Tracking inventory with barcode scanners

[suklee]

I'm starting to import & sell computer parts / computers. How do I keep track of inventory, buying / selling prices etc.?

I'm going to need a barcode scanner to scan each product's serial number - need to include this on sales invoices for warranty purposes. I already have a Woocommerce site set up and it'd be nice if everything was integrated into one site. Googled 'woocommerce inventory management' and got tons of hits and have no idea where to start!

Prefer something low-cost (or free) to start. Any suggestions?

 

[Scarpozzi]

I'm posting for kicks, but have no solid answers. Typically the key to inventory control is to have a database in-house that has your product UPC codes in a table...then you have another table that probably has the pricing information, condition or quantity...

There are tons of inventory control systems, but you don't want to store codes for all products, it'd be way too big and your searches would be pretty slow for no reason (I know you'll have indexes, but why have entries you'll never use). If you have a scanner, you can always scan, identify, and enter your own to build your own DB from scratch, but that will be time consuming. There are some free online databases containing products, but they are probably slow to respond and your system would either have to be hosted or use someone's API to use their data. It would be some coding to make it work and then if that company goes under, you'd be back to step 1 if you don't save the data locally anyway.

You see a lot of people with inventory control come up with their own DB numbers and they have their own product codes to keep shifting manufacturer codes under control too. It's something to consider. (same product, new UPC code) If you create a relational DB, think about that slight product revisions and how you'll handle them so you don't end up with duplicates in your system.

You could perhaps use one of those online resources to lookup data and copy it to your DB through php/mysql and update your database with the info without typing....use the local copy of harvested data and join that with another local table with your specific item details and allow multiple UPCs to be tied to one local item number. The initial product input would likely need to be relatively manual though to make sure you aren't getting the extra junk you don't need.

 

[KentState]

When I worked on WMS (warehouse management systems) in the past, typically we used an internal tracking number for each piece or multi-pack and associated a sku to that code. From there, the order management system would work together with the sku table and inventory and use something like a FIFO or another method to determine which tracking number to associate to an order. I'm sure to start, you can look at something like Quickbooks. Unfortunately, I've never dealt with a small business solution.

 

[suklee]

Thanks guys, I found http://wcpos.com/ which I'll take a stab at.

Edit: the above hasn't been updated in months. This looks like a much better bet: https://codecanyon.net/item/woocommerce-point-of-sale-pos/7869665