Inventory fundamentals
Units, packs, and the number you count
Decide what one unit means, then let packs handle the way you buy.
On this page
Pick the unit you count in
Every product is tracked in one unit, and it should be the unit you count on the shelf and sell to a customer. A product counted in items holds whole numbers; anything else, such as kilograms, litres, or metres, may hold up to three decimal places.
The unit is free text, so “rolls”, “pallets”, or “sheets” are all fine, and only the word each means a count of items. Changing a product’s unit later re-rounds what is on hand to what the new unit can express, so a product holding 2.5 of something becomes 3 items if you switch it to a count. Decide early, and split a product rather than re-measure it if you are unsure.
Let the pack size do the arithmetic
A pack size says how many stock units come in one case, box, or bundle. It changes nothing about how stock is held; it only lets you enter a delivery the way it arrives.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Unit | each |
| Pack size | 24 |
| Pack name | case |
| Receiving 3 cases | 72 units |
| Cost entered per case | $18.00 |
| Average cost per unit | $0.75 |
Switch the receive dialog to packs and it shows the conversion as you type, then stores the per-unit cost. Type 18 as a case price into the product’s own purchase cost field and you have claimed each can cost eighteen dollars, which will follow you into stock value, margins, and every report built on them.
Packs shape what you order
Suggested order quantities round up to whole packs, because that is what a supplier will actually ship: a need of sixteen cans, bought in cases of twenty-four, becomes one case. Suggested reorder points round the same way, so the threshold is a number you can actually buy back up to.
A supplier source can carry its own pack size, which wins over the product’s when you buy from that supplier. The same can in a case of 24 from one supplier and a tray of 12 from another rounds differently depending on which line you are ordering.
The mistakes that cost most
Two products that must be picked separately need separate records, however similar their names. A single “gloves” product holding twenty units cannot answer whether an order for large gloves can be filled; a variant family with sizes can.
Beware a quantity of “3” whose meaning is not written down anywhere: three units, three cases, and three kilograms are three different deliveries. When importing a spreadsheet, check what its numbers meant before mapping them to Quantity, and use the pack columns rather than pre-multiplying by hand.