title: OpenERP square feet UOM
body: <p>Suppose i'm a reseller of tiles, and I have a tile (single product) that is 1' x 3'. This tile is not further dividable (to OpenERP / at this level), since we only ship tiles.</p>
  
  <p>However, we'd like the salesperson to enter in the quantity needed in square feet, to cover a room for example. If a customer enters in 3 square feet, we'd ship them one tile, five square feet, two tiles, nine square feet, three tiles, ten, four tiles.</p>
  
  <p>My question is what is the best way to present this data in OpenERP?</p>
  
  <p>It seems that creating a new 'sqft' UoM category would work, but then I cannot convert this back into PCE. I could define a second PCE in the same UoM category, but then I have two PCEs (one for 'normal' products, one for tiles, and never the twain shall meet). In addition, this is not scalable: if i'm also selling a 1' by 4' tile, i'd need another UoM category and conversion factor (one category / factor per tile size)</p>
  
  <p>I have a custom ordering interface (we are not actually using OpenERP's frontend for this), and could do the proper conversions there. However, this then presents a data mismatch - in OpenERP, our product's UoM (and buying UoM, since we resell) are expressed in PCE, but we need a new concept of an 'selling UoM' and connected conversion factor.</p>
  
  <p>The question is, is that last method (everything in OpenERP stays in PCE, OpenERP knows nothing about sales order UoM) the recommended manner in which to approach this?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks for the help.</p>