For want of a screw ....

It is well known that Priority allows one to manage a purchase part in two different units, one for internal use and one for ordering from a supplier. There is a factor that converts between the two units, so if for example one purchases a 6 metre metal rod where the supplier views this as one rod whereas the factory views this as 6 metres, the conversion factor would be 6 (i.e. 6 metres = 1 rod). This is all fine and good until one comes to items like screws and nails, where there can be a few thousand items in a box; the maximum value that the conversion factor can hold is 3,500 (for some reason unknown to me). Until yesterday, I thought that there was no way around this.

A post on our Telegram discussion group showed a way around this: let's say that there are 5000 screws in a box. One defines that the internal unit will be 'unit' (unsurprisingly) but that the purchase unit will be an intermediary unit, such as 'scr' (the name itself is unimportant) with a conversion factor of 1000. Then one defines that five 'scr' are equivalent to one 'box'. Finally, in the 'parts per supplier' son form of the supplier, one defines the part to be purchased in boxes. The use of the intermediate 'scr' unit will cause the purchase of one box to be recorded as entering 5000 screws into inventory! (Thank you, MA).

This post was extremely welcome - and timed perfectly - as today I came across a case where a screw had been defined with the purchase unit 'box' and the internal unit also 'box' with a conversion factor of 1 (of course). Originally both units had been 'unit' and someone changed them to 'box', although this made no difference whatsoever. Well done! (heavy sarcasm). It is not possible to change the conversion factor once there are inventory records for the part. As a result, any part that contained this screw would have an inflated  cost. What I did not know at first was how many screws are in a box, and so by how much the price would be inflated.

As any correction would be constrained by the fact that the conversion factor could not be changed from 1, it appeared that I would have to use more than one intermediary unit if there were more than 3,500 screws in a box. When I tried this, Priority complained that there was no conversion factor between the first intermediary unit and the unit in the supplier's list. So two intermediary units are out.

Fortunately, there are only 200 screws of this type in a box, so I defined an intermediary unit 'sc2', where one unit is equivalent to one 'sc2' (thus maintaining the conversion factor) and that 200 'sc2's are equivalent to one box. This should sort everything out. 

I also had to deal with the cost of the screw: I entered 200 screws at the price of a box into inventory, then removed them at the same price. This should cause the single screw to have its cost reduced by a factor of 200. I'll know this only tomorrow....