Units of Measurement

Units of Measurement are labels used to measure quantities, like meters for length, kilogrammes for weight, litres for liquids, or hours for services. They make it easy to count, track, and trade products accurately, ensuring everything stays precise and organized within the system. Without standard units, confusions can occur in orders, production, and inventory.

Scenario: Charles Stone runs a business selling sugar, cooking oil and also offers home cleaning services. To keep track of all the diverse goods and service items offered, he uses units of measurement in Zoho ERP and ensures every product and service is recorded using the correct unit. He stores sugar by kilogramme, oil by litres, and charges cleaning services by hours worked. This clear system improves accuracy, streamlines inventory management, and ensures customers are billed fairly, helping the business run smoothly and grow.

Units

Units are used anytime when the products are bought, made, stored, or sold, covering not just physical goods like sugar, oil, or chocolates, but also services measured in hours or logistics tracked by speed and time.

Create New Units

If you want to create new units other than the existing units you can create a new unit in Zoho ERP. Here’s how:

Click the Gear icon at the top right corner of the Home page.
Scroll down to Module settings and click Units of Measurement under Inventory.
Click + New Unit at the top of the page.
Fill in the required details in the Create Unit page.

Fields	Description
Name	Enter a name for the unit you add.
Symbol	Enter a symbol for your unit to measure the items. For eg, m for metre, km for kilometre and g for grams. This symbol will be used to measure the items in the sales and purchase transactions.
Unique Quantity Code (UQC)	Select a unique quantity code from the dropdown for your unit. This is used to identify the unit as SKU is used to identify items.
Unit Precision	The precision of a unit is the number of digits you want after the decimal point. You can increase the unit precision based on how precise you want the conversion to be.

Warning: Once you’ve added unit precision you can only increase the value next time and not decrease it.

Click Save.

Edit Units

You can edit and update changes to the existing or the new units of measurement you create. Here’s how:

Pro tip: You can also configure units from the Edit Item page under Item Details section.

Click the Gear icon at the top right corner of the Home page.
Scroll down to Module settings and click Units of Measurement under Inventory.
Hover over the unit you want to edit.
Click Edit.
Fill in the required details in the Edit Unit page.
Click Save.

Delete Units

Note: You cannot delete a unit that is associated with an item. Disassociate it first and then try deleting it.

You can delete units of measurement if you don’t require it. Here’s how:

Click the Gear icon at the top right corner of the Home page.
Scroll down to Module settings and click Units of Measurement under Inventory.
Hover over the unit you want to delete.
Click the dropdown and select Delete.

Warning: You cannot retrieve a unit after deleting it.

Configuring Default Unit for Items

Here’s how you can configure a default unit for an item:

Go to Items on the left side bar and click Items on the top module bar.
Click + New Item.
Fill in the required details.
Click the Unit Group dropdown and select Unit.
Now select the preferred unit from the dropdown.
Click Save.

Note: Both sales and purchase transactions will be created based on the same unit you’ve configured in the item details page.

Unit Groups

Unit Groups define the multiple units a single item can use in sales and purchase transactions, starting from a base unit, and establishing the conversion relationships between multiple target units. It simplifies managing multiple units by ensuring all transactions follow consistent conversion logic, keeping quantities, stock levels, and pricing accurate across the system. Unit Groups are especially useful when items are bought, stored, and sold in different units at varying scales, making them ideal for handling bulk goods in everyday business operations.

Scenario: Scenario: Patricia runs a bakery where cupcakes are in high demand. Each cupcake is tracked in pieces as the base unit, while customers place orders in dozens or boxes of 5 pieces. Earlier, her team had to manually calculate how many pieces were sold for each order, which was time-consuming and error-prone.

By using Unit Groups in Zoho ERP, Patricia defines all these unit conversions under a single group, where one dozen equals 12 pieces and one box equals 5 pieces. Now, whenever cupcakes are sold in dozens or boxes, the system automatically converts them into pieces in the background, keeping stock levels and sales data accurate without manual calculations.

