Units of Measure

A unit of measure says how you count a product: by weight, length, volume, number or another measure. Stock, purchases, sales and shipments all write their quantities in units. This page is for the person who sets up the catalogue.

One product is often measured in several ways. You might buy flour in 50 kg bags from a supplier and keep it in kilograms in your warehouse. You might then sell it to clients in 1 kg packets and ship it on pallets. Beelocity converts each quantity when the stock moves, if you have given it the right units and factors.

Unit Categories

Every unit belongs to a category, which says what the unit measures. A conversion joins two units of one category, so kilograms convert into grams and never into metres. A product’s own factors can join units of two categories (How a document’s unit reaches stock).

Beelocity comes with the first seven categories below. Custom is not a category. It is a choice in the Dimension field, for a category that you create.

Global vs. Organization Units

Beelocity has two kinds of units: the units that come with it, and the units that you add.

Global Units

The Built-in units are a standard set of metric and imperial units, such as metres, kilograms, litres and each. Every organization shares them, and you cannot change or delete them. Beelocity writes their names in the language that you read it in. A unit that you add keeps the name that you typed.

You also cannot add a unit or a conversion to a built-in category. Its Units and Conversions tabs only show what it holds. The category’s page still offers Deactivate, and Beelocity refuses it.

Organization-Specific Units

You can add units for your own trade. Create a category of your own, and then add each unit on the category’s Units tab. For example:

• A textile business might create a Fabric category with a Bolt unit, where one bolt is a roll of fabric.
• A beverage company might create a Packaging category with a Bottle unit and a Crate unit of 24 bottles.
• A construction supplier might create a Bulk category with a Truck Load unit for large deliveries.

Only your organization sees these units. A conversion cannot join one of them to a built-in unit, because the two units sit in different categories. If a product needs both, add both to the product’s Units tab with their factors.

Conversions

A conversion says how many of one unit make one of another, inside one category. Beelocity uses it to turn a quantity in one unit into a quantity in the other.

Examples

The first three rows come with Beelocity. The last row is a conversion that you add in a category of your own.

One step at a time

A conversion joins its two units directly, in both directions. With 1 kg = 1,000 g, Beelocity converts kilograms into grams and grams into kilograms.

Beelocity does not combine two conversions through a third unit. Beelocity comes with 1 kg = 1,000 g and 1 g = 1,000 mg, and it still cannot convert kilograms into milligrams. In a category of your own, add that pair on the Conversions tab. A built-in category takes no new conversion, so add both units to the product’s Units tab with their factors. This keeps each figure on a document one step from the stock that it moves.

Product Unit Assignments

One product can use several units, because you often buy, keep, sell and ship it in different ways. You list them on the product’s Units tab, with one row for each unit and usage. The Usage of a row says what the unit is for, and most usages are only a note:

The list also offers Manufacturing, Display and Maintenance, and Beelocity does nothing with these either.

After a product holds stock, its stock records decide the stocking unit, and the usage Stock no longer changes it. If no row has the usage Stock, the first document that moves the stock decides the unit.

The other columns of the tab work like this:

• Default marks the unit that a register sells the product in. If no row is the default, the register uses the unit that you added first. Default also decides between two rows with the usage Stock.
• Minimum quantity and Maximum quantity are optional limits for one line in that unit. Beelocity stores them and does not check a line against them, so a line outside them still saves.
• Active is how you take a unit off one product. If you turn it off, lines stop offering that unit, and Beelocity stops reading its factor.

Example Workflow

A soft drink distributor might set up a product like this. Bottle and Crate come from the distributor’s own category, and Pallet is built-in.

• Purchase unit: Pallet. You buy full pallets from the manufacturer.
• Stock unit: Bottle. You count single bottles in the warehouse.
• Sales unit: Crate of 24. You sell crates to shops.
• Shipping unit: Pallet. You ship full pallets to clients.

Each row also has a Factor: how many of the stocking unit one of this unit holds. Here the bottle’s factor is 1, the crate’s is 24 and the pallet’s is 1,200, all counted in bottles. A line keeps the unit that you wrote, and Beelocity converts the quantity at the step that moves the stock. When a goods receipt for 1 pallet reaches Completed, On hand grows by 1,200 bottles. When a delivery note for 3 crates reaches Shipped, On hand falls by 72 bottles.

How a document’s unit reaches stock

Each product’s stock is counted in one unit, its stocking unit (Stock Levels). A receipt, a delivery, a sale at the register, a transfer, a count or a part issued to a repair can use another unit. Beelocity converts that quantity before it reaches the stock:

1. The product’s own factors come first. If both units are active on the product’s Units tab, their factors decide. A crate holds 24 bottles of this drink, whatever another drink’s crate holds.
2. Then come the standard conversions between two units of one category. A kilogram is 1,000 grams.
3. Otherwise Beelocity refuses the document before anything moves. Add the conversion on the product’s Units tab, or write the line in the stocking unit.

