Scanner + Insane Storeroom = Profit?

December 30, 2014 3:58 AM

I have a medium business-sized storeroom filled with all kinds of boxes, those with brands and those with nothing but a barcode, as well as hundreds of unboxed but mostly barcoded items which have seemingly drifted into each others' plastic bins like nosy tumbleweeds. They're organized more by what fits onto what shelf than any like-to-like sensibilities. It's exhausting just walking in there. I also have a TaoTronics TT-BS016 scanner, which is basically a glorified but faster-than-moi number typist.

So, I'm trying to solve this labyrinthian tetris-vomit efficiently, but having trouble figuring out what software I should use. Yes, the scanner dumps numbers into my Mac's Open Office spreadsheet easily (which I'm unable to directly import into but will rather have to convert to Excel later), but what now?

I guess I'm hoping that there's some kind of....associative software out there somewhere. When I scan and type information for that item in once, I want the software to note those barcodes whenever I next scan them and fill in the information for me. Surely I don't have to retype 50 times that we have 50 thingymajigs of Blah-Blah brand which go for $$ ea. and so on.....right? I'm determined that technology can definitely, oh please god, help me with this somehow.

Thanks for any insight.

posted by DisreputableDog to Technology (4 answers total)

Best answer: What you are looking for is often called inventory software or asset tracking software. These terms may help you hone your Google-fu.
posted by Too-Ticky at 4:21 AM on December 30, 2014

You could come up with some sort of organizing system in space (X,Y,Z), and assign positions as cells in the spreadsheet, and go through and fill everything out including the barcode, a brief description of contents.

Once you know what you have, you could reorganize if that is efficient, or just take this output and print out a copy to put on the door. If you can compress items to leave more free space, that is always a win.

Also print out some new barcodes to put on anything that has not already been catagorized. Stick that file on the fileserver, or a google doc read only for other people to search through.
posted by nickggully at 6:00 AM on December 30, 2014

Oh, and get some little unique sticker to mark that you have inventoried a box. Avery makes those little dot stickers. Heck, I bet you have some in one of those boxes right now ;)
posted by nickggully at 6:06 AM on December 30, 2014

Response by poster: Thanks!
posted by DisreputableDog at 6:56 AM on January 4, 2015