Labels, barcodes and serial numbers

When there is no barcode

Plenty of goods arrive without one — loose stock, local brands, anything you pack yourself. You can generate and print your own.

Go to the labels screen, pick the products, say how many labels of each, and print. It works with a label printer, and it works with an ordinary printer on a sheet of many.

A label usually carries the product name, the price and the barcode. You can choose what goes on it — but keep the name and the price. A barcode-only label serves the machine and not the person, and a customer standing at the shelf who cannot find a price often leaves without asking.

When a price changes

Change the price and you have to change the label. A shelf price that disagrees with the till price starts an argument at the counter, and the shop usually loses that argument.

The habit that works: reprint that product's label the moment you change the price. It takes a minute, and "later" never arrives.

Serials and IMEI numbers

For phones, expensive equipment, or anything with a warranty, each individual unit matters — two handsets of the same model are not the same thing, because their serials differ.

Turn serial tracking on for those products. Then:

• On purchase, each unit's serial is entered.
• On sale, you pick which unit went out.
• The serial prints on the bill.

What it is really worth becomes clear six months later, when somebody comes back with a broken handset. Search the serial and you get the date it sold, the price, and whether it is still under warranty. Without it you are relying on the customer's account of all three.

Do not turn it on for everything. Serial-tracking soap slows the counter down and buys you nothing. Reserve it for goods that are expensive, carry a warranty, or are likely to come back.