A factor left at 1 on a unit that is not the stocking unit says that the two units are the same size. If grams and kilograms are both on the tab and grams keep the factor 1, then 1 g counts as 1 kg. Set the factor when you add the unit.

On a product with many rows, the tab’s filter button narrows them by Unit or Usage. It can also keep only the Default or Active rows (see Working with lists).

A line’s unit is one of the product’s units

On a line that names a product, the Unit picker offers only the active units on the product’s Units tab, whatever their usage. This holds on a quotation, order, invoice, purchase order, receipt, movement, transfer, count, bill of materials and spare part.

The picker usually waits for the product, so it offers no unit until you pick one. A sales or purchase line with no product, such as a service, takes any unit.

If a line keeps a unit that the product does not have, Beelocity refuses the line when you save it. This can happen if you change the product on a row of a grid. The message tells you to pick one of the product’s units, or to add the unit on the Units tab first. If no unit on the tab is active, a line for that product takes any unit.

A line for a variant takes the units of its product. A register is the exception, because it reads only a unit that names the variant itself. The Units tab names units on the product alone, and no other screen can name one on a variant. So the terminal shows the product as No variants and cannot sell it. To sell sizes or colours at a register today, you have to create each one as a simple product. Each one then needs its own Reference, price, barcode and units. Beelocity does not move the stock that the variants hold, and a simple product cannot have a serial number.

Precision and Rounding

Each unit has two settings for numbers. Decimals changes what you see, and Rounding changes nothing.

Decimal Precision

Decimals says how many decimal places a quantity shows in this unit, at a register and on printed documents. A new unit opens on 4. For example, three built-in units have these values:

• Each: 0 decimal places
• Kilogram: 3 decimal places
• Liter: 3 decimal places

If Decimals is above zero, a register can sell the product by weight, and its keypad takes no more decimals than the unit has. At zero, the keypad takes whole numbers.

Decimals does not limit a document line. A line can hold more decimals than the unit shows, and stock keeps four decimal places. So Beelocity accepts 2.5 on a line in Each, and the printed document shows 3.

The terminal and some other screens show a unit’s symbol only above zero decimals. A printed document always shows the symbol.

Rounding Method

The Rounding field offers Round, Round up, Round down and No rounding. Beelocity stores your choice and does not use it. It rounds a stock figure to four decimal places, whatever this field says.

Managing Units

Open Inventory → Setup and its Units of Measure tab. The tab lists the unit categories. Open a category to reach its Units and Conversions tabs.

• Unit categories. You can read every category and create your own. The list searches by code or name and sorts by any column. Its filter button narrows it by Dimension, Built-in or Active (see Working with lists).
  • A new category’s Code opens on the next one (UCAT-000001). Keep it, clear it to get the next one when you save, or type your own (PACKAGING). Beelocity keeps a code that you type, in capitals. The built-in categories keep their own codes, such as WEIGHT and LENGTH.
  • If you turn off Active, the pickers still offer the category’s units, and Beelocity still uses its conversions.
  • If you delete a category, its units and their conversions go with it, and those units leave every product’s Units tab. A product left with no unit then takes any unit. If a line uses one of the units, the delete fails.
• Units. Add, change and remove the units of a category of your own. You type a unit’s code, and Beelocity keeps it in capitals, so pk is saved as PK. The tab searches by code, name or symbol. Its filter button narrows it by Rounding, a range of Decimals, Base unit, Built-in or Active.
  • Base unit marks the main unit of a category. A category has one at most, and it can have none. Beelocity refuses a second one, and it converts nothing through this unit.
  • If you turn off Active, the pickers still offer the unit, and it stays on the records that use it. To take a unit off a product, use Active on that product’s Units tab.
• Conversions. Say how the units of a category of your own relate to each other. Both unit cells offer only this category’s units. Beelocity refuses a pair across categories, such as kilograms into pieces, and a unit converted into itself, and the message says so. The tab searches by the code of either unit. Its filter button narrows it by From unit, To unit, a range of Factor, or Active.
  • Beelocity ignores a conversion with Active turned off.
  • Beelocity stores the Formula and does not use it, so only the Factor counts. The built-in temperature conversions have the factor 1, so a quantity in °F reaches °C unchanged.

Tips

• Set up units before you create products. You add units to a product on its Units tab, so they must exist first.
• Write conversions from larger to smaller. “1 Crate = 24 Bottles” is easier to read than “1 Bottle = 0.0417 Crates”.
• Create units for the measures of your trade. Do not force everything into the built-in units. If your team says “bolts” or “crates”, create those units, so that Beelocity uses the words of your warehouse.
• Match Decimals to how you sell. Use zero for things that you count, and use more for what a register sells by weight. A conversion keeps four decimal places, whatever this setting says.