Barcode warehouse management system
- Labour cost per order
- $6.40
- Lines an hour
- 11.25
- Orders an hour
- 3.75
Every figure on this page is computed from the inputs entered, by the method stated below it. Pickpathly publishes no industry benchmark, no vendor price beyond the ones it cites and no rule: the standard, the utilisation and the fees are yours, and the defaults are a worked example to replace with your own figures.
A barcode warehouse management system is the version of a WMS a small 3PL actually buys: every receipt, location, pick and ship confirmed by a scan rather than a pen, so the inventory the system holds is the inventory on the shelf. The scan is the easy part; the hard part is what the scans have to add up to at the end of the week, because a client account is judged on lines an hour, accuracy and cost per order, and a barcode system that cannot produce those three is a faster way of not knowing. This guide walks what a barcode WMS captures at each step of the operation and what each capture is for, and the free warehouse management reports worksheet on this site turns a week of scan totals into the figures a client reads, with no account and no vendor named.
Try the free warehouse SOP template worksheet Free to use. No account, no card, no trial clock.
Receiving and putaway: the scan that starts the record
A barcode WMS opens a receipt against the client's advance notice, scans each pallet or case on the dock, and scans the location it is put away to. Dock time over receipts is the dock-to-stock figure the client asks for, and the worksheet works it: 780 dock hours over 260 receipts is three hours a receipt. What the label carries and who prints it is your client agreement, not the system's rule.
Picking and packing: lines, orders and the hours they took
Each pick is a scan of the location and the item, so the system knows lines picked, orders closed and the labour hours clocked against them. Lines over hours is the productivity figure; orders over hours is the throughput figure; hours times a loaded rate over orders is the cost per order. The worksheet works all three from the week's totals, whichever system produced them.
Cycle counts: the accuracy the client is paying for
A barcode system counts a location by scanning it, so a cycle count is locations counted and locations with a variance. Clean locations over counted locations is the accuracy figure, 98% on the worked example, and the paid plan keeps every week's figure against the client so the trend is a column rather than a memory.
Barcode warehouse management system: common questions
What does a barcode warehouse management system do?
It confirms every receipt, putaway, pick, pack, ship and count with a scan of a barcode, so the inventory the system holds matches the shelf without a keyboard between them. The scans then total into the week's figures: lines an hour, orders an hour, dock-to-stock time, cost per order and accuracy, which the worksheet on this site works from your own totals.
Do I need a barcode system to run a small 3PL?
You need the figures the scans produce, because a client account is judged on them. Whether the scans come from a handheld, a phone app or a paper count typed in at the end of the shift is your call and your budget's; the management reports worksheet takes the totals either way and publishes no rule about how they were captured.
Is there a free warehouse management reports worksheet?
Yes. The warehouse management reports worksheet on this site is free and needs no account: orders, lines, labour hours, a loaded rate, receipts, dock hours, locations counted and variances in, lines an hour, orders an hour, cost per order, dock-to-stock and accuracy out, printed as it stands. Pickpathly Pro keeps every week's report against the client.
Pickpathly Pro
Keeping what you make
The worksheets are free forever. Pro turns them into the record: every client account with its SOPs, reports and standards kept and dated, every cycle count and week's figures filed against the client, your logo on the paperwork, no watermark, and an export when the client or the auditor asks.
- Download as PDF
- No Pickpathly watermark
- Save every worksheet and reopen it later
- Your warehouse name and logo on the paperwork
- Export every SOP, report and standard in one go
- Review-due and count-due reminders emailed to your team
- Connect your own Stripe account and get paid online
- Connect your QuickBooks Online or Xero
$79per month, whole warehouse
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Cite or embed this figure
On the worked example, 5,400 lines picked in 480 labour hours is 11.25 lines an hour and 3.75 orders an hour, $6.40 of labour on each of 1,800 orders, and 392 clean locations of 400 counted is 98% inventory accuracy.
Warehouse management reports (Labour cost per order): $6.40, Pickpathly, worked example.
Cite as: "Barcode warehouse management system, Pickpathly", updated 2026-09-04, https://pickpathly.com/barcode-warehouse-management-system/.