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Scanning is the fastest way to build a cart, and it is the only practical way to work a catalogue bigger than the 100 tiles the grid shows. This page covers the three ways to scan a product, and the separate trick of scanning a customer’s receipt.

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What you’re looking at

Scanning has no screen of its own — it is the till and the sales list, listening. On POS, the search card reads “Search or scan (name, generic, brand, barcode)…” with a camera button beside it whose tooltip is Scan barcode with camera. The camera opens the Scan medication barcode dialog — “Point the camera at the product barcode to add it to the cart.” — with Choose camera and a torch button. Nothing on the page indicates a handheld scanner is connected, because nothing needs to: a wedge scanner is picked up at page level whether or not a field has focus. On Sales the equivalent box reads “Search or scan receipt…” and its camera button is Scan a receipt barcode with the camera, opening Scan receipt barcode. A brand-new pharmacy can scan, but nothing will match: a barcode only resolves once it is saved on a catalogue entry, so a fresh workspace answers every scan with No medication matches that barcode.

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Three ways to scan

1

A handheld or countertop scanner

A keyboard-wedge scanner — the ordinary kind that behaves like a very fast typist — is picked up anywhere on the till page. You do not have to click into the search box first, and you should not: just point and pull the trigger.The till recognises a scan by the speed of the burst, so a code typed by hand is never mistaken for one. See Barcode scanners for setup.
2

The search box

Scan or type into “Search or scan (name, generic, brand, barcode)…” and press Enter. A value that looks like a code is treated as a scan; a value that looks like a name is treated as a search.
3

The camera

Select the camera button — Scan barcode with camera — beside the search box. The Scan medication barcode dialog opens: “Point the camera at the product barcode to add it to the cart.”Use Choose camera to pick a lens on a device with more than one, and the torch button to light a dark shelf.

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Make a product scannable

A product is only scannable once its barcode is saved on its catalogue entry. The inventory Add item sheet has a Barcode / UPC (optional) field with two helpers: Scan pack, which reads the code straight off the box, and Generate…, which mints an internal code for anything unbarcoded — a repackaged item, a local product, a bulk line you split yourself. Print shelf and pack labels from the inventory row action Print barcode label, which takes a Copies count. See Inventory.

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Scan a receipt to find a sale

On the Sales page, the same scanner pulls up a transaction. Scan the barcode at the bottom of a customer’s receipt into “Search or scan receipt…”, or use the camera button — Scan a receipt barcode with the camera — which opens Scan receipt barcode: “Point the camera at the barcode at the bottom of the receipt.”
  • A completed sale opens straight into its amendment sheet, ready for a return or a discount — see Returns, voids and amendments.
  • A sale in any other state opens its receipt instead, with a toast naming the state: Sale {number} is {status} — opening its receipt.
  • Anything that is not one of our receipts is refused with That barcode is not a ClinikEHR receipt.
An offline sale’s provisional slip carries no barcode, because its number does not exist on the server yet. Scan the reprinted receipt after the sale has synced. See Print and reprint receipts.

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Who can do this

Role decides where you can scan. A Cashier reaches POS and Sales, so both scan boxes are available to them; saving a barcode onto a product is not, because Inventory is not in their sidebar. Two behaviours surprise people:
  • Enforcement is opt-in, per person. A colleague never saved in the permissions sheet is unrestricted. The sheet warns “Saving starts enforcing”.
  • A denied action is recorded; an allowed one is not. Scanning a receipt is never refused; what the scan opens can be. Without Refund or void a sale the amendment sheet reads “Needs authorisation — amending a completed sale is reserved for your Pharmacist-in-Charge.”
See Staff permissions.

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Check it worked

  • A toast reads Scanned: {product name}, and the line is in the cart. The toast appears only when the product was actually added, so a refusal never looks like a success.
  • Scanning the same code again increases the quantity rather than adding a second line.
  • After a scan, focus returns to the search box ready for the next one.
If nothing matches, the toast reads No medication matches that barcode and the code is dropped into the search box so you can look for the product by name without re-typing it.

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Common issues

The code is not on any catalogue entry — you will have seen No medication matches that barcode. Find the product by name, open it in Inventory, and save the barcode on it with Scan pack.
That is deliberate. Wedge capture stands down while any dialog, menu or picker is open, and while you are typing in a field other than the search box, so a scan can never fire behind a screen you are reading. Close the dialog and scan again.
The webcam scanner only runs on a secure connection. Use your normal ClinikEHR address rather than a plain-HTTP or IP-address shortcut.
The browser is blocking the camera for this site. Allow it in the site permissions, then select Retry. On a shared counter machine, check the permission is not blocked at the operating-system level too.
There is no webcam attached, or another application has it open. Close the other application, or use a handheld scanner instead — it is faster at a counter anyway.
Something else on the page has focus and is swallowing the keystrokes. Select an empty part of the till once, then scan; the till is listening at the page level and does not need a field to be focused.

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FAQ

No. Any keyboard-wedge scanner — the ordinary kind that behaves like a very fast typist — works, handheld or countertop, corded or wireless. There is nothing to install. See Barcode scanners.
By the speed of the burst. A scanner delivers a whole code in a fraction of the time a person takes, so a code you type by hand is treated as a search, not a scan.
Use Generate… on the product’s Barcode / UPC (optional) field to mint an internal code, then print labels with the inventory row action Print barcode label. Repackaged items, local products and bulk lines you split yourself all want this.
Yes. Scanning and product search run against the cached catalogue — the whole sellable list, not just the 100 tiles on screen. See Selling when the internet is down.
Yes, through the camera button. It is slower than a handheld at a busy counter, but it needs no hardware and works anywhere the page is served over a secure connection.