Rental Barcodes and Rental Stickers - Store Managed

When a book is rented, customer information is linked to the book’s rental record.  In addition, the specific copy of the book taken by the student can be identified by a unique rental barcode that’s assigned to it, either when rented or pre-stickered.

Whether or not rental barcodes are assigned and whether or not rental barcodes are mandatory or optional are decisions to be made by appropriate store personnel.

If barcodes are mandatory, they are mandatory for all rentals; if they are optional, they are optional for all rentals.  Therefore, when using the “optional” rental barcode method, there is a risk of omitting rental barcodes on some books that rental barcodes should be assigned to.

Assigning Rental Barcodes to Rentals

Advantages:

• Checking in rentals when students return them is very quick and easy. Simply scan the rental barcode.  Because the rental barcode is linked to the customer, the system will know which student returned the book when the rental barcode is scanned upon return to the store.  You will not have to look up the customer name.
• If desired, the same rental barcode can be used for subsequent rentals.
• Rental barcodes can be made mandatory so that cashiers cannot complete a rental transaction without assigning them as needed.

Disadvantages

• The rental transaction may be slowed as cashiers get used to stickering books, if renting dynamically
• If you want rental barcodes to be assigned but leave them optional, it’s easy for a cashier to not scan the rental barcode and complete the rental transaction without it.

Not Assigning Rental Barcode to Rentals

Advantages

• The rental transaction may speed up slightly
• The student doesn’t have to return the exact copy that was rented; any copy of the same book will be accepted

Disadvantages

• Checking-in rentals from students will take more time. You must scan the book and then select the correct student from all students with outstanding copies. Selecting the wrong name for a check-in will result in charging a student for a rental not returned when, in fact, they did return it.
• The time saved at the front end (by not stickering at the time of the rental) is lost during the check-in process in having to search for the correct student name for each rental turned in

Renting Dynamically or Pre-Stickering

There are two ways to rent books: Dynamically and Pre-Stickered. During the same rental period, you can rent some books dynamically and others with pre-stickered rental barcodes.  However, it’s recommended that you do not rent the same title as both dynamic and pre-stickered in the same rental period.  This will lessen the risk or renting more than planned without using all the pre-stickered copies.

Dynamic Rentals

When renting dynamically, the cashier will scan the regular Bookland EAN barcode.  If the book has an active rental record, a ‘Rent or Sell’ prompt appears.  If the customer is renting, the cashier will select ‘Rent,’ place a dynamic sticker on the book and scan the rental barcode when prompted during the transaction, if required.  Best practices include putting the rental sticker on the book before scanning it, placing rental stickers on the same location on each book and not covering the regular Bookland EAN barcode.

Dynamic renting lends itself very well when renting unlimited quantities of books.  If you want to limit the number of copies that can be rented for a title, enter a Max quantity for that title at Rental Number Maintenance.  When the max quantity has been reached, the ‘Rent or Sell’ prompt will no longer appear.

Dynamic Barcode Stickers

Dynamic rental barcodes are the rental barcodes that should be placed on books when stickering them at the time they are rented.  They are generic in that they do not include any book specific information such as author, title, price, etc., and can be placed on any book.  When printing them in PrismCore, they can be printed with or without the due date for a rental period.  Dynamic rental barcode stickers can also be ordered from Nebraska Book Company.

Pre-Stickered Rentals

Renting using pre-stickered barcodes means that you’ll print book specific rental tags and put them on a set number of books to be rented.  When the customer comes to the cash register to rent, the cashier will scan the rental barcode.  Pre-stickering rentals works best if a title is rent-only and is not available for purchase.  It may also work if you have a set quantity of books to be rented, however, you must have means to ensure that customers intending to rent are choosing books with pre-stickered rental barcodes on them.

Title-Specific Rental Barcode Stickers

If you pre-sticker rentals before renting, use title-specific rental barcode stickers.  You will not use dynamic rental barcode stickers. 

The default rental tag measures 1.5 x 2 inches.  The word “Rental” prints in a bold large font across the top.  On the tag are Department, Class, Category, Author/Title, Rental Number and, optionally, Rental Price.  The unique 20-digit rental barcode is generated using the Auto Generate XREF option.

Best Practices

Best practices include the following:

• Put rental barcodes in the same location on each book. This will help speed up check-in at the end of the rental period.
• Do not cover the regular Bookland EAN or ISBN. The Bookland EAN or ISBN may be needed if the rental barcode becomes unscannable.
• When renting dynamically, when prompted for the rental XREF, first put the rental barcode on the book, then scan the barcode. If a customer is renting more than one book, place a sticker on the first book and scan it when prompted, then place the sticker on the second book and scan it when prompted and so on.  This will help decrease the risk of mixing up rental barcodes and books.
• When rentals are returned by students and you do not want to use the same rental barcodes for subsequent rentals, remove the stickers, draw a line through them with a marker, or black them out entirely so they cannot be inadvertently used again.

Additional Barcode Information

Rentals barcodes in PrismCore can be used from one rental period to the next.  This means, when a rental returned by a student for a previous rental period is rented again, you can scan the rental sticker already on the book.  If you do this, a history of all students who have rented the same copy will be recorded on the History tab in Rental Number Maintenance.

If you prefer to assign new rentals barcodes with each rental, when books are returned by students, be sure to remove the rental barcodes already on the books or render them unscannable by drawing a line through them.  By assigning new rental barcodes with each rental, you will build a one-to-one relationship of each rental barcode with a customer name.  The History tab in Rental Number Maintenance will show only one name per rental barcode.

The rental barcodes are designed so that, if you receive books from Nebraska Book Company and the books have a rental barcode on them that was created using by any store using PrismCore, you could use that rental barcode as well.

Rental Barcodes and Stock Adjustments

If rental barcodes are already on textbooks and then you do stock adjustments, make sure the rental barcodes are assigned to the correct record, new or used.  For example, when a new Store Managed rental is returned by a student, it is automatically transferred to used.  If you decide to treat the book as new, you must do stock adjustments to increase new stock and decrease used stock.  You will also remove the rental barcode on the book, or render it unscannable, as it was assigned to a used copy automatically upon return from the student.  If the book is rented again as new, it will need a different rental barcode assigned to it.

Things to Consider with Optional Rental Barcodes

• Be sure that cashiers are trained in how to how to sticker the books and when to scan the barcodes. It’s very easy to accidentally skip the scanning and assigned of rental barcodes when they are not required.
• When books are rented without rental barcodes, the XREF field will remain blank on the Detail tab of Rental Number Maintenance in ICS.
• When books rented without rental barcodes are returned by the student, the rental record will need to be located by Bookland EAN and then the name of the student selected from a list
• If the cashier realizes that no rental barcode was assigned before the transaction is totaled, the cashier can remove the line item from the transaction and begin again with it to correctly scan and assign the rental barcode.
• It’s possible to add the rental number to the rental record in Rental Number Maintenance, however, you would need to know the exact rental barcode placed on the book.