Units of Measure (UoM) let you record stock and trade goods in whatever units make sense for your business — kilograms, liters, meters, dozens, hours — instead of being stuck with plain "units." When you transact in a different unit than you store stock in (e.g., you buy paint by the gallon but track it in liters), AssetBlaze handles the conversion for you and keeps an audit trail of both quantities.

This article explains how to turn the feature on, what's included out of the box, how to add your own units, and how UoM behaves across the rest of the app.

Turning the feature on

Units of Measure is off by default. To enable it:

1. Go to Settings → Global Settings → Features.

2. Toggle Unit of Measure on.

Once enabled, every item gets an assignable tracking unit and a new Settings → Units of Measure page appears in the sidebar.

You can turn the feature off again later, but only if every item is still tracked in the default "Unit" and no quantities use decimals. AssetBlaze will tell you exactly how many items are blocking the disable, so you know what to clean up first.

The six categories

Every unit belongs to one of six categories. Conversions only happen within a category, you can convert kilograms to pounds, but not kilograms to liters.

Unit
Weight
Volume
Length
Surface
Work time

Each category has one base unit with a conversion factor of 1. Every other unit in that category is defined relative to the base, for example, a gram is 0.001 kg, and an inch is 0.0254 m.

System units vs. custom units

System units are the 22 standard units that ship with AssetBlaze (everything in the table above). They're available to every organization, can't be edited, and can't be deleted. They appear with a System badge on the Units of Measure page.

Custom units are units you create for your business. You can edit or remove them at any time, subject to the rules below.

Creating a custom unit

Go to Settings → Units of Measure → Add New and fill in:

• Name — required, e.g., "25 kg Sack."

• Symbol — optional, e.g., "sack." Shown next to quantities throughout the app.

• Category — which of the six categories the unit belongs to. This determines what it can be converted to and from.

• Conversion factor — how many base units one of this unit equals. For a 25 kg sack in the Weight category, the conversion factor is 25. For a half-pint in the Volume category (base unit liter), it's 0.236588.

• Decimal places — how many digits to keep after the decimal point when displaying quantities in this unit (0–6). For "Pair" you'd typically use 0; for "Liter" you might use 3.

Tip — picking the conversion factor: ask yourself "if I have 1 of this unit, how many of the base unit do I have?" That number is the conversion factor.

Editing and deleting custom units

• Editing a unit that's in use is blocked by default, because changing the conversion factor would silently rewrite the meaning of every historical quantity recorded in that unit. AssetBlaze will warn you and let you confirm if you really want to proceed.

• Deleting a unit that's in use is not allowed. Reassign or remove the items using it first, then delete the unit.

• System units can't be edited or deleted under any circumstances.

How conversions work

When the same item moves through different units (for example, ordered in gallons but tracked in liters), AssetBlaze converts using the formula:

converted_quantity = (source_quantity × source_conversion_factor) ÷ target_conversion_factor

The result is rounded to the target unit's decimal places.

Example: You buy 3 gallons of a coolant that you track in liters.

• Gallon conversion factor: 3.78541

• Liter conversion factor: 1

• Liter decimal places: 3

• Converted quantity: (3 × 3.78541) ÷ 1 = 11.356 liters in stock.

Cross-category conversions (e.g., kilograms → liters) are not allowed and the app will reject them.

Where Units of Measure appear

Once the feature is on, UoM shows up across the app:

• Items — each item has a tracking unit. This is the unit your stock balance is held in. By default new items use "Unit."

• Suppliers — you can set a default purchase unit per supplier per item, so purchase orders default to the unit you usually buy in.

• Purchase orders — each line has its own unit. When you receive stock, the received quantity is converted into the item's tracking unit.

• Sale orders, quotes, and proforma orders — each line has its own unit. When you ship, the shipped quantity is converted into the item's tracking unit.

• Bills of materials and manufacturing orders — components and outputs each have a unit, and consumption is converted into the tracking unit when the order is processed.

• Stock counts and adjustments — recorded in the item's tracking unit.

Throughout the app, the original unit and quantity are kept on the transaction alongside the converted tracking-unit quantity, so you can always see both "what was actually ordered/sold/received" and "what hit your stock."

Permissions

Two permissions control access:

• Units of Measure — Read — view the list of units. Granted to anyone who can read items.

• Units of Measure — Manage — create, edit, and delete custom units, and toggle the feature on/off. Granted to anyone who can manage items.

You can adjust these per role under Settings → Roles & Permissions.

Frequently asked questions

Can I rename a system unit?
No. System units are fixed so that their meaning is the same across every AssetBlaze organization. Create a custom unit if you need a different name or symbol.

What happens to existing data if I turn the feature off?
You can only turn it off if every item is using the default "Unit" and no quantities are decimal. This guarantees no data is lost or rounded by the change.

I changed a custom unit's conversion factor. Did historical orders get rewritten?
No. The original quantity and unit are stored on each transaction at the time it was created. Changing the conversion factor only affects new conversions going forward, but you should still be careful — reports that re-aggregate by tracking unit may shift.

Why can't I convert kilograms to liters?
They're in different categories. AssetBlaze doesn't make assumptions about density, so cross-category conversion is intentionally blocked. If you genuinely need it (e.g., you always sell a specific liquid by weight), create separate items, or model it via a bill of materials.