Barcode reading PDA advice!

[ASpencer]

My apologies if this is in the wrong place, not entirely sure where best this post would fit in.

I've been hunting for a solution to my problem, currently I offer a vending service in several towns over a large area. At present, on my ~monthly service visits to each of these towns, I will take cash, restock the machine and pay the site their commission and note down the site, date and takings. The towns are positioned a fair distance away from home so I aim to get to all the sites in the town within one day, this is proving difficult as I increase my clientele.

I've decided a simple handheld divice might save me some time. The plan is to stick a barcode within the machines and simply scan this to bring up the machine details and enter the takings. The date, location etc. will all automatically be brought up on the spreadsheet (or other) software. I'll then pay the client their commission on the next visit I make, allowing me to visit more sites in a day and deliver the exact money + a printed invoice the next time I visit. Ideally I should be able to transfer the spreadsheet onto a PC where I can automatically print out the invoices.

Does anyone have any knowledge on barcode reading handhelds and how I'd go about producing the software/spreadsheet for this?

Many thanks.

Andrew

 

[Delta-SI]

Well I still have one of these somewhere if it interests you?

 

[ASpencer]

haha, i like it.. dunno how much use it would be for the purpose in mind though!

 

[NCA]

Well the simpilest solution is to buy a PDA with a barcode scanner built in. There are quite a few on the market at various price levels. You can even get ones which are also mobile phones. Symbol do a combined phone/pda/scanner called the MC35.
Whats quite important is you get one where the scanner can be setup to emulate a keyboard wedge. This effectivley means you dont have to develop an interface between the scanner and the software as the scanner emulates keyboard input.

As for developing software your application sounds reasonably simple. You should be able to get away with something like MobiForms (www.mobiforms.com) You dont need any programming knowledge to use this as its just dragging and dropping boxes to make your form up. It will integrate with an MS Access databse which you can link MS Excel to.

 

[paultnl]

Why use a scanner? The software mentioned would do the job and you could simply start it with machine number xxx.

 

[ASpencer]

Thanks very much NCA, just what I needed! I'll have a look around.

 

[scologic]

We specialise in barcode product, drop me an email and I can advise on best priced product for purpose..

Mark