Barcode setup

Barcode scanning in Bitta Retail POS uses the item barcodes you already keep in Business Central: a scan is first looked up as an Item Reference of type Bar Code, which also identifies the variant and unit of measure. Barcode rules on top of that read in-store labels that carry a weight or a price inside the barcode, such as deli and produce labels. This page shows how to set up both.

Prerequisites

• The BAA POS - Admin permission set.
• POS items mapped to Business Central items. See Item catalog setup.
• A scanner that types the barcode followed by Enter, the usual keyboard-wedge setup. See Barcode scanning.

Set up scanning

1. Open POS Setup and, on the Advanced Settings FastTab, turn on Enable Barcode Scanning. While it is off, the register hides its scan box and answers a scan with "Barcode scanning is turned off in POS Setup." The demo data turns it on.

2. Give every sellable item an Item Reference in Business Central: on the item card open Item References, add a line with Reference Type Bar Code and the barcode in Reference No., and fill Variant Code and Unit of Measure when the barcode identifies a specific variant or pack size. References outside their Starting Date and Ending Date are ignored.
3. If you sell weighed or price-labeled goods, open Barcode Setup from the Catalog menu of the Bitta Retail POS Admin role center. POS Barcode Setup List shows the rules. If it is empty, choose Create Default Barcode Setups.

4. Open a rule on the POS Barcode Setup Card and adjust it to your labels, as described under Barcode rules.

5. Scan a test label at a register and confirm the right item, variant, quantity and price land on the line.

The demo T-shirt shows the Item Reference pattern: its Small, Medium and Large variants carry the references 2000000000091, 2000000000105 and 2000000000114, so a scan adds the right size directly.

How a scan is resolved

The register tries these sources in order and stops at the first match:

1. Item Reference. The full scan is looked up as an active Item Reference of type Bar Code. The POS item is the active POS item mapped to that Business Central item, and the variant and unit of measure come from the reference.
2. Barcode rules. Active barcode rules try to parse the scan. A rule that matches extracts an item code and, if configured, a weight or quantity and a price. The item code is then looked up as an Item Reference.
3. POS item fields. The scan is compared with the Barcode field of the POS items, and then the item code with POS Item No.
4. No match. The register shows "No POS item matches barcode ... Try again, or ask a manager to add the item."

An Item Reference match stops with a clear message instead of guessing when the setup is ambiguous: when two active references share the barcode, when no active POS item is mapped to the referenced Business Central item, when more than one is, or when the reference's unit of measure does not exist for the item.

Barcode rules

Create Default Barcode Setups on POS Setup, on the list or on the card creates three rules. The setup wizard creates the same rules when Create Starter Barcode Rules is selected, which is the default, and no barcode rule exists yet. Existing codes are never overwritten.

Code	Barcode Type	Item Type	Structure
STANDARD	Code 128	Regular (Piece)	13 characters, no prefix: item code in positions 1 to 12, check digit in 13.
WEIGHTED	EAN-13	Weighted (by kg/lb)	Prefix 2, item code in positions 2 to 6, weight in positions 7 to 11 with 3 decimals, check digit in 13.
PRICED	EAN-13	Regular (Piece)	Prefix 3, item code in positions 2 to 7, price in positions 8 to 11 with 2 decimals, check digit in 13.

The card groups the fields as General (Code, Description, Barcode Type, Item Type, Active), Barcode Structure (Barcode Length, Prefix, Check Digit Position), Item Code Configuration, Quantity/Weight Configuration and Price Configuration (start position, length and decimal places for each), and Testing (Sample Barcode, Notes).

A rule matches only when the scan has exactly the Barcode Length, starts with the Prefix (if any) and, with a Check Digit Position, carries a valid EAN-style check digit. Quantity and price digits are divided by 10 to the power of their decimal places, so 01250 with 3 decimals is 1.250. An embedded weight becomes the line quantity, and for a Sold by Weight item also its gross weight; an embedded price replaces the line's unit price. Rules are tried in Code order and the first match wins, so give overlapping formats different prefixes.

The item code a rule extracts must equal an Item Reference of type Bar Code on the Business Central item, or the POS Item No., for the scan to find the item. For a scale label that encodes a five-digit item number, add that number as an Item Reference.

Test a rule

Test Sample Barcode on the card parses Sample Barcode and shows the item code, quantity and price; Test All Barcode Setups on the list tests every active rule. Generate Sample Barcode builds a sample from test values but does not compute a check digit. The samples on the default rules do not pass their own rules either (the STANDARD sample has 12 digits, and the WEIGHTED and PRICED samples fail the check digit), so test with a real label from your scale or label printer. To print shelf and barcode labels for POS items, use the Item Labels report; see Print shelf labels and All POS reports.

What's next

Decide how the register looks and what it shows: Touch screen layout.