I am thinking to use a barcode-reader in connection with Manager-software. We have a retailshop with a lot of items on stock and it would be easier for us to handle this with a barcode-reader.
Is this possible in Manager ? Does someone have experience with this ? What type of barcode-scanner works good, or is there no difference ?
Manager currently doesn’t have that feature . I am very sure that with time Lubos will program it to accept bar code functionality. It inevitable because barcoding is used by many retail companies to manage inventory and if Manager is going to grow that will have to be included.
How early this will be implemented depends on the volume of work to be done to add the feature and the number of requests from users.
A barcode reader is similar to keyboard entry so it will most likely work OK… provided you have the cursor focused on the look-up field. For example if you are creating a Sales Invoice make certain the cursor is active say in the “Item” field. Scan the barcode and the field will be populated with your scanned code, which will identify and find your scanned product. For this to work though you will need to have inputted the product and prepared the “Invoice Items” or the “Inventory” etc with your barcode name structure so that the lookup items can resolve easily. Let us know how you get along.
Could this be part of the warehousing functionality Lubos is working on?
Hopefully yes but I would expect it to come later. Another thread requested the support for QR codes and scanning. This would be quite a jump ahead. Anyway lets see what the Inventory Module offers. I suspect if Lubos is not still on holiday he is working very hard on this and sub account features…
Sometimes I feel sorry for him, too much pressure. But he knows he is building Manager.io with us.
Ya I think that what Lubos needs is a panel of users who use his software to contribute ideas and feedback on what features to implement and why and more importantly how to integrate those features in a universal way. The problem at the moment is everyone is requesting different features and options and while many of them are good - they need to be assembled into the program in such a way as to be of universal benefit.
A panel of users who focus on particular modules like inventory or employee payments etc would be beneficial as not all modules are used by all businesses and that includes Lubos - his business would only use some of the modules so other modules he has to try and work out what the business needs to accomplish using any given module and thats hard if its a feature that you don’t actually use yourself.
Best way we could all contribute to Manager would be to have a development team developing a roadmap etc and actively contributing with suggestions of features and how to implement them universally for all businesses. Thats just my thoughts.
Barcode reading won’t be part of warehousing. Warehousing is strictly about tracking where inventory on hand is physically located.
I do agree with @compuit, barcode reader works the same as keyboard so Manager does support barcode reading in limited way.
Eventually there could be specialized POS screen which would be optimized for input using barcode readers.