About setting up bar codes
Important
This content is archived and is not being updated. For the latest documentation, see Microsoft Dynamics 365 product documentation. For the latest release plans, see Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform release plans.
Applies To: Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Feature Pack
You can use bar codes to purchase and sell products, track product variants, and set up customers and employees. You can also use bar codes to issue and endorse coupons, gift cards, and credit memos. You can set up retail products so that they have standard bar codes or custom, in-house bar codes.
Products can have more than one bar code. For example, a product may have multiple bar codes if it comes from various manufacturers, or if it has variants that are based on size, style, or color. Bar codes can include the weight or price of the product.
Bar code masks are templates that are used to create bar codes.
Note
By assigning a unique bar code to each variant combination, you can scan the bar code at the register and let the program determine which variant of the product is being sold. You can also collect and view statistics about sales by variant.
Each size, color, and style group can be assigned a unique number that identifies that group in the bar code. Microsoft Dynamics AX uses the bar code mask to generate bar codes automatically for each variant combination. This functionality can be useful if there are many sizes, colors, and styles, because the number of combinations increases significantly as each variant code is added. If this functionality is not used, bar codes must be manually assigned to each combination that represents a product variant.
You can create bar codes manually or automatically. The following topics describe the steps. Complete the steps in the order in which they are listed.
For information about how to print bar codes on labels, see Generate and print product labels.