Barcode scanners and thermal receipt printers, explained

Hardware is the part of setting up a till that shops worry about most and that goes wrong least. Here is what actually matters.

Barcode scanners

Almost any USB scanner works

The great majority of handheld scanners sold today are keyboard-wedge devices. The computer sees them as a keyboard. When you scan, the scanner "types" the digits and presses Enter. That is why a scanner needs no driver, no configuration and no vendor blessing: as far as the software is concerned, somebody typed very quickly.

The practical consequence is that if a scanner types the right digits into a text box, it will work with your POS. You can test one in Notepad before you buy the software.

What to actually choose between

• Wired vs wireless. Wired is cheaper and never runs out of battery. Wireless is worth it if you scan things that cannot come to the counter — a bulky sack, a shelf during a stock count.
• 1D vs 2D. A 1D laser reads ordinary product barcodes and is fine for most shops. A 2D imager also reads QR codes and reads damaged or curved labels more reliably. If you scan a lot of crumpled labels, pay the difference.
• Stand or no stand. A stand that lets you leave the scanner pointing at the counter and pass items under it is genuinely faster at a busy till.

The two things that do go wrong

The scanner adds or drops a character. Usually a suffix setting. Every scanner ships with a printed sheet of configuration barcodes; there is one for "add Enter after scan", which is the behaviour you want.

The scanner types a different keyboard layout. Rare, but it happens with non-US layouts and produces digits that are subtly wrong. The same configuration sheet has a country setting.

Weighing scale labels

A scale that prints its own barcodes is a different thing from a product barcode. It encodes an item code and either the weight or the price into a code that starts with a 2. Software that supports it reads the weight out of the label and prices the line itself.

Worth checking: does the POS look the code up in your own catalogue first? Barcodes you print for your own products can legitimately start with a 2 as well, and software that guesses will occasionally read one of your own labels as a weight.

Thermal receipt printers

58 mm or 80 mm

The two common paper widths. 80 mm is the standard supermarket receipt; 58 mm is narrower, cheaper to run, and fine for a small basket. Buy the paper before you commit — roll availability locally matters more than the specification.

The connection

• USB is the simplest and is what most single-counter shops should buy.
• Network or Wi-Fi matters when several tills share one printer, or when the printer needs to sit away from the computer.
• Bluetooth is mostly for mobile printing and is the fussiest of the three.

The setting that matters most

Silent printing. A receipt that opens the operating system's print dialogue at a busy counter is unusable — somebody has to click Print for every sale. Any POS meant for a real shop can print without a prompt. Check it in a demo rather than assuming.

Sharing one printer between tills

There are two arrangements and they suit different shops.

Every till prints to the main computer, which owns the printer. One printer, one roll, one place to look when it jams. The main computer has to be on, which it already is.

Or each till has its own printer. More hardware, but each counter is independent and a queue at one does not affect the other.

Either should be a setting rather than a rebuild.

Cash drawers

Most cash drawers do not connect to the computer at all. They plug into the printer with what looks like a telephone cable, and open when the printer receives a pulse as part of printing a receipt. If your printer has an RJ11/RJ12 port on the back, a drawer will work with it.

Label printers

Separate question from receipts. If you need shelf or price labels you can print them on ordinary A4 sheets from a normal printer, which is what most small shops do, or buy a dedicated label printer if you are doing hundreds a week.

What matters is that the labels are scannable: printed large enough, with enough quiet space either side, on paper that does not smear. Test one with your own scanner before printing a thousand.

A sensible first purchase

For a single counter: a wired 1D USB scanner with a stand, an 80 mm USB thermal printer, and a drawer that plugs into the printer. That is a working till, and none of it locks you into any particular software.

SalezFlow POS works with any keyboard-wedge scanner, prints silently to 58 mm and 80 mm thermal printers, reads weighing-scale labels, and can share one printer across every till in the shop. See the printers and scanners guide for step-by-step setup.