We see them as black vertical lines with numbers under it and they are printed or pasted on almost everything we buy or purchase. These black vertical lines are called barcodes. Barcodes are an optical machine-readable representation of information or data that relates to the object where it is printed or attached.
Modern computer systems can scan and read the barcodes better than optically reading letters and numbers. Modern optical readers and the computer systems can read barcodes at any angle. In the manufacturing industry, the barcode is used to control the manufacturing line or production process and it plays a very important role in the supply and demand, transport of products and distribution to the customer. The barcodes keep tabs on the product as they are being produced, manufactured and progress down the production line. In retail shops an supermarket, the barcodes that you see on the packaging are used by POS systems to keep track of sales and inventory.
Barcodes have also reduced human errors and increased productivity when it was implemented in business processes, manufacturing and other industries. It automated the process, making data entry more accurate and faster. Primary barcodes enhanced document tracking and increased productivity.
How Can Barcodes Increase Your Profits?
Now that we have a basic understanding of how barcodes work , here are six ways your business can take advantage of using barcodes.
1. Barcodes can track inventory. Barcodes are designed to work with modern Point of Sale systems (POS). Barcodes can track your business inventory, it can tell you where the items are located or if there are enough stocks of any particular item. A basic inventory tracking setup usually consists of of a POS software, a portable barcode scanner and a computer. You just have to scan the barcode to reduce the available count your inventory data stored in your database. This makes your work easier, faster and more efficient. Another example is when you buy groceries and items are scanned at the checkout counter, every item that was scanned are subtracted from the total number of products in your database. This way you can track how many are sold, what item needs to be replenished and what items are doing poorly.
2. Adding barcodes to your assets. A business no matter how big or small will have assets that include fixed or electronic assets. Items can include computers, projectors, software, hardware, tools, office equipments and furniture. Tagging these items will save you time in tracking if a particular equipment is still within possession, which item is already sold or checking if any equipments are missing or lost. This will make auditing and accountability easier.
3. Adding a shadow book on your business. This is mostly applicable for retail business and retail stores. Small items like nails or screws or any perishable goods like vegetable and fruits are not produced for barcode labels. To keep the checkout counter moving as fast as possible, you need a barcode scan sheet where a list of small or single items are listed with their corresponding barcodes. Say a customer bought an apple or a watermelon to the register, you can just use your cheat sheet, scan and receive the payment form the customer.
4. Adding barcodes to invoices. If you send out invoices to your customers, you should add a barcode that represents the customer information such as their phone number or an individual invoice number so that when the invoices are returned with payment, you will be able to find the customer’s account, information or invoice number. This will prevent payments to be applied to the wrong customer or wrong account.
5. Adding barcodes in a mail merge. If you’re hosting an event, you can barcodes to the invitation or RSVP card to keep track who’s coming and who’s not. This will save you from reading an unreadable handwriting.
6. Add barcodes in return mail. If your retail store sells products that require any type of registration, then adding a barcode to the return mail registration postcard that matches the product’s information or serial number will keep it simple and streamlined. You can quickly tack the registered serial numbers and which ones are not.
Primary Barcodes are not just black vertical bars that doesn’t mean anything. Use this system for a more systematic, profitable, efficient and faster service. Business values such as these will surely be noticed by your customers and will make them more loyal to you and will put more value to your products and services