Barcoding with Options

What does a company do if they want barcodes but do not want to be forced into using them 100% of the time just to keep their operations going? Some products are too small or too big to bother barcoding them. Each organization has unique processes, so barcoding software should be adaptive.

It’s often the case that some products may have labels while others don’t. One reason this might be is because it wouldn’t make sense to slap a barcode on very small items. Organizations that use products too small for barcodes might still be interested in implementing a barcode system for their bigger products.

Business leaders who are curious if scanning would speedup things might also be nervous to commit to a software that can do it. The good news is that barcodes as a supplemental process rather than a full blown scanning requirement is possible. Good barcoding software does not make it an all or nothing proposition. There are other ways to receive, pick, and shuffle products within an inventory software system. 

Another possible reason that a company might want barcodes but just not all the time is when they are moving hundreds of the same item at the same time. It would not be feasible to scan the same barcode hundreds of times if you’re picking/receiving a product in high quantities. There should be a way to scan one time and it count for the full quantity being picked or received. There should also be a way to not scan at all, since again, for many companies, the products are not labeled with barcodes. Sometimes it’s faster to simply use the touchscreen on your mobile device, or voice type to search for the item number by name or description you already know.

Another potential bad fit for barcodes is if the item you were going to scan is wrapped in a pallet or is too large. You’d either have to walk around it looking for the barcode or else place several labels on every side of the product. Again, this would defeat the purpose of using scanners in the first place, which is to simplify and quicken the moving of inventory.

So, if there’s no barcode, how do you scan it? In any field on any mobile device, the Flowtrac App always gives you the option to either scan, type, voice, or search and tap from a list in order to pull up the product you need to receive, move, and pick from inventory.

Each company is a little different in respects to how they could use barcodes. Some companies are best served by scanning all the time, putting barcode labels on everything which labels did not already exist. For them, printing out labels, equipping each employee with scanners, and never using the browser to move, add or decrement products is the best approach. 

Other companies only need their inventory partially barcoded. For them, they only would use barcodes in certain situations such as receiving products or picking products but not the other way around. Perhaps they only want to barcode their assets and not their consumables, only scanning inventory when they check in or out items to employees. 

Regardless of the case, the key to begin using barcodes is to choose a barcode software and app that will adapt to your processes, not the other way around. You don’t have to be stuck scanning when it doesn’t make sense to do so. However, that does not have to be a reason not to explore your options for inventory software that comes with barcoding software included, like Flowtrac. 

The Flowtrac App is barcode-enabled and QR-code enabled. But that doesn’t mean that if there’s no label to scan you can’t scan. You’ve got options!