SKU settings, units of measure

In the following guide you can read about how to do a correct set up of the measuring units of your Stock Keeping Units (SKU). The SKU setup has to match your company business model.

You can read more about the general setup of SKUs here.

A unit of measurement is the unit in which an item is measured across lots. Often the primary unit of measurement for raw materials is liters or kg, while the primary unit of measurement for finished goods is pieces in box unit colli.

It is important that SKUs are set up correctly from the beginning before the SKUs are included in orders. If the setup of the SKU is suddenly changed, this will effect all former orders in which the SKU has been included. This may be inappropriate. See the example below.

Example:

A SKU is set up with box unit Colli and primary unit of measure Pieces. The units of measurement per colli is 6 pieces.

A customer has ordered 15 colli eg. 15 x 6 = 90 pieces.

The setup of the SKU is suddenly changes. The box unit is still a colli and the measuring unit is still a piece, but the number of units of measurement per colli changes from 6 pieces to 8 pieces.

Now the sales order, and all other orders that the SKU is part of, will change. The customer who had ordered 15 colli will now receive 120 pieces.

The change in unit of the SKU will also affect the figures contained in reports such as the sales report.

How to set up measurement units of your SKU

You can access your SKUs by selecting Warehouse in the top menu and clicking Stock Keeping Units in the drop-down menu. Click Edit next to the SKU in question or click Add New. In the pop up window, click the Measures & Units tab. The instructions below are based on the settings in this tab.

You can set up the unit of measurement of the SKU in many ways. Below you can see some of the most used setups:

Parcel settings

You may need to set up additional packaging sizes for your SKUs other than pieces/colli for finished goods and kg/L/m/g with equivalent allowed decimals for raw materials.

For this purpose you will find three possible setups under the feature Parcel Settings which you will find under the tab Miscellaneous.

1) The feature Parcel Setting can be used in case you purchase a SKU which is sold from your supplier in a specific parcel size, for example if you always buy grain in sacks of 20 kg – which you break up into varying numbers of kg during your productions. In this case, you can enforce a specific parcel size on inbound orders.

For example:

The SKU is set up with primary unit of measure kg and with decimals allowed to g.

Under the tab Misc., the parcel settings enforce a parcel size of 20 kg for inbound orders and the SKU can therefore only be ordered in sacks of 20 kg.

The product can be consumed in productions in a smaller and varying numbers of kg, eg 1.2 kg in one production and 5.8 kg in the other.

2) The feature Parcel settings can be used in cases where you sell a SKU in variable packaging size eg if the SKU cannot always be packed in the same way because of the packaging.

For example:

The SKU is set up with primary unit of measure Pieces and not in a fixed box unit.

Under the tab Misc., the parcel settings is set to an Average parcel Size of 10 pieces on outbound orders and the SKU can therefore be sold in a box with 10 pieces, but also 11 or 9 pieces.

3) The parcel settings can be used in cases where you receive a SKU and resell it in the same parcel size, but which varies across lots. In such cases, you can lock a parcel size. For example, if you buy grain in a sack of 10 kg once and sell the grain in the same parcel size, and the next time buy grain in a sack of 12 kg and sell the grain in the same parcel size.

For example:

The SKU is set up with primary unit of measure Kg and with decimals allowed to g.

Under the tab Misc.,the parcel settings is set to an Average parcel Size of 10 kg. but it is possible to change this number to for example 12 kg when making a purchase order. Thus, it will only be possible to resell this lot in sacks of 12 kg.