Understanding Items and Units

In Peasy, every product lives inside an item family. A family shares one inventory pool — a single running count of what you have — and contains one or more variants that represent the different ways you buy, sell, make, or convert that product. Peasy handles the conversion math so all your numbers stay in sync.

How to Get There

Open any item from Buy > Items to buy or Sell > Items to sell to see its units, variants, and conversions.

The Basics

You group items into a family when they share the same inventory pool — when every variant can be broken down into, or swapped with, the others without any production step in between.

Say you sell your light roast coffee in three formats: a single 12-oz bag, a 3-pack of those same bags, and a case of twelve. A case is just bags in a box. Pop it open and you have bags. Same inventory pool. One family.

When you sell one case, the pool drops by 12 bags. When you sell a 3-pack, it drops by 3. You never do the math yourself.

On the other hand, a 12-oz bag and a 1-lb bag are not the same family, even though they're both light roast — you can't fulfill a 1-lb order with two 12-oz bags, and repackaging would be a production step. Different products, different inventory pools, separate families.

How Item Families Work

An item family is the parent record — it holds the name, category, and image. Everything you actually buy, sell, make, or count is a variant inside that family.

Renaming a family also updates the name of its hidden inventory unit. Templates that use that inventory unit as their output show the new name. Your Buy, Sell, Make, and Conversion variant names stay as they are.

All variants in a family share the same inventory pool. So if your "Light Roast — 12 oz Bag" family has 60 bags available, Peasy can express that as:

• 60 single bags (the 12-oz Sell variant)
• 20 three-packs (the 3-pack Sell variant)
• 5 cases (the case-of-12 Sell variant)

It's the same coffee — just counted through whichever variant you're looking at.

Another common family shape is one product, multiple suppliers. If you buy the same green coffee beans from four different farms, that's one family with four Buy variants. The beans are the same thing once they arrive, and they all feed the same inventory pool — but you track each farm separately so you always know who sent what, at what price, and when.

The Four Variant Types

Each variant has a type that describes how it's used. You'll see a color-coded badge on each variant card in the side panel:

• Buy (blue) — A unit you purchase from a vendor. Used on purchase orders and when receiving. Example: "50-lb bag" from Acme Flour Co.
• Sell (green) — A unit you sell to a customer. Used on sales orders, invoices, and in your catalog. Example: "5-lb retail bag."
• Make (purple) — A unit you produce in-house. Created automatically when you build a template in Make > Items to make — you don't add Make variants by hand.
• Conversion (orange) — A unit you only use for counting or reference, not for buying or selling. Lets you describe the same pool in a different unit.

All four types share the family's inventory pool. Producing a Make variant adds to the pool; shipping a Sell variant deducts from it (on the shipment's ship date); receiving a Buy variant against a PO adds to it.

A Buy variant and a Sell variant can have the same name, unit, and conversion without being duplicates. The Buy variant is used for purchasing and receiving, while the Sell variant is used for customer orders and shipping; both update the same inventory pool.

When to Use a Conversion Variant

Conversion variants are useful when you need a unit that exists purely for counting or receiving — never for buying or selling. For example:

• Pallets for receiving. You never sell a pallet directly, but you need to know how many cases fit on one so you can log a delivery cleanly. Add a pallet Conversion variant (e.g., 1 pallet = 48 cases) and your receiving and inventory now speak the same language.
• Recipe reference units. You buy flour in 50-lb bags but your recipes call for cups. A cup Conversion variant lets templates and work orders reference the pool in cups without adding clutter to Buy or Sell lists.

Adding a Conversion variant gives you a unit label and ratio without turning it into something customers or vendors ever see.

Creating an Item

When you add a new item, the modal has two steps:

Step 1: Pick the Family

Choose New Item to start a new item family with its own inventory pool, or New Variant to add a variant to an existing family (a shared inventory pool).

For a new family, fill in:

1. Item Name — What the family is called (e.g., "All-Purpose Flour")
2. Category — Optional, used for organizing and filtering

Click Continue.

Step 2: Add the First Variant

Pick a variant type card (Buy, Sell, or Conversion), then enter:

• Variant Name — What you want to call this specific unit (e.g., "case of 12")
• Unit — The unit label that shows up on orders and reports
• Conversion — How the variant's unit relates to the rest of the family's unit chain. When both units are standard measurements Peasy recognizes (like kg and g, or oz and lb), Peasy fills in the conversion automatically — type over it any time to override.

The first variant you add anchors the family's Inventory Unit — the base unit at the root of the conversion chain. Every other variant's conversion ties back to it. You'll see the Inventory Unit called out on the item detail side panel, where you can rename it or choose a different unit for displaying and counting stock.

Tracking a smaller sub-unit

Next to the Unit field, you'll see an Include sub-unit checkbox. Check it when you want inventory tracked at a smaller level than the visible variant — for example, you sell by the case but want stock counted in bottles.

When checked, two things appear:

• A Sub-unit dropdown for the smaller unit (e.g., "bottle"), and an inline conversion field where you set how many sub-units make one main unit (e.g., 1 case = 12 bottles). The same unit can't be picked for both — the sub-unit dropdown disables the main unit and clears any matching selection if you change the main unit later.
• A per main / per sub toggle next to Unit Price / Unit Cost. Enter the price in whichever unit is easier — if you enter $5 per bottle with 12 bottles per case, Peasy stores $60 per case so reports and orders always reflect the visible variant's unit.

