Introduction (Base Units and Conversions to other Units of Measure) -
The Abacus 21 System allows Items to be used or displayed in a variety of Units of Measure. Different Units are appropriate for different purposes. Soda may be purchased in Cases but is sold by individual Bottles or Cans. Similarly Tomato Sauce is purchased in Cases, stocked in Cans, and used in Recipes by Ounces.
Every Item is required to have an assigned Base Unit. Internally all quantities (and their true costs actually) are carried in this Unit. Conversion factors are then used to translate quantities 'from' or 'to' the Base unit in the various areas of the system.
To maintain consistency, Units are defined in an overall (commonly-shared) sense for an Inventory System. This prevents different Users from creating multiple Units of Measure Codes that represent the same actual Unit. So, an Ounce can be defined as OZ –- preventing various end-Users from creating additional (confusing and inconsistent) Units such as Oz, OUNCE, Ounces... and so on.
Similarly, the conversion between Units is defined centrally. There are 4 Cups in a Quart and 4 Quarts in a Gallon -- and Users cannot vary the definition. This philosophy carries over to other less consistent types of Units as well. So, in order to use these fixed conversions, we cannot use a unit as general as CASE... rather, we must use Units such as CS12 (Case-12) or CS24 (Case-24).
In some situations it may be sufficient to simply have a generic Unit such as EACH, BOX, or CAN converted to these CASE units – 12 EACH per Case-12. The EACH, BOX, or CAN is simply a “Count Unit” and is a logical Base Unit for the Item.
But in other situations this is not sufficient. With Food (or other forms of Production) there are two varieties of Units with which you need to be concerned: Count Units and Weight/Volume Units. If we are concerned with both types of Units, the key issue is to have a Base Unit that contains both a Count and Weight/Volume component:
Instead of a Base Unit of CAN or OZ, we would need to have the unit be CN12oz (Can-12oz) or CN16oz (Can-16oz).
There can then be a conversion between CN12oz (Can-12oz) and CS24 (Case-24) -- and there can be a separate conversion for CN12oz (Can-12oz) to LB or OZ.
The only way to convert between Case-24 and OZ would be to first convert to the Can-12oz unit.
In these situations you should never use EACH, since the conversion of EACH to Weight/Volume Units would vary from Item to Item.
Also, if we made the Base Unit OZ and we wanted to purchase the Item by Case-24, there is no way to describe the conversion in a universal manner.
So... the compound Unit must be used as the Base Unit.
But if an Client installation (particularly in a Retail environment) is interested in a single style of Unit and compound units are not necessary, EACH and other strictly-Count Units are acceptable -- EACH being an obvious single unit. One Shirt, one Hat, one Golf Club, one Tennis Lesson.
In this example, conversion to other strictly Count-type units is obvious: 12 EACH per Dozen, 144 EACH per Gross.
But it is necessary to be more specific with more nebulous units like CASE: It still needs CS50 (Case-50) or CS144 (Case-144).
Each Client installation and each Item must be considered individually to determine if the compound Base Unit is necessary. And there is a big potential trap:
If an installation is initially only concerned with F&B POS and a separate F&B Inventory, the POS Items and the Inventory items may each only be concerned with a Count unit -– and for that immediate requirement this is sufficient.
However, when Client later decides to go with Recipes, then they will need the Compound Units. If the Compound units had not been considered from the start, then probably most of the Base Units on the ingredient items will be inappropriate – and changing Base Units is a very difficult task.
Warning:
This whole concept is extremely important. Failure to adhere to this will cause all sorts of problems and confusion. So please – if this does not make sense, go over it with Abacus 21 Support until it does. This is one of the basic cornerstones of the Inventory System and making changes after the System is established is very difficult and time consuming.
Frequently Asked Question Example:
In the "Item Setup" Screen there are several areas where we can define different units of measure:
1. Base Unit = Front page
2. Par Stocking Unit = "Stocking" Tab
3. Display Unit = "Stocking" Tab
4. Purchase Unit = "Stocking" Tab
5. Transfer Unit = "Stocking" Tab
6. Recipe Unit = "Stocking" Tab
The definition of Base Unit is "the smallest natural unit for physical counting". In the discussion, we used the example of cans (365ml) of Coke and then bottles (500ml) of Coke.
The smallest natural unit for physical counting for Coke cans would be 1 can. The smallest natural unit for physical counting for Coke bottles would be 1 bottle. Since they have different relationship with other units (such as differences in ml), we would have to define 1 can = 365ml and 1 bottle = 500ml.
So the base unit here for Coke cans would be "Can" and Coke bottles would be "Bottle".
As there are also other products which come in cans and bottles -- for example, tuna fish comes in cans -- does this mean for the Base Unit of Coke cans we need to make reference to the fact that this can is for Coke only. So name it "Can-Co" (6 characters maximum for units measure). and the Base Unit for tuna fish is "Can-Tu" (say 100mg)... then that makes the ratio of 1 Can-Co = 365ml and 1 Can-Tu = 100g for the purpose of recipes?
Furthermore Coke and Tuna may both come in cases of 24 cans and we need to set up CS24-Co and CS24-TU to differentiate them?
Do you have a list of the units of measurement which some of Abacus21's large clients are using for us to reference as examples and guideline?
Base Units of Measure should not be product-specific... but rather Weight-Volume specific. So, if you are using Recipes, you will need to create a specific Unit of Weight-Volume for each different 'size'.
In the example above, you would create CAN365 (Can-365ml) and CAN100 (Can-100ml).
Then these Units can be used for any Items that come in these size Units.
These Units can then be converted to strictly Count-related Units such as Case-24 and Case-12... and they can also be converted to strictly Weight-Volume Units... such as ounces, milliliters, grams, etc.