conversions are specified with respect to the class' default base unit.

In the Stock items (IN202500) and Non-stock items (IN202000) windows, you can select the base, sales, and purchase units for particular items. (This information is specified on the General settings tab of either window.) You can select units from the list of UoMs defined for the class or manually enter units for a particular item.
The system will not automatically add item-specific UoMs either globally or for the class.
If you want the new units to be available for selection when users create other new items, add them for the class.

For a stock item stocked at a particular warehouse, you can select warehouse-specific sales and purchase units by using the Item warehouse details (IN204500) window.

If the Multiple units of measure functionality is disabled in your system, you can use only base units for item classes as well as for individual stock and non-stock items.
If you decide at any moment to enable this functionality, the sales and purchase units of each stock and non-stock item will get their values from the currently used base unit of the item.

In general, you may want to choose for each item a base unit that is the smallest unit you would ever use when buying or selling the product, so you can avoid any problems caused by rounding. To understand this guideline, consider a simple example: You purchase and stock a product (canned juice) in boxes of 12 cans, and choose a box as the base unit for this product.
If you then decided to sell the product by cans, you will need to specify quantities in fractions or define the sales unit (if sales and purchase units are enabled in your system) as 0.0833333 (one-twelfth) of the base unit. Further, suppose the quantities in your system are calculated up to 3 decimal places, as specified in the Inventory preferences (IN101000) window.

Imagine that one customer wants to buy 5 cans, and another wants to buy another 5 cans.
In both cases the sales order will specify 0.417 units (5 * 0.0833333), and both customers will get 5 cans.
The remaining 0.166 units doesn't actually equate to the 2 cans left in the box! During a financial period, in a warehouse, such rounding problems can cause a significant discrepancy between the quantities on books and physical quantities.

During stocktaking, counting is performed in base units, so if the base unit for the product is not the smallest UoM applicable to the item, counting results may prove incorrect.
Considering the above example, counting only boxes can result in incorrect total number of cans because some of the boxes may not be full.

If different UoMs are used as base, sales, and purchase units, you specify conversion rules with respect to the UoM chosen as the base unit for the item.
For instance, imagine a product is sold to customers by the piece (PIECE), making PIECE its sales unit. It is stocked in boxes, and each box (BOX) includes 6 pieces.
The product is purchased from a supplier in containers.
Each container (CONTAINER) contains 12 boxes, and the purchase unit is CONTAINER.
As the base unit, you can choose PIECE or BOX. (The smallest unit is usually chosen.)
If you chose BOX, you would specify the following conversion rules:

When you enter a transaction and specify the quantity of a stock item and the unit of measure in which the quantity is measured, the system follows the following rules to determine how the specified UoM can be converted to the base unit for cost-of-sold-goods calculation and to sales units for finding the proper price:

1. The system first searches the unit conversion table for the item–warehouse pair.
2. If no unit is found, the system checks the unit conversion table specific for the stock item.
3. If no item is found, the global unit conversion table is searched.

When a third-party (a carrier) is used to deliver products from a supplier to your company or from your company to a customer, the carrier can charge your company for freight, depending on the weight or volume of the shipment, or set restrictions on the package weight and volume. Landed costs incurred for shipments can be allocated by weight or by volume.

To allow the system to automatically calculate the weight and volume of shipments, in the Inventory preferences (IN101000) window, select a globally defined unit of measure as the measure of weight and another as the measure of volume.

For each stock item, you can specify the weight (measured in weight UoMs) and the volume (measured in volume UoMs) of its base unit on the Packaging tab of the Stock items (IN202500) window.