Unit quantity on a goods item

Unit quantity is the field on the goods item's form, in Stock Management - Stocks - open the goods item, right next to the MU field. It tells you how much one unit of the goods you buy contains: a 0.7 L bottle of rum has MU = L and Unit quantity = 0.7, while a beer you sell by the piece has MU = PC and Unit quantity = 1. Below the two fields, Ebriza spells out in plain words what you have configured, as “I buy Jim Beam by 0.7 L”. This article is written using goods as the example. On a raw material, some fields behave differently — see the last section — but the rule about changing the UOM and unit quantity of an item that has stock movements, as explained in the Frequently Asked Questions, is identical for every item type.

Warning: Any mistake in this field will result in incorrect stock! Read the details below carefully.

You have 2 options here, depending on how you want your stock to be displayed. If you want to see exactly how many pieces you have in stock, then you most likely sell 1:1 - for example, a tracksuit, a device, or a beer, which means selling by the piece. In this case, you enter the value 1 in Unit quantity because you sell by the piece, and the weight of the tracksuit, device, or beer is irrelevant for stock tracking.

But if this goods item is used to prepare other products, you can track in detail the quantities used or possible losses by entering the total quantity of your goods item (MU - KG / L), for example, “0.5” for a 0.5 KG pack of coffee, or “0.7” for a 0.7 L bottle of rum.

Two things happen automatically. If you choose MU = PC, Ebriza automatically fills in 1 for Unit quantity and does not allow you to enter anything else - so you do not have to type 1 yourself. And although ML and G also appear in the MU list, for a goods item whose name contains the volume or weight, use L and KG: Ebriza normalizes “330 ML” to 0.33 L and “40 G” to 0.04 KG, so choosing ML or G will be rejected when saving, with the message “The measuring unit or the unit quantity does not match the stock name.”

a) BOTTLED / CANNED BEER, WATER, SOFT DRINKS: For drinks that you sell exclusively by the piece, enter the figure 1 in UNIT QUANTITY (and set MU to “PC”). Then, in Nomenclature - Products - open the product - Recipe, on the goods item's line, enter the figure 1 in the Quantity column as well. This way, the stock will be correct because with every sale, one piece will be deducted from your goods item (1-1).

b) VODKA, RUM, WHISKY BOTTLES: For drinks from which you take a certain quantity to prepare a product, but which you can also sell by the piece, you must enter the volume in the UNIT QUANTITY column (and set MU to “L” or “KG”). In the QUANTITY field in Recipe - Products / Product List, you will enter the quantity used to prepare that product, such as a drink or cocktail.

More precisely, the goods item - Jim Beam 0.7 L - will be registered as follows:

Stock Management - Stocks - the goods item “Jim Beam 0.7 L”: MU = L
Stock Management - Stocks - the goods item “Jim Beam 0.7 L”: Unit quantity = 0.7

For this goods item, you can register several products. If you sell a 100 ml glass, you will create the product “Jim Beam 0.1 L” in Nomenclature - Products. In its recipe, you will select the goods item “Jim Beam 0.7 L” and enter 0.1 in the QUANTITY field. This way, after a sale, 0.1 L will be deducted from the 0.7 L of whisky.

But if you sell a whole bottle, you also need to register another product in Nomenclature - Products, namely “Jim Beam 0.7 L”. In its recipe, you will enter 0.7 as the quantity because in one sale you sell the entire quantity of the goods item: 0.7 - 0.7.

c) COCKTAILS, FOOD: For products whose preparation involves several goods items, in Nomenclature - Products - the product - Recipe, you will select all the ingredients one by one, entering the specific quantities. Example: Cuba Libre is prepared with 0.04 L of rum and 0.15 L of cola.

After a drink is sold, 0.15 L will be deducted from the 2 L bottle of cola and 0.04 L from the 0.7 L bottle of rum.

Everything written above refers to goods. For a raw material — for example, one that you create directly from the product's recipe — you only choose the measuring unit (anything other than BOX), and the quantity used in the product is entered in the recipe, not on the raw material's form. The rule where the name dictates the measuring unit does not apply to raw materials: you can name a raw material “Oil 0.7L” and still give it any measuring unit you want, without the application stopping you.

Careful: that is the only rule raw materials are exempt from. The other rule, the one in the Frequently Asked Questions — an item that already has movements in stock management can no longer change its MU or unit quantity — applies to goods and raw materials alike.

On a stock item you produce (a raw material with a sub-recipe), the unit quantity has one more role: it states how many units one batch yields, and it is the divisor in the production cost. The cost a production records is the sum of (each ingredient's average purchase cost multiplied by its quantity in the recipe), divided by the produced stock item's unit quantity. If you leave it at 1 on an item that is produced in batches of 24, the cost of the whole batch will be recorded against a single piece. Details and examples are in the article “How I make production?”

As with any other movement, a production that has already been recorded keeps the unit quantity it had at that moment and is not recalculated if you change the field later: only later productions will use the new value.

Q: Why do I get the error “Value inconsistent with the goods name!” when I choose the measuring unit?

A: The goods item's name dictates the measuring unit. Ebriza reads the weight or volume from the name and infers the MU and unit quantity from it: “330ML” means MU = L and unit quantity = 0.33, “0.7L” means L and 0.7, and “40G” means KG and 0.04. If you choose an MU that does not match what the name says, the field is rejected with the message above, and when saving you get “The measuring unit or the unit quantity does not match the stock name.”

Careful: It is not enough to add “PC” at the end of the name. “Lager Beer 330ML PC” still contains “330ML”, so Ebriza still infers litres and rejects PC. The volume must be removed from the name completely.

Q: How do I change the measuring unit or the unit quantity of an item I already have? (For example, I want to move it from L to PC.)

A: It depends on whether the item has stock movements recorded or not. There are two situations, with two different procedures. The condition is the existence of movements, not the item type: the rule applies identically to goods, raw materials, consumables, and packaging.

If the item already has NIRs (goods receipt notes), sales, consumption through production or a recipe, inventories, resets, transfers, or productions, Ebriza refuses the change with the message: “You can't change the MU or the unit quantity of a stock item that has movements in stock management.” The block is intentional: the movements already recorded are saved in the old unit and would become incorrect if the unit were changed now. It cannot be forced and cannot be unlocked by the support team, and it stays in place for as long as those movements exist — it does not expire. It applies the same whether the item is a goods item or a raw material. The solution is to create a new item:

The old item remains in the account with its history, and that is how it should remain. Do not try to delete it: deletion is refused anyway as long as it has a quantity in stock or appears in a recipe.

Two particular situations: if the item has only stock resets, the change is allowed after all; and a goods item linked to a raw material (bulk goods) is refused even with no movements at all — in this case, go straight to Option 2.

Q: Can I edit the unit quantity or the measuring unit of a raw material that is already used in production?

A: Yes, but only if that raw material does not yet have movements in stock management. If it already has movements, the application refuses the change, exactly as it does for a goods item. A raw material gets movements from a NIR (raw material reception), from consumption through the recipe when products are sold, from production, from inventories and resets, and from transfers between locations — so a raw material with active production on it is almost certainly blocked. In that case, the only way forward is Option 2 above: create a new raw material with the correct measuring unit and unit quantity from the start, and replace it in the recipes of the products that use it.

Tags: [unit quantity goods, what do I enter in the unit quantity field when I add a goods item, new raw material, measuring unit, units, stock management, recipe, how do I configure the goods item correctly]