Behind the scenes, the sub-unit becomes the family's hidden Inventory Unit and the visible variant maps to it at the ratio you entered. The sub-unit option is only available the first time you add a variant to a brand-new family — after that, change the Inventory Unit from the item detail side panel.

Click Save. That's it — your family and first variant are ready.

Editing an Existing Variant

Changing the Inventory Unit

Use Inventory Unit on the item detail panel to choose the unit for displaying and counting the family's stock. Changing from pounds to ounces uses an existing matching unit or adds an ounces Conversion variant, which appears in the variants table. Pounds stays available, and existing receipts, purchase orders, templates, and work orders keep their original units and quantities.

If you're only changing the wording at a 1:1 conversion, such as lbs to pounds, Peasy renames the unit without changing quantities or conversions.

Editing Variant Details

Use the same full editing form from either a regular list or a list grouped by family:

1. Go to Buy > Items to buy or Sell > Items to sell.
2. If the list is grouped by family, click the family's name to expand its variants.
3. Hover over the variant's name and click the pencil button, Edit item variant.
4. In Edit Item Variant, update the variant's details, such as Variant Name, SKU, Unit, conversion, or its buying or selling price.
5. Click Save & Close.

Clicking the variant's name opens its item detail page instead of editing it. Clicking a grouped family's name expands or collapses its variants. The edit form opens the existing variant directly, without a Back button to the new-item setup step.

If you have unsaved changes and cancel, press Escape, or click outside the form, Peasy asks Exit without saving? Choose Stay here to keep editing, or Exit without saving to discard those changes.

Adding More Variants to an Existing Family

Already have an item and want to buy or sell it in a different size?

1. Go to Buy > Items to buy or Sell > Items to sell.
2. Click + New Item.
3. In the modal, click the New Variant card.
4. Choose the Item Family you're adding to.
5. Pick the variant type (Buy, Sell, or Conversion), then enter the unit name and conversion ratio.
6. Click Save.

For example, if you already buy green beans from one farm, you could add a second Buy variant for a new farm that's sending the same beans in a different bag size.

Duplicating a Buy or Sell Variant

When the new variant is similar to one you already have, open the source variant's ... menu and choose Duplicate Variant. Peasy opens the standard New Variant form with the source details filled in. Update the vendor, SKU, unit, price, conversion, or any other differences, then click Save & Close.

You can duplicate Buy and Sell variants from the Items tables, a vendor's item list, or the Variants table on an item detail page. Make variants are managed through templates and don't have this action.

Make variants don't appear as a card here — they come from templates. To add one, create a template in Make > Items to make and set this family as the output.

Duplicating an Item Family

From the family's ... menu, choose Duplicate Item Family to make a new family with its active Buy, Sell, and Conversion variants. You can review their names and SKUs before duplicating. The new family has its own inventory pool.

Templates do not come with the new family. If a copied variant uses a Make unit in its conversion, Peasy reuses an existing Conversion variant with the same unit and conversion amount when possible. Otherwise, it copies the needed Make unit as an active Conversion variant so the unit chain stays together, even if its template was archived. To produce an item in the new family, set up or duplicate a template separately in Make > Items to make and check its output item.

If the family has only Make variants, the dialog cannot duplicate it. Use the Items to make link in the dialog to open its template instead.

Categories

Item families can be organized into categories like "Dry Goods," "Dairy," "Packaging," etc. Categories help you:

• Filter and find items faster
• Group items on reports
• Keep your list organized as it grows

You can set a category when creating a family, or update it later.

What the Variant Count Shows

The small number next to an item family — on the /all-items page, in the variants sidebar on the item detail page, and in tooltips like "3 variants in this family" — counts only Buy, Sell, and Conversion variants. These are the variants you directly add, edit, and transact in.

Two things are intentionally not in that count:

• Make variants. They're managed from the template, not from the item side panel, so they don't show up alongside the variants you add by hand.
• The Inventory Unit. This is the family's internal base unit for stock tracking. It isn't listed as its own variant card, but you can choose it as the Receiving unit when receiving against a purchase order. A Conversion variant selected for displaying inventory remains a visible variant and is included in the count.

So a family with one Buy variant, one Sell variant, one Make variant, and an Inventory Unit shows 2 variants on the badge — the Buy and Sell. Make variants remain visible and editable through Make > Items to make, and the Inventory Unit is managed from the item detail page.

Good to Know

• One pool per family. Every variant in a family draws from the same inventory count. Selling a case of 12 reduces the same pool as selling 12 individual bags.
• If there's a production step in between, it's a separate family. If moving from one unit to another requires repackaging, rebagging, or assembly, those units belong to different families — connect them with a template instead.
• Conversions can't be zero. Every variant needs at least a 1:1 ratio.
• Make variants are template-driven. If a family needs a Make variant, create the template — Peasy will create the variant for you and keep them linked.
• Same pool, different units. If you need the same family in a new unit that you'll never transact in, use a Conversion variant instead of a second Buy or Sell variant.

Related

• Understanding Item Types — Buy, Sell, Make, and Conversion variants explained in more detail
• Add Your Items — How to get items into Peasy
• Counting Inventory — Counting inventory in different units
• Creating Templates — How Make variants are created
• Inventory Overview — How inventory tracking works