Understanding Double-Entry Stock Management

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20.2.5 Units of Measure

OpenERP supports several units of measure. Quantities of the same product can be expressed in several units of measure at once. For example you can buy grain by the tonne and resell it by kg. You just have to make sure that all the units of measure used for a product are in the same units of measure category. Note: Categories of units of measure All units of measure in the same category are convertible from one unit to another. The table below shows some examples of units of measure and their category. The factor is used to convert from one unit of measure to another as long as they are in the same category. Table 20.10: Example Units of Measure UoM Category Ratio UoM Type Kg Weight 1 Reference Gram Weight 1000 Smaller Tonne Weight 1000 Bigger Hour Working time 8 Smaller Day Working time 1 Reference Half-day Working time 4 Smaller Item Unit 1 100 Items Unit 0.01 Depending on the table above you have 1Kg = 1000g = 0.001 Tonnes. A product in the Weight category could be expressed in Kg, Tonnes or Grammes. You cannot express it in hours or pieces. Use the menu Warehouse → Configuration → Products → Units of Measure → Units of Measure to define a new unit of measure. In the definition of a Unit of Measure, you have a Rounding precision factor which shows how amounts are rounded after the conversion. A value of 1 gives rounding to the level of one unit. 0.01 gives rounding to one hundredth. Note: Secondary Units OpenERP supports double units of measure. When you use this, the whole of the stock management system is encoded in two units that do not have a real link between them. This is very useful in the agro-food industry, for example: you sell ham by the piece but invoice by the Kg. A weighing operation is needed before invoicing the customer. To activate the management options for double units of measure, assign the group Useability Product UoS View to your user. In this case the same product can be expressed in two units of measure belonging to different categories. You can then distinguish between the unit of stock management the piece and the unit of invoicing or sale kg. In the product form you can then set one unit of measure for sales and stock management, and one unit of measure for purchases. These units are given suggested titles. For each operation on a product you can use another unit of measure, as long as it can be found in the same category as the two units already defined. If you use another unit of measure, OpenERP automatically handles the conversion of prices and quantities. So if you have 430 Kg of carrots at 5.30 EURKg, OpenERP will automatically make the conversion if you want to sell in tonnes – 0.43 tonnes at 5300 EUR tonne. If you had set a rounding factor of 0.1 for the tonne unit of measure then OpenERP will tell you that you have only 0.4 tonnes available.

20.3 Stocks

In the product form you can find the Stock by Location action that will give you the stock levels of the various different products in any selected location. If you have not selected any location, OpenERP calculates stocks for 255 all of the physical locations. When you are in the Stock by Location view, click the Print button to print the Location Content or the Location Inventory Overview reports. Note: Availability of stock Depending on whether you look at the product from a customer order or from the menu of a product form you can get different values for stock availability. If you use the product menu you get the stock in all of the physical stock locations. Looking at the product from the order you will only see the report of the warehouse selected in the order. In this respect, two important fields in the product form are: • Real Stock: Quantity physically present in your warehouse, • Virtual Stock: Calculated as follows: real stock – outgoing + incoming. Note: Virtual Stock Virtual stock is very useful because it shows what the salespeople can sell. If the virtual stock is higher than the real stock, this means products will be coming in. If virtual stock is smaller than real stock, certain products are reserved for other sales orders or work orders. Tip: Detail of future stock To get more details about future stock, you can click Stock Level Forecast to the right of the product form to get the report Printout of forecast stock levels below. OpenERP shows a graph of the change of stock in the days to come, varying as a function of purchase orders, confirmed production and sales orders. Figure 20.6: Printout of forecast stock levels Tip: Filter on Stock by Location By default in Product list view, the columns Real Stock and Virtual Stock show the stock figures for all stock locations where a product is stored. Use the Extended Filters to enter a specific stock location if you want to see the stock in a specific location.

20.3.1 Lead Times and Locations

The tab Procurement Locations contains information about different lead times and locations. Three lead time figures are available: • Customer Lead Time: lead time promised to the customer, expressed in number of days between the order and the delivery to the customer, • Manufacturing Lead Time: lead time, in days, between a production order and the end of production of the finished product, • Warranty months: length of time in months for the warranty of the delivered products. 256 Note: Warranty The warranty period is used in the Repairs management and after-sales service. You can find more information on this subject in Manufacturing . Fields in the section Storage Localisation are given for information – they do not have any impact on the management of stock. Counter-Part Locations Properties are automatically proposed by the system but the different values can be modified. You will find counterpart locations for: • Procurement, • Production, • Inventory. A procurement location is a temporary location for stock moves that have not yet been finalized by the scheduler. When the system does not yet know if procurement is to be done by a purchase or production, OpenERP uses the counterpart location Procurement. In this location, you will find everything that has not yet been planned by the system. The quantities of product in this location cancel each other out.

20.3.2 Initial Inventory

Once a product has been defined, use an initial inventory operation to put current quantities into the system by location for the products in stock. Use the menu Warehouse → Inventory Control → Physical Inventories to do your initial inventory. Figure 20.7: Defining a new inventory operation Give a name for example Initial Inventory or Lost Product XYZ and a date proposed by default for each inventory operation. You have three ways of doing an inventory. • Click the Import inventory action and select the location concerned. You can choose to include child locations and set the inventory to zero especially useful to ensure the count is done correctly. • You can update the inventory from the Product form. Go to the Information tab, Stocks and click the Update button. On confirmation, OpenERP will create a Physical Inventory. • You can manually add inventory lines. You can then enter data about the quantities available for each product by location. Start by entering the location, for example Stock , and then select the product. OpenERP automatically completes the quantity available for that product in the location shown. You can then change that value to correct the value in stock. Enter data for a single line in your inventory: