What's the best way to have a scale AND a barcode scanner interact with Microsoft Excel?

What’s the best way to have a scale AND a barcode scanner interact with Microsoft Excel?
I manage a restaurant, and I’ve tried to inventory the liquor on a weekly basis, but have a difficult time keeping up with it because it’s so time consuming. We outsourced an inventory company for a couple of months to handle it for us, but I realized they use the same inventory methods I do, except they’re not on-site all week and have little knowledge of the inner workings of the business. But they bang it out in record time.

I noticed the only difference between their method and mine was they had a laptop connected to a scale and a hand-held bar-code scanner, whereas I use a pen and paper. I’m pretty familiar with office and could probably set up the ground-work for a really solid system for inventory, and possibly expand beyond just liquor, but I don’t know how to interface these products (that I found cheap online) with Excel. Is there software available so I could:

1) Put the bottle on the scale
2) Scan the barcode
3) Move onto the next bottle.

I know this is a lot for one question – I was hoping for an expert.

Best answer:

Some barcode scanners come with software where they act like a keyboard. When you scan something, it would be the same as typing it in. The barcode scanner may even plug into the keyboard port. If you were to get a scanner like that, it would be a no brainer to use with Excel.

As far as the scale, you would need one with a USB or serial port interface. Then you would need some VB software to read the USB port. Do a google search to find “VB code read serial or USB port”.

Without knowing what products you are specifically looking at, that’s as close as I can answer. You might also try and looking on the manufacturer’s web site and see what type of software they might offer.

Tags: Barcode, best, Excel, interact, Microsoft, scale, Scanner, Whats

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