software inventory

[juh]

Hello. I really enjoy this forum 'coz I learn a lot. I'm just wondering if anyone can suggest a good software for the inventory of our equipment. Thank you!

 

[CocaCola]

Microsoft Office, or one of the many other office suites that has spreadsheets or the likes...

 

[juh]

uhm. how about something enabled with barcode? something like that.

 

[(*steve*)]

I've written my own program to update an inventory spreadsheet using a barcode scanner.

Simple, but it works.

Also not generic enough to hand out.

 

[CocaCola]

Google

Or as Steve suggested if you have programming skills it's not all that complicated to make your own system, especially if you use an existing scripting and database backend like PHP, ASP and SQL...

 

[juh]

I'm not good at programming. I searched already. I found a lot. I'm just wondering if anyone can suggest a good software. Which among those available in the market is the best.

 

[CocaCola]

If it was me and I was going to purchase a system I would use Microsoft Office and get one of the many barcode reader suites that interface seamless to the MS Office suite... I would do it this way because MS Office is the defacto compatible file format so as time passes it will make potential upgrades easier vs trying to dump/convert a proprietary database... It also make deployment easy since most offices and companies already have the office suite up and running...

I have to ask how much equipment are we talking about and how often is it inventoried? Because pencil and paper is tried and true as is manual entry if the count is low and inventory is only done every so often...

You can also consider low cost mobile platforms like Android tablets, the camera on most devices is quite suited to barcode scanning...

Consider an Android App like this for $2.49 cents and an Android phone or tablet and you are golden... {{Not a recommendation, just a Google hit}}

 

[juh]

I've found one that uses the Microsoft Office Access. I think its ok but it is so hard to understand. I have a lot of parts and equipment to manage and we update it almost everyday that's why we prefer something that's barcode enabled.

 

[CDRIVE]

I'm sure that bar code scanners have changed quite a bit over the years but the most basic forms I've encountered would have to be the Keyboard interface models. They use either a direct plug in to the keyboard (PS-2) port or a 'Y' adapter to share the port with the keyboard. Data from the scanner is printed directly to any Text Editor that has the computer's focus. In other words no interface program or drivers are needed for this.

Chris