Partner Blog
Summary:
BarTender integrates labeling directly with ERP and WMS systems, eliminating manual data entry and improving accuracy. By using trusted business data, centralized label management, and controlled on-demand printing, organizations can reduce errors, strengthen compliance, and improve consistency across operations and supply chains.
For many organizations, the ERP system is the operational backbone of the business. It manages orders, inventory, production, shipping, customer information, and countless other transactions. Companies invest heavily in these systems to automate processes and create a trusted source of business data. Yet one critical process often remains surprisingly disconnected: labeling.
Employees may still manually enter information, select label templates, or print labels through processes that operate separately from the ERP. These extra steps might seem minor, but they can create costly problems, including labeling errors, rework, production delays, customer chargebacks, and compliance failures.
For Seagull Software and our BarTender partners, this represents an important opportunity to help customers close one of the remaining gaps in otherwise highly automated operations.
Start With Trusted Data
One of the biggest problems with manual labeling is also one of the simplest: people are being asked to re-enter information the business already has. Have you ever taken a typing test? When you try to type with 100% accuracy, you’ll usually type slower and fewer words per minute. However, when you try to type faster, the accuracy usually goes down. Every time an employee manually enters a product number, lot number, shipping address, or customer-specific requirement, there is an opportunity for error.
Jon Newman, President of BCC Distribution, sees validation as one of the most important reasons to connect labeling with enterprise systems. “Validation is the key to printing solutions,” Newman says. “With manual printing, organizations have limited ability to validate the information being printed. By printing from or through the ERP, however, they can use real-time data associated with the specific transaction or task.”
That changes the role of labeling.
Instead of functioning as a separate process at the end of a transaction, labeling becomes an extension of the transaction itself. BarTender can integrate with ERP platforms such as SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, Sage, and NetSuite so label data can come directly from the systems organizations already rely on to run their businesses. The goal is straightforward: use trusted data rather than manually re-enter it.
Centralization Reduces Complexity
The challenge becomes even greater when an organization operates multiple plants, distribution centers, suppliers, or contract manufacturing locations.
Newman points to a centralized “hub and spoke” environment as an effective way to manage that complexity. Real-time information and updates can be shared across facilities and authorized third parties, rather than relying on decentralized systems that can introduce outdated data, inconsistent formats, manual entry errors, and communication gaps.
BarTender Print Portal is one-way organizations can extend controlled printing across operations while maintaining centralized oversight of what is being printed. Centralization can also help organizations move from bulk printing toward on-demand printing.
The distinction matters. If incorrect data is used for a bulk print job, the same mistake is repeated across dozens or hundreds of labels. With on-demand printing, a label can instead be generated for a specific item at the point of the transaction. As Newman notes, this approach can also reduce the risk of applying the right label to the wrong box or product.
Label Governance Is Becoming More Important
Labeling requirements rarely stand still. Customers change specifications. Regulatory requirements evolve. Companies add facilities, suppliers, and trading partners. Label formats and data requirements must change with them.
Without centralized governance, every change can create another opportunity for inconsistency. “Centralized printing also allows a corporation to control formats, data, security and compliance,” Newman explains.
This is where enterprise label management becomes more than a printing function.
With BarTender, organizations can centrally manage label documents and processes while extending controlled access throughout the business. Capabilities such as BarTender Librarian can help organizations manage and track changes, creating greater consistency when label requirements are updated.
Instead of making the same change independently across multiple locations, organizations can manage changes centrally and establish a more consistent process for deploying them.
Look Beyond the Cost of the Label
Perhaps the biggest mistake organizations make is looking at labeling costs only in terms of printers, labels, ribbons, and other supplies. The real costs are often forgotten about, and they usually come up as issues to fix later down the process.
They appear as an employee needing to correct a label. A production line waiting for the right information. A shipment being reworked. A customer issuing a chargeback. A compliance team investigating why an outdated format was used. Or employees across multiple facilities spending time manually entering and checking processes that should be automated.
For organizations that have invested significantly in ERP technology, there is little reason for labeling to remain an isolated manual process. Connecting BarTender with ERP-driven operations can help organizations reduce manual intervention, improve data validation, centralize governance, and create greater consistency across facilities and partners.
The label itself may be a small part of the operation. But when that label carries the information needed to identify, move, track, ship, and manage an item correctly, getting it right with integrating into your existing ERP or WMS system has an impact far beyond the printing process.
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Jim Donaldson is Senior Director of Corporate Communications at Seagull Software.
