Barcodes

RentControl supports two kinds of scanners from a variety of manufacturers:

• A keyboard wedge scanner is a hand-held scanner that may be wireless or wired. If wired, it attaches to your PC using a keyboard port. (It sits between your keyboard and the PC, but does not disable the keyboard.) The wireless varieties have different ranges depending on price. A hand-held scanner is very easy to use: Simply click in the field that will accept the barcode number and point the scanner at the barcode. Most wedges are activated simply by picking them up. And, they are fairly inexpensive.

A hand-held scanner saves time and promotes accuracy. You can create an order by simply scanning the barcodes of the items being rented. If the items are not within reach of the scanner, RentControl can produce a printed copy of your inventory with barcodes so you have the barcodes to scan. When an order is returned, you merely scan the items that came back. RentControl checks them in and lets you know if any are missing or any didn't belong to the order. You can also use a hand-held scanner to tag inventory items or reconcile inventory making both processes quick and accurate.

• Radio-frequency identification (RFID) applies an RFID tag to an asset for the purpose of identification and tracking using radio waves. Tags are small, durable (they can be attached to linen and will withstand washing), and can be read from several meters away. Tagging assets with RFID tags is not dissimilar from barcoding, but has advantages over barcoding. One being that RFID tags can be read without having to visually locate the tag. This makes them useful for reading all the tags in a plastic bag or laundry basket full of linens, for example. If the linens were barcoded, each barcode would have to be individually scanned. Another benefit to RFID is that special readers will read many tags at a time which can make processing returns easier.

RFID UHF Readers like TSL's 1128 can read multiple tags at a time from a fairly generous distance and a decently wide area. The 1128 uses BlueTooth technology, which comes standard on many of the new PCs and tablets. But if the machine doesn't support BlueTooth natively, dongles are very inexpensive ways of providing BlueTooth access. RFID technology is especially useful when tags are not easy to see or when lots of tags are jumbled together.

RentControl has built-in facilities for working with RFID-tagged items:

• You can put items into inventory either by scanning each item's RFID tag or by adding a number of items to inventory and asking RentControl to add RFID numbers to each according to a specified sequence.
• You can assemble an order by reading RFID-tagged items.
• You can check in an order by reading the RFID-tagged items.