The unit of measure in the 'Plus Waste' field will be the same as Level A in the Inventory module.
The unit of measure in the 'Unit Quantity' field will be based on the selected Tracking Level for that item in the Inventory. (Tracking Level is the unit of measure you prefer for entering your purchasing cost)
For some designs, you may be aware that using the default values for the waste factor, will skew your average costs / selling price and total usage. These are situations where its beneficial to go to Details > Materials and adjust the 'Waste Factor' % for that material in that design. (changes in a design will not affect your default Preferences)
Examples are:
- The dimensions are such that you need just over 1/2 of a sheet for each crate panel, so your actual waste % will be excessively high. Adjusting the waste % here would increase what you would charge for this job and better average out your material usage.
- Your able to utilize materials that normally would have been counted as part of your waste %. This significantly lowers the actual waste % in this design. Manually adjusting here would lower your costs and selling price. The benefit could be that this helps you get the job in a price point market and will better average out your material usage.
- You do a small volume of crates so that the calculated waste average doesn't have enough data to provide a representation of actual usage. Quickly adjusting the waste % would give you a better representation of usage.
Generally, adjusting the waste factor % in every design, tends to increase your costs in labor time in excess of what additional profit you might gain by more exact material usage. While in some situations, adjusting the waste % for each design, does make sense, for the majority of custom crating companies, there is a better ROI, to use with the averages.