Anyone have barcode advice?

[Chaiyz]

I've owned and operated a computer repair shop for almost 3 years. In the beginning, I had special tags printed that we attached to customer computers and gave them a slip that was perferated and tore from the bottom of the tag. Later, I gave up on preprinted tags and bought them in bulk and purchased an HP laserjet printer to print them as I used them. Then the tax man showed up and I wound up going to a quickbooks POS. This still left problems tracking customer computers so I started an excel spreadsheet and that's how we track them right now. Customer brings in computer, I open a new excel doc, add cu info, print 2 docs, one with tape on computer/laptop and one to customer, we handwrite labels on laptop psu's. Well, this system just doesn't work for me anymore. I can't really justify the ammount of paper I seem to waste and I know there must be a better way to track customers, computer as well as my inventory. Don't get me wrong, I'm a small shop and using quickbooks POS v4 doesn't exactly lend itself to a repair shop.

So, what I'd like to do. I have a Dymo EL60 and I'd like to start using small printable barcode labels to track computers comming in and going out.

I'm surpised I didn't find a single software solution when I started looking into this and maybe I'm just missing it.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Chaiyz

 

[TsunamiJuan]

are you looking to just generate your own barcodes? or are you looking for a complete solution that will generate and track them for you?

little more info about exactly what your looking to do might be helpful here. Cause as far as generating barcodes and scanning them in its pretty simple to implement into other software as an addon.

Keep in mind what type of barcode you want to use aswell, if your using one of the more standard barcode formats, or if your going for the new 3d, multicolor, and some of the other advanced formats out their, that allow for a larger array of information, like letters, and numbers.

Most hand held scanners that you can buy these days for the cheap support the common formats but do not support the advanced ones. Just simple black white, and lines. Which for most people is more than enough.

heres also an interesting piece of open source software for generating barcode images aswell. http://www.sizledcore.com/2010/04/open-source-barcode-encoder-and-image-generator/. This should allow you to at least play around with getting started with with generating the images required, and possibly get you on the right track for what your looking for.

 

[blueskysinger]

about barcode generator

I suggest you to download a barcode generator first to have a try. There are many companies sell barcode scanners nowadays. Maybe, you can buy one online. I have brought one Barcode Generation for ASP.NET and it works well. This company can also provide you with some free online barcode generator, you may have a try someday.

 

[479511]

Here is a linear/1D barcode generator available. Take a look!