Base Unit: The base unit is the main way you measure an item in your system. All other units are calculated from this.
Example: In Patricia’s bakery, each cupcake is measured in pieces as the base unit.

Target Unit: The target unit is the unit you want to use for selling or buying, converted from the base unit.
Example: Patricia sells cupcakes in dozens or boxes of 5 pieces, which are the target units.

Unit Conversion: Unit conversion changes the quantity from the base unit to the target unit using a fixed formula.
Example: When Patricia sells 1 dozen cupcakes, the system automatically converts it to 12 pieces in the background.

Unit Groups: Unit Groups are grouping multiple conversions of a single base unit. Example: In Patricia’s bakery, pieces are the base unit, and conversions like 1 dozen = 12 pieces and 1 box = 5 pieces are grouped together under a single unit group for cupcakes.

Enable Unit Conversion

In order to create unit groups, you need to enable unit conversion. Here’s how:

Click the Gear icon at the top right corner of the Home page.
Scroll down to Module settings and click Units of Measurement under Inventory.
Click Enable Unit Conversion.
Click Enable Unit Conversion again in the Unit Conversions pop up.

Warning: You cannot disable unit conversion once it is enabled in your organisation.

Once you’ve enabled unit conversion, you can see the Unit Groups tab next to Units tab at the top of Units Of Measurement page.

Create Unit Groups

Prerequisite: You should have added unit precision for the base unit in order to create unit groups.

Here’s how you can create a unit groups in Zoho ERP:

Pro tip: You can also create a new unit group while creating item in the New Item page under Item Details section.

Click the Gear icon at the top right corner of the Home page.
Scroll down to Module settings and click Units of Measurement under Inventory.
Click Unit Groups tab under Units of Measurement page.
Click + New Unit Group.
Fill in the required details in Create Unit Group page.
Name: Enter a name for your unit group.
Base Unit: Select the base unit from the dropdown.
Select Target Unit:
Conversion Rate: Enter the value of how much base unit you wish to convert for a single target unit.
Click + Add Conversion to create a new conversion inside the unit group.
Click X icon to remove the unit conversion you have added.
You can set up multiple unit conversion under one group.

Note: You cannot create two conversions with same target unit for the same base unit.
For example, you cannot create a unit group like one packet with 60 pieces of chocolate and also one packet with 30 pieces of chocolates.

However you can create two separate unit groups for 30 pieces of chocolate and 60 pieces of chocolates against one packet.

Edit Unit Groups

Here’s how you can edit a unit group in Zoho ERP:

Click the Gear icon at the top right corner of the Home page.
Scroll down to Module settings and click Units of Measurement under Inventory.
Click Unit Groups tab under Units of Measurement page.
Hover over the unit group you want to edit.
Click Edit.
Fill in the required details in the Edit Unit Group page.
Click Save.

Delete Unit Groups

Note: You cannot delete a unit group after associating it with an item. Disassociate it first and then delete it.

Here’s how you can delete a unit group in Zoho ERP:

Click the Gear icon at the top right corner of the Home page.
Scroll down to Module settings and click Units of Measurement under Inventory.
Click Unit Groups tab under Units of Measurement page.
Hover over the unit group you want to delete.
Click Delete.

Warning: You cannot retrieve a unit group after deleting it.

Configuring Unit Groups for Items

Here’s how you can configure the created unit groups with Items:

Go to Items on the left side bar and click Items on the top module bar.
Click + New Item.
Fill in the required details.
Make sure Unit field is set to Unit Groups.
Select the preferred unit conversion from the dropdown.
Select the default sales unit from the dropdown. If needed, you can change the default sales unit to any other unit under the selected unit group.

Note: When you create a sales order the quantity will be measured in the sales unit entered here and the item’s rate and amount will be calculated based on the conversion rate recorded in the unit group.

Select the default purchase unit from the dropdown. If needed, you can change the default purchase unit to any other unit under the selected unit group.

Note: When you create a purchase order the quantity will be measured in the purchase unit entered here and the item’s rate and amount will be calculated based on the conversion rate recorded in the unit group.

Click Save.