Barcoding

The barcode field on the products form is loaded with a copy of the product code by default. This is done for companies that wish to use barcode entry facilities but do not have pre-barcoded items for sale. Normally where barcoding is being done within your company (ie. you are producing barcode labels of your own to place on shelves or products) the product code is quite adequate as a barcode identifier. It requires no extra work or worry over unique numbering.

If however you are selling products that already possess barcodes you will wish to enter these codes to the relevant field on the products screen. Once this is done the document entry screens will accept either the standard internal product code or the products barcode. Note that user input searches for the standard product code first and that barcode device input searches the barcode field first. This minimises the chance of locating the wrong product should a barcode for one product duplicate the product code of another. The barcode field is thirteen characters long (to allow for international UPC coding) whereas the product code field is ten characters. We advise that if you are dealing with external barcodes that have the potential to duplicate your internal coding then try to make the length of the codes different (eg. if the barcodes are nine characters long use eight or less characters for your internal product code).

If you intend to make use of the Product Import facility offered by Acumen you may need to consider using the barcode field as the suppliers product ID. See the next section for details.