In Vend, you are able to add multiple barcodes that can be scanned alongside the SKU (Stock Keeping Unit). These can be captured on Standard and Variant products, and used for scanning/selling and inventory management without sacrificing the ability to identify products internally using a SKU.
Supported barcode types:
Auto-generated: Vends automatically generated SKUs
Custom codes: any other code
EAN: European Article Number
ISBN: International Standard Book Number
ITF: Interleaved Two of Five
JAN: Japanese Article Number
UPC: Universal Product Code
A product SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) is typically the primary product code used for selling, inventory management, and customer-facing material such as receipts, labels and e-Commerce.
However products often have multiple codes used externally. Take a book for example, which may have a UPC, EAN and ISBN, as well as an internal SKU, on the one product.
Vend allows you to capture all these codes and scan them for the following tasks:
- Adding products to the Sell Screen
- Adding Products to Quick Key Setup
- Adding products to a Stock Order
- Receiving Stock
- Add/Edit Promotions
The first code captured in Vend forms the 'front of house' code found throughout Vend and on your receipts, labels and e-Commerce integration. The secondary codes are only visible on the Add Product and Edit Product pages.
This means you can scan different barcodes on the sell screen without making them visible to the customer, such as the UPC, or sacrificing the ability to identify products using the SKU.
By specifying what the code type is during the capturing process, Vend is also able to sync codes with third-party integrations that recognise different code types.
Standard products
1. Navigate to Products -> Products
2. Click Add Product; or locate an existing product and click Edit Product
3. Under Inventory you will find SKU Code Type and SKU Code
4. Select the SKU Code Type from the dropdown
5. Enter or scan the barcode into the SKU Code field
6. To add more codes, click Add Another Code
7. Repeat steps 4-6 until all codes are captured
8. Click Save
Variant products
1. Navigate to Products -> Products
2. Click Add Product; or locate an existing product and click Edit Product
3. Under Variants, click to expand the variant(s) you wish to add or edit codes on
4. Select the SKU Code Type from the dropdown
5. Enter or scan the barcode into the SKU Code field
6. To add more codes, click Add Another Code
7. Repeat steps 4-6 until all codes are added or edited
8. Click Save
Before beginning
It is important to note that while Vend supports bulk importing of multiple barcodes via CSV/XLSX, it does NOT currently support editing or exporting via CSV/XLSX.
We strongly recommend reading the below guide carefully and ensuring that all steps are followed accurately to prevent any errors occurring.
Once imported, the barcodes will need to be edited on an individual product basis within the Vend app. Refer to the Adding and editing multiple barcodes on a single product section above for instructions on how to do this.
You can now import multiple barcodes in bulk using CSV/XLSX! This allows you to quickly and easily capture multiple barcodes for each product across a large catalog.
To begin, navigate to Products -> Products
The first thing you'll need to do is export your current product catalog as a CSV/XLSX. You can either export your entire catalog, or a portion of it using the filters. Once you have identified and selected the desired products, click Export List and select CSV format or XLSX format
Open the downloaded CSV/XLSX file in Microsoft Excel, or use free spreadsheet software such as Google Docs, Open Office or Libre Office.
Important
Once open, you MUST delete all of the inventory columns (including their headers) to prevent unwanted changes to inventory levels when reimported.
Next you can add columns for each of the barcode types you wish to add to your products.
Vend can recognize EAN, ISBN, ITF, JAN, and UPC barcodes, as well as custom codes. Use the relevant column headers as follows:
- sku_code_upc
- sku_code_isbn
- sku_code_ean
- sku_code_itf
- sku_code_jan
- sku_code_custom
- sku_code_custom
Populate the cells with the relevant barcodes. Each product can have none, one or more of each barcode type. If the cell is left blank, the barcode type will simply be ignored for that specific product when imported.
Tip
To record a barcode other than the regular SKU as the primary code (which forms the 'front of house' code found throughout Vend and on your customer receipts), such as a ISBN or UPC, you can populate the code into its respective column and copy the same code into the sku column.
You can still record your regular SKU code against the product by inserting it into a custom code column instead.
When the CSV/XLSX has been completed, navigate back to Products -> Products and click Import.
Click Choose a File to Upload... and select the file you have just created. The CSV/XLSX validator will read all columns and assign them to the corresponding data fields within Vend.
If the validator detects any errors you will be taken to the column matching screen below. Here you'll be able to view any unmatched columns and fix them by selecting the correct column from the drop-down menu or clicking Don't Import to ignore the column.
When the unmatched columns have been matched or ignored, scroll down and click continue.
If no errors were identified, simply click Continue with Import
Once the import is complete, you will receive a notification stating "Your product import has completed. X records were added, X records were updated and X were ignored."
If any records were ignored, click View ignored products (CSV) to determine what needs to be corrected.
Your import will be successful if no records were ignored. You can now see the imported barcodes for each individual product on the Edit Product page.
Important
Your product Supplier Code will continue to be used in Stock Orders and will be be captured in the Supplier Code data field on the Add Product or Edit Product page.
The Supplier Code is still not scannable in Vend, however, you can add the Supplier Code as a Custom SKU Code Type for seperate scannable code in the Sell Screen.