Barcodes not always recognized

[HSSCandy]

Hi. We opened a candy store on Saturday. We have over 500 items for sale, all of which we painstakingly entered into Square for Retail. 

As we've been checking people out, some of these things just don't show up. Sometimes the same item would scan for one customer and not for another. Sometimes it would give us an inventory count and other times it wouldn’t.

Probably 80% of it had pre-existing barcodes. The rest (stuff we're making) we created our own. The issue happened in both cases, but more often on the pre-existing stuff.

Any idea what’s going on? Thank you!

[HC_Charlie · Accepted solution]

Hello @HSSCandy thanks for your post. I wish I had a solution for you; I've also experienced barcodes intermittently not scanning for me. I never stopped to try and trouble shoot. I share your frustration because I would spend a lot of time entering barcodes, and I'd get to an item that wouldn't come up with a scan...and I just knew I would have scanned it in originally. Hopefully another Seller will have a solution for you.

You could try the usual troubleshooting tips, like signing out/back in, rebooting. You could also try reinputting the barcode, but I know that's a ton of work especially when you already spent so much time. Oh...also maybe try resetting or rebooting the barcode scanner (if that is possible), consult your manual or Google your brand of scanner and see if there's a way to do, other than just plugging in out/back in.

[Candlestore]

@HSSCandy ;

As I see this is your first post let me welcome you to the Square Forum.

As far as scanning a barcode it all goes to how the Barcode is printed.  Was it printed within specs that your scanner can read?  Font? Size? Spacing? No other print or discoloration close to the barcode?  All these plus a damaged barcode can also related to readability.  

How to get Barcodes to read:

Make sure there is plenty of space around the barcode if needed.  This may be 1/32 of an inch or more.

Make sure the barcode is in a format the Scanner can read.

Move the scanner closer or farther away.  This sometimes helps with readability.

Hold the scanner straight with barcode.  Angels sometimes make it harder for the scanner to read.

What Scanner are you using?  Are there any updates you can install to the scanner?

Is the label on a Round surface that the scanner may only read part of the label?  Had this happening on small round bottles.

[rtfulk]

We run into this sometimes and I have been watching and testing and this is what I have figured out. We use Honeywell Voyager 1200g. If I slide the barcode under the scanner from the left or right, the scanner doesn’t scan the barcode. If I  insert the barcode in from the front of the scanner it scans it. My thinking is sliding it in from left or right the scanner is reading half the barcode. I hope this makes sense.