Defining Units of Measurement

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to define a unit of measurement

Units of Measurement and Their Properties

Units of measurement or quantity and physical units are used in many applications in SAP S/4HANA. Units of measurement are needed to be displayed on the screen or for output purposes (in purchase orders, for example) and for conversions of quantities from one unit into another (from kilograms into grams, or centimeters into inches, for instance). The units of measurement used are based on the International System of Units (Système International d'Unités, or SI). This system features seven base units of measurement. All other units can be derived from these base units.

In standard SAP S/4HANA, the units of measurement are defined in accordance with the International System of Units (SI). Units of measurement that measure the same magnitude and thus can be converted into each other are assigned to a dimension.

Units of measurement are managed centrally for all applications in SAP S/4HANA. The conversion factors are stored in the system with a unique internal key. You must not change the internal keys of the units of measurement supplied in the standard system. You maintain the specifications for external representation for each unit of measurement on a language-dependent basis. You must maintain a commercial (maximum 3 characters) and a technical (maximum 6 characters) key for each language.

Units of Measurement and Conversion to SI Units

Definition of Units of Measurement

Interface for editing units of measurement, focusing on dimensions and ISO codes.

The preceding figure displays the initial screen used to maintain units of measurement in Customizing.

Check that the SAP system includes all of the dimensions that you need in your company.

Dimensions for Units of Measurement

Interface for configuring the volume measurement unit, cubic meter, with dimensions such as length (exponent 3) in SAP.

The preceding figure shows how the dimension volume relates to the seven basic dimensions. The SI unit for the dimension volume is cubic meter and cannot be changed.

Units of Measurement of the Dimension Volume

Because there is no SI unit for non-dimensional units of measure, you cannot specify numerators and denominators for the conversion of non-dimensional units of measure. You can store conversion factors for materials with non-dimensional units of measurement in the material master.

You can use units of measurement in the logistics process as:

Order units
Purchase order price units
Units of issue
Sales units

If you are working with account commitments, the Value-based commitment checkbox controls how account commitments are cleared.

If the checkbox is not selected, commitments are created based on quantity. That means that commitments are cleared when the full order is delivered or the Delivery completed checkbox is selected. Price differences during invoice verification have no influence on commitments.

If the checkbox is selected, commitments are created based on value; the system automatically clears the commitments only for purchase order items with a valuated goods receipt. If a purchase order item has no goods receipt or non-valuated goods receipt and the invoiced price is less than the purchase order price, you have to clear the commitments manually by selecting the Final Invoice checkbox during invoice entry or later, in the purchase order.

Define a Unit of Measurement

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