About material tracking and purchase units
Learn how to set tracking and purchase units for your materials.
Each of your inventoriable materials in Craftybase can have purchase and tracking units. These can be the same unit or completely different (e.g., ounce and pound). By default, Craftybase will set "item" for your purchase and tracking units.
Select a standard measurement unit that can be converted (i.e., inch and yard). Craftybase can set an automatic conversion between the two units, which can be used whenever you purchase more of the material.
In this article, we'll cover
- About tracking units
- How to change your material tracking unit
- About purchase units
- How to track your material purchase unit
- About automatic unit conversions
Tracking units
Your material's tracking unit is the unit of measurement in which you want to track your manufactures and stock levels. This can be different from the unit in which you purchase the material.
Changing your material tracking unit
To change the tracking quantity for an existing material:
- Follow the instructions to find your material's edit page here: How do I edit a material?
- On the edit form that appears, find the Tracking Unit field and enter your new unit of measurement here.
- Click the Save Material button to save the changes.
Purchase units
Your material's purchase unit is the unit of measurement you commonly purchase this material in. This can be the same as your material's tracking unit or a different unit completely. You can use a standard measurement unit (such as Pound or Kilogram) or define a unit that better describes how you buy the material (i.e., Jar, Bag, or Strand).
If you set a different purchase unit, you can also set up an automatic conversion that Craftybase can apply whenever you purchase more material. Learn more about the Purchase to Tracking Unit Conversion feature.
If you set a material purchase unit, this can be used when you enter new expenses for the material. It cannot be used for manufactures or recipes.
Changing your material purchase unit
To set a different purchase quantity unit for a material:
1. Navigate to your Material page and click the Edit button
2. On the form that appears, scroll down until you find the Inventory section. Under this section, you'll find a field called Purchase Unit. Enter the unit of measurement you'd like to use here.
3. Set the Conversion to apply in the Purchase to Tracking Unit Conversion field.
4. Click the Save button at the bottom of the form.
Automatic unit conversions
When you enter a tracking unit and a purchase unit for a material, Craftybase will attempt to guess the correct conversion for you. We support most conversions between metric and imperial, the most common of which are listed below:
| Unit | Unit variations also recognized |
| inch | in, inch, inches |
| foot | ft, foot, feet |
| yard | yd, yard, yards |
| meter | m, meter, meters, meter, meters |
| kilogram | kg, kilogram, kilograms |
| pound | lbs, lb, lbm, pound-mass, pound, pounds |
| ounce | oz, ounce, ounces |
| gram | g, gram, grams, gramme, grammes |
| short ton | tn, ton, tons, short-tons |
| metric ton | tonne |
| carat | carat |
| sqft | sqft, square foot, square feet, sq foot, sq feet |
| sqin | sqin, square inches, sq inch, sq inches, square in |
| sqyard | sqyard, sq yards, square yard, square yards |
| litre | l, L, liter, liters, litre, litres |
| gallon | gal, gallon, gallons |
| quart | qt, quart, quarts |
| pint | pt, pint, pints |
| cup | cu, cup, cups |
| fluid-ounce | floz, fluid-ounce, fluid-ounces |
| tablespoon | tbs, tbsp, tablespoon, tablespoons |
| teaspoon | tsp, teaspoon, teaspoons |
| board foot | fbm, boardfoot, boardfeet, bf |
| dozen | dozen |
In some cases, the quantity type needs to be entered as one of the aliases in the table above for the conversion to be recognized. We are working on improvements to make our conversion logic more flexible and allow for variations. Please let us know if you have a suggestion for a new conversion or alias we should add.