Barcodes and product labels (Legal Metrology)

What it is

Three things in one place:

• A barcode for every product (and every size / colour). Either the manufacturer's own 13-digit code from the pack, or one Flowgento makes for you. A USB scanner then finds the product in a stock count or at the counter in one beep.
• The declarations the law wants on a packaged product — the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011 — kept on the product so every label carries them.
• Printing labels on the self-adhesive A4 sheets every stationer sells (24, 40 or 65 per sheet) or on a thermal roll printer (50×25, 38×25 or 100×50 mm).

What must be on a packaged product in India

In plain words, for anything sold in a pack to a consumer:

1. Name of the product (what it is).
2. Net quantity — how much is inside, in standard units: 500 g, 1 L, 1 N (one piece), 2 N (two pieces).
3. MRP, inclusive of all taxes — printed exactly like that: *MRP ₹499 (incl. of all taxes)*.
4. Month and year it was made, packed or imported.
5. Name and address of the manufacturer, or the packer, or — for imported goods — the importer.
6. Country of origin for imported goods (many sellers print it for Indian goods too; marketplaces insist on it).
7. Customer care phone number or email a buyer can complain to.

Flowgento prints what you have filled and leaves out what you have not. The label page shows an amber *missing: …* note for each product so you can see the gap before you print 65 stickers.

Steps — barcodes

1. Open Store → Inventory, tick the products, and choose Print labels. (Or open Accounting → Labels & barcodes from a stock count or a goods receipt.)
2. The items table shows which products have no barcode. Choose a kind and tap Generate barcodes (missing only):

* Internal EAN-13 — a 13-digit code starting with 200, the range GS1 reserves for in-store use. It scans on any retail scanner and can never collide with a real product on a shelf. Use this unless the pack already carries a barcode. * Code128 of the SKU — the SKU letters and digits as a barcode. A scanner types the SKU.

1. A product that already has a barcode is never changed. To type the manufacturer's code from the pack, open the product's Label fields page (the *fill in* link on the label page, or the barcode icon on Inventory) and paste the 13 digits; a wrong last digit is refused so a typo cannot become a mis-scan on every sale.
2. Sizes and colours get their own barcode each. Generate them from the label page with the variant rows, or type them on the Label fields page.

Steps — labels

1. On the label page pick a template: an A4 sheet (24-up 70×36 mm, 40-up 52.5×29.7 mm, 65-up 38.1×21.2 mm) or a thermal roll size.
2. For a partly used sheet, set Start at label so printing begins at the first blank sticker.
3. Set the quantity per item — how many stickers of each.
4. Tap Print. In the browser's print dialog choose the real printer, scale 100% (never "fit to page"), margins None, and for a roll printer the paper size that matches the roll. Print one sheet first and hold it against the labels before printing the lot.

The big templates (A4 24-up and the 100×50 roll) print every declaration. The small ones show name, MRP, barcode and net quantity — the rest stays on the pack's own label or on a larger sticker.

Using a USB barcode scanner

A USB scanner is a keyboard. It types the digits of the barcode and presses Enter. So:

• Click into any search or scan box first — the Inventory search, the stock count sheet's *Scan barcode* box — then scan.
• Internal EAN-13 labels type the 13 digits; Code128 labels type the SKU.
• No driver, no setting: if the scanner works in Notepad it works here.

Common questions

Do I need to buy GS1 barcodes? Only if the product will be sold through other retailers or marketplaces that demand a registered GS1 code. For your own shop, counter and stock counts, the internal 200… codes are exactly what GS1 intends for in-store use.

The barcode does not scan. Print at 100% scale (not "fit to page"); on a thermal printer set the darkness a notch higher; keep at least 3 mm of white at both ends of the bars. The 65-up template is small — if your scanner struggles, use the 40-up.

Can I undo generated barcodes? Yes — Master → Undo lists "Generated N barcodes" like any other catalogue change.

Where is MRP stored? It is the same MRP as in Inventory and Master; editing it here changes it everywhere.