Barcode System

We are looking to do our annual physical inventory with a barcode system. We currently enter our counts into Excel spreadsheets and use Access to upload to Visual. So I just need to be able to create the barcode labels then scan the parts and enter the counts and load it into excel. I've already generated barcodes in excel for the inventory. I know I need to purchase a scanner and labels, but not sure about the programming of the scanner. I'd appreciate any guidance. Thanks!

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unknown

Many barcode readers can be set to Keyboard mode, and may be by default. So when it reads the barcode, it acts like it was typed in.

The big problem will be Tabs or Enters to get to the next line; I don't recall if such are part of standard Code 128, for example. There's also limited special characters, so hopefully you don't have lots of symbols in your part IDs.

Worst case scenario, you carry a tablet and attached barcode reader. Scan ID, <Tab>. Scan qty1, <Tab>.... Scan qty_N, <Tab>. <Enter>

Have you worked out how you will have a label for each number to count? Or are you going to count each item scanned as one?

Example: 13 PART_S: Scan PART_S, <Tab>, Scan barcode for 1, <Tab>, Scan bardcode for 3, <Tab>, Enter... (And VALUE(A1&B1&C1&D1) in Excel)

OR 13 Part_S: Scan PART_S, <Enter>, Scan PART_S, <Enter>.... (And COUNTIFS in Excel)

unknown

We bought generic Samsung tablets and then connect the LS2208 guns off the floor to do the scanning. We use a cheap app called XScan Pet. It records the barcodes from our travellers and then the operator types in the count. Each file has about 500 records that we manually combine into one and compare it with Visual's inventory. We calculate our shrink reserve to true up the balance sheet and then investigate the missing parts in the system over the coming quarter. Generally a good percentage turn up so we don't do the inventory adjustments at the initial counting. Also, the fact that Visual can't back date a physical count to the end of the prior period has kept us from using it.

BMS has a helpful app for inventory that we have used for several years and it includes the functionality your are looking for regarding physical inventory: bms365.com/.../

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