Barcode scanning of inventory items

If barcode scanning is not enabled for your shop, get in contact with support@sharefox.no.

Why barcode scanning?

Take control of your inventory and save time and unnecessary work with a barcode inventory system, which is much more efficient in the long run. A barcode can be used as a unique identifier of your equipment and can automatically assign products to orders.

With barcodes you can:

• Decrease human errors. Avoid mistyping and reduce  human error with barcodes
• Easy Inventory control. If your inventory items have a unique barcode label that can be easily scanned, you can improve your inventory tracking, have an effective maintenance with usage notifications etc
• Easy pickups. When a customer rents a product, you can scan the barcode and take it out of your available inventory records immediately and assign it
• Easy returns. Will make the process of product return much faster. Instead of manually searching for the customer or the order, you can just scan any product and it will find the correct order
• It saves time. If you have a big the inventory in your warehouse, you and your employees will save time, as you reduce time spent on keying in inventory, searching orders, allocating inventory to orders in your daily work
• It’s cost effective. Overall, it can improve you and your teams productivity

How it works:

The barcode can be allocated to a specific inventory item and used when adding a product to an order on for example pick up. It can be scanned again on return to automatically open the order in question so that the administrator can complete the return process.

The high level processes enabled by barcode scanning can be described as follows: 

How to choose and install a barcode scanner?

It is recommended that scanning is done using a barcode reader attached to the computer where the Sharefox site is open through USB. The connection can also be through a USB Bluetooth plug for the computer connected through Bluetooth to the barcode reader.  It is recommended to use  Linear Codes using the barcode types Code-128, Code-39 or Code-93. It should be possible to use any reader following these two guidelines. 

How to do: Inventory assignment

An item in the inventory can be assigned a barcode by scanning the barcode related. First step in creating a new item is to add the item under the specific product in the Inventory screen.

To identify different products within your inventory with a barcode, do the following:

• Click on inventory
• Select the desired product to which you want to assign a barcode and click on that product
• Make sure you see an inventory line. If you don't see the line, you can follow this link for a better explanation of how to add inventory (https://help.sharefox.no/article/164-how-to-enter-and-update-inventory)
• After following the article above, you should be able to see a line like this:

To add a bar code the user must click in the bar code field, where the current value is "Not assigned." A popup will appear, waiting for a scan of a barcode. 

Tip: If the pop-up does not show, then you are probably in edit-mode for this inventory item. To go out of edit mode, you have to save what is put of info on that inventory line, by pressing the checkmark icon (see the image below):

New!

Now you can also use your mobile device camera to scan for barcodes. Click "Open Camera", the camera of your device will open.You can now scan any barcode and once it is scanned it will be automatically assigned to the inventory.On Android devices, you can also use the "Flashlight".

Once an item is scanned the bar code ID will appear and the item can be saved

In the example below we have an item with a bar code assigned. 

Order packing: How to scan items on an order?

It is possible to automatically assign an inventory item to an order by scanning the item. After an order is created either through the Shop or through the Admin > Order screen the user can open the order an add the item.

In the example below the item has not been added to the order

To add the inventory item the user will click on the SCAN NOW button in the top right corner or the bar code icon on the item table or simply scan, as the barcode device is always listening on this page. 

If there are multiple items on an order matching a given product type the bar code icon on the Item table must be used, once per item that one wishes to scan. 

If an item has variant it is the bar code item on the item line of the variant that must be used.

Once the item is scanned it will be attached to the corresponding order line and fields Inventory ID and Barcode will be populated.

Note that the item status changed to " Packed." The item can be added by scanning at any point of the value flow until the Pick up delivery status.

It is also possible to replace an inventory item on the order by following the same process. Open an order where the item is allocated, scan the item and answer yes to the question on whether you would like to replace the product or not. 

Returns: How to scan items on delivery return?

Scanning an item while in the Order List page will open a modal screen showing the order which the item in question is connected to. The popup allows you to navigate to the order in question where it possible to complete the Return process of returning an item after the order is completed.

Change: How to change a product?

Single product: The customer can decide to change a scanned product/size. In order to change the product you have to follow 3 steps:

1. Cancel the existing product that is going to be switched from the delivery status

   

2. Add the new product

   

3. Scan it

From a package: If the customer decides to change a scanned product/size:

1. Click on the pen > Advanced changes

2. Select the new size > click update > press the "finish changes" button 

3. Scan the new unit 

If you are interested to enable the Barcode scanning feature, please contact info@sharefox.co.