Units of Measure – FileMaker Inventory Management

Units of Measure

Can you imagine filling out a sales order for 7 butters? 7 butters doesn’t make any sense. It would need to be 7 ounces of butter or 7 packs of butter or 7 cases of butter. Ounces, packs, and cases are all examples of units of measure. When working with inventory, there is always a unit of measure. If your inventory management system doesn’t have a field for unit of measure, then the presumption is that the unit is “each.” Let’s take a deeper look at Units of Measure:

Life is Complicated; Inventory Management doesn’t have to be

It is nice when the life cycle of an inventory item only requires one unit of measure. But what happens when multiple units are required? For example, what happens if you sell butter by the stick but you buy it by the carton? In those instances, you need a unit of measure table. This is a simple reference table can have as few as three fields: unit1, unit2, multiplier. To move from unit1 to unit2, just take your current quantity and multiply it by the multiplier.  Sound confusing?  It’s really not so bad.  Watch this short, under the hood video for implementation details:

There’s More

Intrigued? You can read more about the process in the Unit of Measure article at FileMaker Inventory Resources.  You can download the free FileMaker demo file by signing up for the FileMaker Inventory Resources newsletter.