A stock management unit is part of a material stock that cannot be further subdivided and for which a separate book inventory balance exists. The physical inventory is carried out on the basis of the stock management units. Each stock management unit of a material will be counted separately, and any inventory differences are posted per stock management unit.

In the example below, material A exists in plant 0001 with storage locations 0001 and 0002, and in plant 0002 with storage location 0007. For this material, there are the following stock management units:

As shown in the above table, the stock of material A consists of 6 stock management units. You have to define which stock management units are to be included in the physical inventory. In inventory sampling, you do not allocate individual stock management units but stock management levels.