Using barcodes on products and barcode scanners for warehouse processes makes these processes faster and more accurate. Once inventory items have attached barcodes, then, for instance, when issuing the product from the warehouse, you can open a corresponding document and scan the barcodes to add to document the correct items and enter the correct quantities of the items.

Setting up the functionality

To turn on the functionality of barcodes, open the Administration > Settings > Purchasing and Warehouses form and select the Enable Barcodes for Items option. 

Note. In FirstBIT ERP, only 1D barcodes are supported. 1-D barcodes, by default, include item code, characteristic, batch, UOM, and serial number.

Using the Administration > Master Data > Peripherals form, set up connection to barcode scanners and label printing scales. For details, refer to Adding a Barcode Scanner.

Assigning barcodes to items

For purchased items, you can decide whether you want to use manufacturer (external) barcodes or generate new ones. When using external barcodes, you may encounter barcode duplicates, assigned to different units of product or even to different products. If you generate new internal barcodes in FirstBIT ERP, duplicates are excluded.

If the organization decided to use new barcodes, you can manually create barcodes for items or generate them automatically.

Notice that you need to assign barcodes to items using the following rules:

• For items for which serial numbers and batch numbers are not used, you can use the same barcode for all units of the item.
• For serialized items, you need to decide whether barcodes will include serial numbers or all the items will have the same barcode. If you decide to include the serial numbers in barcodes, generate barcodes simultaneously with serial numbers; barcodes will be assigned on per unit basis.
• For items which come in batches, you also need to decide whether you need to track batch numbers with barcodes or not. If barcodes should include batch numbers, you need to specify a batch number when generating barcodes; the same barcode is assigned to all units of one batch. 

To actually assign barcode(s) to a specific item, locate the Sales > Master Records > Items form, select this item, open its master record, click Item Barcodes link on the top of the form. The Item Barcodes form opens. Initially, the list of barcodes is empty.

Manually Creating a Barcode

To manually create barcodes for the selected item, click Create on the toolbar.

The Item Barcodes form with the Item Barcodes (create) dialog box

In the Item Barcodes (create) dialog box, specify the UOM and, if applicable to this item, characteristic, batch, or serial number.

The Item Barcodes (create) form

Click the Generate Barcode button or type the digits of the required barcode in the Barcode field.

Automatically Generating Barcodes

To automatically generate barcodes for the selected items, click Generate Barcodes on the toolbar. The Barcode Generator form appears.

The Barcode Generator form

To generate barcodes for the selected items, do the following:

Create filter for items for which barcodes should be generated as follows:

1. Include the condition that barcode is not yet assigned (select the Empty Barcode check box).
2. Select specific items (by using the Equal to condition) and group them in OR Group.
3. Select items from specific folders by using the In List or Not in List conditions and group then in OR Group.
4. Click Fill on the toolbar - this populates the list of items in the lower part of the form based on the applied filters. You can review the list and remove some of the particular items.
5. Click Generate Barcodes on the toolbar. The resulting barcodes appear in the Barcode column in the lower part of the form. You can print them on special labels.
6. If you will use label printing scales in the store, click Upload to Peripherals – the item list with barcodes will be loaded to the connected equipment.

The generated barcodes can be printed using the Sales > See Also > Print Labels and Tags service tool and a label printer. Then, you need to attach the printed labels to units of the items.

Using barcodes when issuing or transferring items

You can use barcodes and barcode scanners for counting the items to be moved or issued from warehouses with the following documents: Proforma Invoice, Customer Order, Invoice, Consignee Report, Credit Note, Invoice Received, Inventory Receipt, Debit Note, Requisition, Goods Receipt Note, Inventory Write Off, Inventory Reserve, Inventory Reconciliation, Goods Dispatch Note, Transfer Order, Transfer Order Adjustment, Inventory Transfer, Production Order, Subcontractor Reports, and Employee Expense Reports. Also, barcodes and barcode scanners can be used when working with POS. 

Open the Inventory tab in the work document, turn on the connected barcode scanner and scan the barcodes of the items. The system will respond as follows:

• For a first-time read barcode, the system adds a new line with the item and its quantity.
• If such barcode has already been read, the system increases the quantity in the existing line.

Thus, the list of items with their quantities will be generated automatically.

Also, if the scanner cannot read a particular item barcode or you want to add some item by its barcode, you can use the Search by barcode button on the toolbar or F7 on the keyboard to open the Enter Barcode dialog box.

The Enter Barcode dialog box

In the dialog box, type all the digits of the barcode, and the system will add either the line if the items is new or will increase the item quantity if the item already is in the list. 

If the barcode number is not found in the database, the system will open the New Barcode Registration dialog box.

The New Barcode Registration form

Here you can add new barcodes for the items and click the Move into Document button to add the items to the Inventory list in the work document.