Partial reams and bottles
Why a whole unit only comes off the books when its last piece is spent — and what the "is it safe to say" prompt means.
Your inventory counts reams and bottles. Your production consumes sheets and millilitres. Unit rollover is the rule that decides when a partly-used ream stops counting as a ream — and it is the behaviour that surprises people most.
The rule
A unit rolls off only when its last piece is spent
Open a ream and use 20 sheets, and you still have that ream on the shelf — 480 sheets of it. Deducting a whole ream the moment you touch it would make your stock count a fiction. PrintERP deducts a unit exactly when the last piece of it is used, so the number on screen always matches what you can physically count.
Two balances are kept side by side. The piece balance falls every time you consume anything. The unit count falls only when a full unit's worth has been crossed.
A worked example
Say a ream is 500 sheets and you hold 3 reams — a piece balance of 1,500.
| You use | Piece balance | Unit count | Rolled off? |
|---|---|---|---|
| — | 1,500 | 3 reams | — |
| 200 sheets | 1,300 | 3 reams | No — still opening the first |
| 300 sheets | 1,000 | 2 reams | Yes — the first ream is finished |
| 50 sheets | 950 | 2 reams | No |
Ink works identically: substitute millilitres for sheets and bottles for reams.
The confirmation prompt
When you consume paper or ink by hand and the amount would roll a whole unit off the books, PrintERP stops and asks something like:
Note
*Is it safe to say 1 ream has been fully used?*
Nothing is written until you answer. Confirm and the piece balance and the unit count are both updated in one atomic step, with a rollover entry in Stock Movements. Decline and nothing at all happens — no partial write to unpick.
Why ask at all
Removing a physical unit from stock is the point where a mistake becomes expensive and hard to spot. A manual entry is often an estimate, so PrintERP asks you to confirm the consequence rather than inferring it.
Production never asks
Finishing a production job rolls units over automatically, with no prompt. That is deliberate: the paper has physically gone through the press, so the consumption is a fact rather than an estimate, and stopping a production flow to ask would be noise.
Common questions
My unit count did not change after a big job.
Then no unit's last piece was reached. Check the piece balance — it will have fallen. This is correct behaviour.
Two units disappeared at once.
Fine if you consumed more than a unit's worth. The rule deducts however many whole units were crossed.
I changed pieces per unit and the balance did not move.
Intentional. Changing the factor affects future maths only; it does not rewrite the stock you already hold.
How do I record a ream that was damaged, not printed?
Use a manual adjustment on the inventory item with a note, rather than consuming pieces — see Reading the stock movement trail.
Related guides
Tracking paper by the piece
Link a paper item, say how many pieces are in a ream, and get a per-piece cost and balance.
How ink works
Bottles on the shelf, tanks in the printer, and why only a refill moves your ink stock.
Reading the stock movement trail
Every change to every item, what each movement type means, and how to trace a discrepancy.