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 a purchase unit and a tracking unit. These can be the same unit or can be completely different (e.g. ounce and pound). By default, Craftybase will set "item" for both your purchase and tracking units.
If you select a standard measurement unit that can be converted (i.e. inch and yard) then Craftybase will be able to set an automatic conversion between the two units, which can be used whenever you purchase more of the material.
Tracking units
Your material's tracking unit is the unit of measurement you want to track your manufactures and your stock levels in. This can be different to the unit you purchase the material in.
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 can be a different unit completely. You can use a standard measurement unit (such as Pound or Kilogram), or you can define a unit that better describes the way 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 of the 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 wish 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 recognised |
|---|---|
| inch | in, inch, inches |
| foot | ft, foot, feet |
| yard | yd, yard, yards |
| metre | m, meter, meters, metre, metres |
| 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 |
| boardfoot | fbm, boardfoot, boardfeet, bf |
| dozen | dozen |
In order for the conversion to be recognised, the quantity type in some cases needs to be entered as one of the aliases as in the table above. We are working on improvements that will make our conversion logic more flexible to allow for different variations - if you have a suggestion for a new conversion or alias we should add, please let us know.