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Small and medium business | Business Central, N...
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How to have D365 business central convert differents UOM?

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Hello all,
 
I'm attempting to have Dynamics 365 Business Central be able to track and calculate inventory through different units of measures assigned to them. What would be the best way to do so?
 
As an example, below is a snippet of the different units of measure for one of our items. We had the 5G (gallons) bucket set up as the base unit of measure, and I've put 0.2 gallons to represent the relationship between the two. Is this done correctly? 
 
Ideally, I'd like to change the base UOM to gallons and have the other UOMs hold coefficients of >1 in relation to the base UOM - i.e 1 quantity of 5G bucket entered through purchasing would equate to 5 base UOM of gallons. However, I'm getting the error message /You cannot modify Item Unit of Measure 5G BUCKET for item because non-zero Quantity with 5G BUCKET exists in Warehouse Entry./ - presumably because we have inventory in the ERP and it cannot be converted. 
 
Lastly - is there a way to define the same conversion for all items? Seems very redundant for me to have to enter the same relationship to all affected items - i.e 5 gallon bucket = 5 galloons. Per a quick search online, the results seem to suggest the possibility. But for whatever reason, I cannot find the same menus/buttons in my business central. 


Many thanks in advance!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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  • Verified answer
    Valentin Castravet Profile Picture
    29,712 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at
    How to have D365 business central convert differents UOM?
    You are on the right track, Item Units of Measure is the way to do it.
     
    Typically, as you've mentioned best practice is to set the smallest unit as the base unit of measure (your example of 1 quantity of 5G bucket entered through purchasing would equate to 5 base UOM of gallons). But yes, an item with non-zero quantity will not let you modify the base unit of measure. If you wanted, you could use the item journal and do a negative adjustment for the item quantity to zero it out, change the base unit of measure, then do a positive adjustment to bring the quantities back.
     
    To set it up for multiple items you can use configuration packages. Set up one item, use a configuration package for table 5404 (which is the Item Unit of Measure table) to export it to excel and you will see the type of entries you need to create, create the same entries for all the other items in excel, and import it back in to the system.
     
     
    Valentin Castravet
    Zander ERP Services 
     
  • Suggested answer
    Jun Wang Profile Picture
    8,182 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at
    How to have D365 business central convert differents UOM?
    Valentin provides a good answer to your request.
    always recommend to use your most detailed uom as base uom, in your case it should be gallon
    before you are able to change it, you need to reduce your on hand inventory to zero, change uom and then bring the inventory back
     
    some people just set up a new item card with correct uom setting and consume all the old item, then block it.
     
     
  • Suggested answer
    Nimsara Jayathilaka. Profile Picture
    4,666 on at
    How to have D365 business central convert differents UOM?
    HI
     
    Generally, as a best practice, as you mentioned, you want to always set the smallest unit of measure as your base unit of measure (so, for example, 1 quantity of 5G bucket purchased would be 5 base UOM of gallons). However, when an item has non-zero quantity, you will not be able to modify the base UOM. But if you wanted to, you could use the item journal, do a negative adjustment for the item quantity to zero it out, then change your base UOM, then do a positive adjustment to bring the quantities back to what they were before.
    If you are trying to set this up for multiple items, you can use configuration packages. Set up 1 item, use a configuration package for table 5404 (which is the Item Unit of Measure table) to export it to excel, you will see what type of entries you need to create, create the same entries for all the other items in excel, then import the updated changes back into the system.
     
    Thanks
    Nimsara
  • Suggested answer
    Rishabh Kanaskar Profile Picture
    4,667 on at
    How to have D365 business central convert differents UOM?

    In your setup, the current configuration is not ideal because the base unit of measure is 5G BUCKET and you are defining gallons as a fraction (0.2) of the bucket. If you want to calculate and track inventory in gallons, you should make gallons the base unit of measure and then define 5G BUCKET as a related unit of measure with a conversion factor of 5. This way, 1 bucket purchased will automatically register as 5 gallons in inventory.

    The error message you are seeing (/You cannot modify Item Unit of Measure 5G BUCKET for item because non-zero Quantity with 5G BUCKET exists in Warehouse Entry./) is expected behavior. Business Central does not allow you to change the base unit of measure when there is existing inventory, value entries, or warehouse entries for that item. To change the base unit of measure, you would first need to adjust inventory to zero, update the item’s base UOM, and then re-adjust inventory back in with the correct UOM.

     

    There is no standard “global conversion table” for unit-of-measure conversions that applies across all items. Each item must have its own Item Units of Measure setup. However, you can speed up the process by using:

    > Configuration Packages to load and apply consistent UOM conversions to many items at once.

    > Copy Item functionality when creating new items, which copies UOM definitions from the template or existing item.

     

    Thanks 

    Rishabh

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