Units of measure in an integration: each, box, case and pallet

One item, three units

An ERP counts stock in one unit and converts every other unit to it. The store does not. In Shopify the quantity on an order line is a required integer, and the line has no unit field. What a quantity of 3 means is in the product or variant title: "Box of 100", "Case of 1,000". The integration has to know it per item.

Take nitrile gloves, item GL-4410, at a janitorial supply distributor. The warehouse counts single gloves, the store sells boxes of 100 and cases of 10 boxes, and the purchasing team buys by the case. In NetSuite, with the Multiple Units of Measure feature on, that is one units type with three units:

The item points to the units type in unitstype and names a stockunit, a saleunit and a purchaseunit. NetSuite's field help describes the sale unit as the unit used to sell the item on sales transactions. The sales order line carries quantity and units; the quantity is read in that unit.

How the systems store it, read from each vendor's documentation on October 3, 2026:

Business Central stores the converted figure on the sales line itself: Quantity (Base) is the quantity in the base unit, next to the quantity in the line's own unit. NetSuite converts through the rate on the units type.

Worked example: 3 cases of gloves

A customer orders 3 cases at 129.00 per case. Shopify sends this line:

{
  "sku": "GL-4410-CS",
  "variantTitle": "Case of 1,000",
  "quantity": 3,
  "originalUnitPriceSet": { "shopMoney": { "amount": "129.00", "currencyCode": "USD" } }
}

The integration reads the suffix CS, maps the SKU to item GL-4410 and sets units to Case. NetSuite books 3 x 1,000 = 3,000 gloves out of stock. The rate stays 129.00, because it is the price per case.

If the integration maps only quantity, the line is read in the item's sale unit, Box: 3 x 100 = 300 gloves. That is 2,700 short of what the customer paid for. Map the SKU without stripping the suffix and the line fails on an unknown item, which at least raises an error. The silent version is the one where the number arrives and the unit does not.

Stock in the store, from one base figure

The same unit problem runs the other way for stock. In Shopify each variant has its own inventory item, so the Box variant and the Case variant hold two separate numbers. The ERP holds one: 18,400 each on hand.

A sale of one variant changes the stock of the other. The integration recalculates both from the base figure after every change in the ERP, and always rounds down: 18.4 cases is 18 that can ship. A store that decrements each variant on its own sells the same gloves twice, once as boxes and once as cases. Which figure counts as available in the first place is covered in which stock counts.

Prices per hundred and per thousand

Fasteners, labels and packaging are priced per hundred or per thousand. A hex cap screw at 38.50 per thousand costs 0.0385 each. A store that stores prices with two decimals per unit makes that 0.04.

• Correct: 5,000 screws = 5 x 38.50 = 192.50
• Stored as 0.04 each: 5,000 x 0.04 = 200.00
• Difference: 7.50, which is 7.50 / 192.50 = 3.9% too much on every line

Either the store sells a box of 100 at 3.85, or the price basis travels with the price. The standards have a field for it:

The rounding effects on totals and tax are in money, tax and rounding.

Unit codes that procurement systems and retailers accept

Inside your own ERP a unit is whatever your team named it: ea, each, pcs, cs, case. The moment another company reads it, it has to be a code from their list, and each standard has a different list.

OCI is the third list. In the SAP OCI 5.0 specification NEW_ITEM-UNIT is 3 characters and holds an ISO code that must exist as a unit in the buyer's SAP system, so the right value differs per buyer.

X12 version 4010 lists 794 codes for PO103. In it, CS is a cassette and CT a carton, so "cs" from your ERP sent as CS tells a retailer you shipped cassettes. In the UN/ECE lists that OpenPeppol publishes, the X12 codes CA, BX and PL do not exist at all; a case is XCS. The cXML Reference Guide states that UnitOfMeasure must conform to UN/CEFACT codes. A retailer that orders in cases sends CA in PO103 and expects the 810 invoice in the same unit; Kroger's 850 map, for example, orders in cases.

So the integration keeps one translation table per unit, with a column per standard, and a unit that has no entry goes to a review list instead of out the door. The X12 side is worked out on the 850 purchase order page and the PunchOut side on PunchOut integration.

Minimums, multiples and pallets

Next to the unit come the rules on the number. Gloves only by full case for one customer group. Cable not below 50 feet. A pallet of 40 cases as the only way a distributor ships to a retailer's DC.

These rules belong where the customer orders. Shopify B2B has quantity rules on a catalog price list, per variant: a minimum, an optional maximum and an increment, and only quantities divisible by the increment are accepted. They are available on Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus. NetSuite has minimumquantity on the item, which its own web store enforces at checkout, and reordermultiple for purchasing, always counted in base units.

A rule that only exists in the ERP lets a paid order through that the warehouse then cannot ship as ordered.

What this means for your integration

Per item we record the unit the store sells in, the base unit of the ERP and the conversion rate between them, plus the code each trading partner or procurement system expects. Order lines are converted with that rate, stock is recalculated per variant from the base figure, and a price per hundred or per thousand keeps its basis. An item without a conversion rate or a unit without a code goes to the review list; in the dry run you see how your existing orders land in the ERP before anything goes live.

Units belong with prices and customer agreements, described on prices and customer-specific pricing, and with the field mapping of the order as a whole. Send us a few items you sell by the box, the case or the thousand, and we show how the conversion works for your catalog.