Summary
This article discusses good vs bad barcoding software. Good inventory software comes with sophisticated barcoding capabilities; bad inventory software can be too simplified. You should get to choose your own barcode.
Barcoding
Find an inventory software package that includes a very adaptable ability to create and use barcodes. Here’s one tip that might help you in your search: good inventory management systems are equipped to both generate barcodes as well as incorporate existing barcodes. Bad software systems don’t have barcoding or have limited functionality.
What to Look for
A good barcoding software system is able to generate the barcode characters for each product but also allow you to make up your own. In an inventory system, you will have a list of your products, each one having its own barcode. You don’t want to have to make up random numbers for barcodes, so a good barcoding system will be able to create the numbers automatically.
However, you also want to make sure you do not reinvent the wheel wherever a barcode number or product number already exists. You can use that. Therefore, a good barcode generator will be able to make barcodes in both ways: it can create numbers, but it can also let you pick the numbers whenever it makes more sense to do so.
Bad inventory software does not meet these requirements. For example, some inventory apps are so simplified that they were not made to incorporate barcode scanning in the first place. You might run into these on your smartphone app store. They are cheap if not free to download. The best thing to do is check for barcoding capabilities, assuming barcode scanning is or could be your goal for better inventory management.
Another pitfall some inventory software has when it comes to barcoding is that you must either use the barcodes you already have or you must create all new barcodes, but not both. If it’s likely that you are going to manufacture, recreate, or rebrand your inventory, you will likely need a software more like Flowtrac’s, which lets you assign barcodes as needed.
Summary
Barcoding software should be included in your inventory management software. As you shop for barcodes, think about the flexibility you need in what they barcodes are. Choosing your own barcode should be part of the fun of new inventory software.