Units of Measure & Conversions

Every stock item in AWRA carries a unit of measure, chosen from a fixed list on the item’s create and edit form, on the web and in the mobile app alike. The count units are pcs (pieces), box, pack, carton, pair, set, dozen, roll, bag and bottle. The measured units are kg, g and t (tonnes), l and ml, m and cm, m2 and m3, and hr (hours). A new item starts as pcs unless you choose otherwise. The list is fixed rather than free text on purpose: “kg”, “Kg”, “kilo” and “kgs” typed by four different people would be four units, and no report could add them up.

The unit is shown beside the quantity wherever stock appears — the item page, stock per warehouse, counts, the purchase order receiving screen and the stock figures in the app — so “40” never has to be guessed at. It answers the question every receiving clerk and stock counter asks: forty of what? A count of forty against an item stocked in cartons is a different job from forty against one stocked in pieces, and the screen now says which.

In practice: a hardware shop in Eldoret sets up three items. Roofing nails are bought and sold by weight, so the item is stocked in kg. Electrical cable is cut to length at the counter, so it is stocked in m. Paint is sold by the tin and nobody ever sells half a tin, so it is stocked in pcs. Each choice follows one question — how do we count this on the shelf and sell it at the counter? — and the answer becomes the unit every receipt, transfer, count and sale of that item uses.

The unit decides what a quantity may look like. A count unit takes whole numbers only: an item stocked in pcs, cartons or bottles refuses 2.5, with a message that the item is counted in whole units, and nothing is rounded for you. A measured unit takes up to three decimal places: 12.5 kg, 0.75 l, 2.345 m. Three places is the precision the stock records hold, so 0.001 kg (one gram) is the smallest step for an item stocked in kilograms.

Decimals run end to end, not just on the item. Supplier check-ins and purchase order receipts, stock issues, transfers between warehouses, counts, holds and reservations, till sales and returns, requisition, RFQ and purchase order lines, and the Reorder screen’s suggested quantities all accept the same three places for a measured item and all refuse a fraction for a counted one. A Reorder suggestion for a counted item is rounded up to the next whole unit; for a measured item it is given to three decimals.

In practice: the Eldoret shop receives 250 kg of roofing nails and 500 m of cable. At the counter it sells 2.5 kg of nails and 12.75 m of cable, and stock falls to 247.5 kg and 487.25 m — the figures the shelf actually holds. A cashier who tries to sell 1.5 tins of paint is refused, because paint is stocked in pcs. Before units, the only way to sell half a kilo was to stock nails in grams and count to 250,000; now the item is stocked in the unit the customer asks for.

You can change an item’s unit on its edit form, but AWRA does not convert the stock when you do. Changing an item from pcs to kg relabels the quantity: 40 pieces become 40 kilograms, which is almost never true. So the change is a deliberate act, not a tidy-up — decide the unit at item setup, before the first receipt, and treat a later change like an adjustment that needs a count.

One guard is built in. An item that currently holds fractional stock — say 12.5 kg — cannot be switched to a whole unit such as pcs or bag, because the half could not exist in the new unit. The form refuses and says why. Adjust the stock to a whole number first (count it, write off or add the fraction with a reason), then change the unit. Going the other way, from a whole unit to a measured one, is allowed, but the quantity still needs checking against the shelf.

In practice: a Nakuru agrovet set up dairy meal as pcs years ago, counting 70 kg bags. It now sells loose meal by the kilo. The safe sequence is: count the bags (say 18), adjust the stock to the kilograms they hold (18 × 70 = 1,260), change the unit to kg in the same sitting, and recheck the buying and selling prices, which are now per kilogram rather than per bag. Skipping the adjustment would leave the item showing 18 kg of meal and a price per bag charged per kilo.

Many goods are bought in one size and sold in another: a carton of 24 in, single cans out. AWRA holds one unit per item, so the item must be set up in the unit you sell and count — usually the piece — and a carton is received as the pieces it contains. A delivery of 10 cartons of 24 is checked in as 240 pcs, and the purchase order line should be raised in pieces with the price per piece, so the order, the receipt and the supplier’s bill all agree. Creating a second item for “carton” beside the item for “can” splits one product’s stock across two records and should be avoided.

Converting between units on one item — buying in cartons of 24 and selling in pieces with the conversion applied for you — is something the team can add to your workspace, along with alternate units per supplier (one supplier sells by the 25 kg bag, another by the tonne) and catch weight (a sale priced by the weight actually on the scale, such as a whole fish or a side of beef). If any of those is how your business really trades, ask for it; until then, the arithmetic happens once, at the receiving desk, where it is easiest to check.

In practice: a Mombasa drinks distributor stocks soda in pcs. Its supplier invoices 10 crates of 24 at KES 1,200 a crate. The buyer raises the order as 240 pcs at KES 50, the clerk checks in 240 pcs, and the bill matches the order line in pieces. If stock ever jumps by an odd amount after a delivery — 10 where 240 was expected — the first thing to check is whether someone received cartons as pieces. A line in the item’s description saying “bought in crates of 24, stocked in pieces” saves the next clerk the question.