Today’s video goes over how to use Units of Measure in Prophet 21 and how to add an all-unit measure. We’re also sharing some tips to help you avoid pitfalls when using different Units of Measure.
How to Set a New Unit of Measure:
Unit of measure in Prophet 21 is simply how the items you sell (or purchase) are formatted. Some common units of measure are Boxes, Cases, Eaches, Inches, Feet, or Pounds.
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Open Inventory or Accounts Receivable.
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Select Unit of Measure Maintenance.
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Set a Unit ID.
For example, you may use a CASE1000 Unit of Measure.
I prefer to add the number next to Case. If you ever see the Unit of Measure anywhere, this automatically tells you how many are in a case. However, it is simply personal preference whatever you want to name the Unit ID.
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Set a Unit Description.
For example, ‘Case of 1000.’
Unit of Info in Item Maintenance:
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- Open the Unit Info tab in Item Maintenance.
If your item has only one unit measure of an Each or an EA Unit of Measure, your unit size is one.
Unit of Measure Default Settings:
In each of these settings, you can still change the Unit of Measure, but they are your default Units of Measure.
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- Default Sales Unit: Default Sales Unit means when you enter a sales order, this Unit of Measure will display by default.
- Default Sales Pricing Unit: Your sales pricing is based on this Unit of Measure.
- Default Purchase Unit/Pricing Unit: The system displays this unit of measure when you enter a Purchase Order.
- Default Purchase Pricing Unit: This Unit of Measure is what your purchase pricing will be based on.
- Base Unit: You are required to have a base unit of measure. A base unit of measure needs to be a unit size of one.
You must have a Unit of Measure that checks all of those boxes. It does not have to be the same Unit of Measure, but among your measures, all of these checkboxes must be checked.
Note: If you try to delete a Unit of Measure and hit Save, the system will not allow you to save until every check box is accounted for.
A Potential Pitfall of Using Unit of Measure:
Some users may encounter a pitfall with pricing when utilizing Unit of Measure.
Pricing per unit:
- On the Unit Info tab under Item Maintenance, hit the plus symbol (+) to add another case.
- Enter a CASE1000 Unit of Measure (as in the example above).
If your Each Unit Size is one, and your case is 1000, there are a thousand Eaches (your base unit) in a case. Each base unit has a listed cost of $0.05.
- Mark this unit as the ‘Default Purchase Unit‘ (making it the standard way to purchase this item in the future).
- When you check the ‘Default Purchase Pricing Unit’ box as well, you will see a pop-up. The pop-up asks you to verify that you want to recalculate your purchasing price, location costs, etc.
- If you clicked NO and went to the supplier detail to view the list price, in this instance, both the List Price and Cost are based on an Each unit of measure.
- If that is how your vendor is pricing it to you, even if you order a case of a thousand, they still show your unit measure as $0.05 multiplied by a thousand items.
However, the vendor may give you pricing per case instead of per individual item.
Pricing per case:
In that case, if you click YES when the popup asks you to verify that you want to recalculate, the system will take the price that was already entered and figure out (based on your unit size), that it is a $50.00 cost, not the $0.05 cost.
This could be problematic if you ask the system to recalculate after you have already been using the item. It can also cause issues with things such as moving average cost.
So just be careful when you are working with Units of Measure and make sure you double-check your settings before you change them.
If you guys have any questions about this or want to see videos on other topics, make sure you put a comment down below.
Continue Learning: How to rename an item in Prophet 21 using Edit Item ID.
