Barcode Integration

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Posted on by Community Member Microsoft Employee

Hello, I work for an electrical supply distributor in the stockroom. Our twice yearly inventory is coming up and before that we want to try and impliment a barcode system. I've been asked to do it for as cheap as possible, and nothing that uses a subscrition service. I have found a bunch but I was wondering if anyone in the community has some low cost software that will allow us to implement barcodes while also connecting to GP(Doesn't have to do it through GP, an outside app is fine. As long as the information can connect).

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mm123 2,535 on at

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RE: Barcode Integration

Darren, We have a received a similar request from our client to create barcodes & Integrating with GP for stock management , currently they are using excel to track the stocks & they are expecting a simple low cost solution to automate the process. We working on a simple external application outside GP to address this, if you are interested please drop an email to learn more.

samr(at)expsoltech(dot)com
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Beat Bucher GP Gee... 28,021 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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RE: Barcode Integration

Great,

So what you're looking for is really a true Warehouse management solutions, to track your stock and the shipping..

Unless you're ready to code something yourself, which I don't recommend, it's not going to be an easy task.

I've done it many years back in a larger manufacturing company that had a 200'000 sqft wharehouse and was shipping 600-800 units a day with truck loads (TL or LTL). The application was written in MS Access and we used to print bar-code labels to identify serial numbers on the finished products, so it was easier to track the move of the goods within the different WH locations. The application was not integrated into GP as the company found the serialization module (lot & Serial tracking) too cumbersome to use, and didn't wanted to go that route.

Bare-codes fonts and API's are relatively easy to find on the net for free or very few $$, but you have to do all the integration work.

Again, have a discussion with your managemement on how much you're willing to spend on this and go down the route of self-developped toos. The big thing with that is that it may cost very few in hard cash, but you may end up spending more money on it later, especially when the person that developped the tools/apps leaves the company or is gone...
Community Member Microsoft Employee on at

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RE: Barcode Integration

Hello Tim,

I know that buying cheap software/hardware isn't a really great solution. Unfortunately I'm told that I don't have "Much money to work with". That being said, what we want is a system that will allow us to more easily input incoming stock, put it in bins and scan it out so that we can have a more comprehensive idea of what is coming and going. Your blog post has a lot of very good suggestions that I think I can rework into a pitchable plan, Thank you very much.
Community Member Microsoft Employee on at

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RE: Barcode Integration

Hello Beat,

We sell the parts and equipment that electrical contractors use in their day to day. We are a distribution company and so we don't have any manufacturing that we have to worry about, but we have a high frequency of stock flowing in and out of the store. Right now the input into GP is working fine, but it can be cumbersome with a lot of stock moving around. We are looking for a system to easily input incoming stock, get it into the bins, and scan it out when it leaves.
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Tim Wappat 5,701 on at

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RE: Barcode Integration

I've written a blog post about the common barcode solutions for GP, you might find helpful, but it sounds like you want something ultra low cost that is mostly self contained, presumably only for stock counts? Whereas most of the "solutions" are much more than this in functionality and cost, as the companies need them to have a higher margin available to them from the product, in order for the company to be sustainable.

http://www.timwappat.info/post/2016/06/23/List-of-Warehouse-Management-System-(WMS)-like-software-for-Microsoft-Dynamics-GP

It may be that you want to look into something home brew and if I read your post right, perhaps that is where you are coming from on this post. So question may be, has anyone cobbled together something sketchy that kind of works and is passable as a starting point to make inventory capture easier.

I know there are generic apps out there that can be used with tablets/phones and barcode readers to read into Google sheets or similar using in built cameras or barcode readers, leaving the integration up to you but I can't give any specific advice on this.

Note that the performance of this non-dedicated barcode hardware solution tend to suck, for anything more than casual scanning.

Tim.
Beat Bucher GP Gee... 28,021 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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RE: Barcode Integration

Hi Darren

This seems rather a broad question.. what exactly do you intend to cover with the BarCodes. ?

Are you looking for a solution to process an annual stock count from your inventory and want to identify all your items & bins ? Or are you looking more for a complete Warehouse management solution to track consumption of your raw material and processing ?

Thanks for providing more details.