For some businesses, embedding data onto a barcode--price, weight, SKU/PLU, quantity--on a barcode is vital to ensuring the right price is charged for the right amount of product.  Particularly common in delicatessens, any business selling weighted or bulk items can benefit from embedded barcodes.

Enabling Embedded Barcodes

1. Find barcode settings option on register

Navigate to Back Office > Settings > General > Barcode Settings. Tap on it.

2. Enable Embedded Barcodes

In the Barcode settings option, at the top level you need to enable “Embedded Barcodes”.  When enabled, the register will look for the identifier at the start of the barcode to determine if this barcode includes embedded data or not.

Setting Up Barcode Structure

1. Identifier

The identifier is used to distinguish whether a barcode has embedded information or not.  Many scales allow for affixing one or more digits at the beginning of generated barcodes. Once you configure your scale with one or more digits, input them into Identifier field. If you wish to include multiple values, use commas to separate them.

2. Format

Different barcodes contain different length of digits for values.  Configure your desired barcode format into talech. View the format structure in "Sample Barcode Format" section.

3. Determine Quantity By

If quantity is not included in barcode, talech can calculate the quantity sold if you choose.

1. Do not determine quantity (always 1): if barcode contains price or sku, always default to quantity 1
2. Price: use price and divide based on product base price. A $1 base-weighted item is scanned at the terminal with a barcode that reads $2. Therefore, the item is 2x the base weight. The $1 item will ring in as having a quantity of 2.
3. Weight: weight of product is quantity, regardless of price.

Important note regarding Socket Mobile scanners and Elo scanners: Socket scanners are unable to scan EAN-13 barcodes with leading zeros and therefore, the Operating System has no way to recognize a UPC-A label from an EAN-13 label beginning with a zero.  

Our current recommended workaround is to replace the leading zero of all EAN-13 codes to a flag number 1-9. This will enable the external reader to scan the leading identifying number, which the iPad camera scanner will also be able to scan.