So I have a question about UOMs. In general I always accepted that changing the UOM of a part is just in general a no no, so I never really looked into why.
In newer versions of Epicor its difficult if not impossible to change UOM depending on the situation. But with Vantage being the wild west with UOM we have people switching parts from LB to KG and when I say don’t they say why and I say cause that’s the way it is, but I want to better understand the overall impact on the system when you make a change to a UOM like that so that I can speak more intelligently on the topic. Can anyone elaborate for me?
Thank you
UOM is the central measuring hub of everything calculated in the system. Costs are calculated based on the UOM, inventory is tracked based on the UOM, WIP, etc.
If you are allowed to change it on the fly you could accidentally mess up GL or inventory easily. Say you have 500 Cases of product with 10 eaches in each case for 5000 eaches total. Each is worth a dollar. Now we say well let’s just switch to cases of 5 eaches. The system won’t be able to spider out an update and recalculate all of that stuff within a any reasonably accurate expectation, so you would end up now with 500 cases of 5 eaches or 2500 eaches total. Halving your inventory valuation, the system won’t know to now give you 1000 cases. That’s a very simple example that with using the UOM conversion workbench can be navigated (when inventory is drained and there are no open orders, quote, invoices, etc).
Take something like LBs to Linear Ft on paper or metal (variable mill thickness across even a single piece) and try to do an accurate conversion on it and expect that your costing will be royally messed up.
Depending on the end goal changing purchasing or sales uom is non event as it’s all calculated off inventory uom anyways.
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I appreciate the quick response, and this makes sense.
Curious what the impact is to IUM if we make sure the part is not on any Sales orders, WIP, or any thing else open; then adjust out the inventory make the adjustment to KG and adjust in the appropriate QTY?
I assume at minimum the risk is what happens in the event of a return and the sold UOM doesn’t match the new UOM.