A beep means the scanner read the barcode. The information then has to reach Santé, and that is where it usually goes wrong. Most barcode scanners work by typing the barcode as if it were a keyboard, so the scan lands wherever the cursor happens to be.

There are several separate problems that all look the same at the register. Match yours to the right section.

Two quick checks first

These two account for most reports, and both take seconds.

Let the page finish loading before you scan. After a refresh, a restart, or a completed sale, Santé may still be loading products in the background, and scans made during that window are lost. Wait until the spinners are gone. If the screen says "loading products", give it a moment and scan again.

Unplug the scanner and plug it back in. Pull the USB cable out of the computer, wait a few seconds, and reconnect it. Then click once inside the checkout screen so the page has focus, and scan again.

If neither helps, work out which of the problems below matches yours.

1. The first scan after a sale does nothing, the second works

This is the most commonly reported version, and it is a focus problem. After a sale completes, the cursor is no longer sitting in the cart field, so the first scan goes nowhere. The second scan works because the first one put the focus back.

What to do at the register:

After completing a sale, click once in the cart or search area before scanning.
Start the next sale explicitly rather than scanning into the finished one.

If the first scan after every sale fails, and staff have got used to scanning everything twice, report it rather than living with it. This is a known issue engineering tracks, and the fix may already exist for your register. Note how many scans it takes, whether it happens after every sale or only some, and whether a refresh fixes it. That detail is what tells us whether it is the register or the application.

2. Nothing scans at all on this register

Work through these in order.

Test the scanner outside Santé. Open Notepad or any text box and scan a product. If the barcode appears as text, the scanner and cable are fine and the problem is in the browser or the page. If nothing appears, the scanner is not reaching the computer at all and the steps below about barcode format will not help.

Reseat the cable, and avoid USB hubs. A hub shared between the scanner, printer, and card reader is a frequent cause of one or all of them dropping out. Plug the scanner directly into the computer. If the receipt printer stopped at the same time, that is the same cause, and Receipt printer says "printed" but nothing comes out covers it from the other side.

For Bluetooth and wireless scanners, check the pairing first. A scanner that lights up but makes no sound has usually lost its pairing. Re-pair it to the tablet or computer and test again in a text box before testing in Santé.

Compare against a working register. If register 1 scans and register 2 does not with the same model of scanner, the difference is on that machine rather than in Santé.

3. One particular product will not scan but everything else does

Check the product record before you touch the scanner. Search for the item manually, by name or by typing the barcode number.

If you can find it manually but it will not scan, the barcode on the bottle is not attached to the product in Santé. Add that UPC to the product and it will scan from then on.

If you cannot find it at all, it does not exist yet. Create it, or pull it from the catalog.

If it exists but still does not come up at the register, check the product's channel. A product that is not set as available in your store will not appear at checkout, even though it is in Santé.

4. Some products scan and others do not

This is a barcode format problem, and it is a scanner setting rather than anything in Santé.

Scanners can be configured to send a different number of digits than the barcode actually contains. The usual symptoms:

Short barcodes scan, longer ones do not
The scanner adds or drops a digit, so the product is never found
The same product scans on one register and not another

The fix is to reprogram the scanner using the setup barcodes that came with it. Each model has its own sheet, and scanning the wrong sheet will make things worse rather than better. The sheets are published per model:

If your model is not listed, contact support with the exact model number and we will send the correct sheet.

Two specific settings worth knowing about:

UPC-A and EAN-13 conversion. This controls whether a 12 digit barcode is sent as 12 or 13 digits. If your products were loaded with 12 digit UPCs, the scanner must send 12.
Suffix settings. The scanner should send an Enter after the barcode. If it does not, the barcode appears in the field but nothing is added to the cart.

Scanning slows down as the day goes on

If scanning is fine in the morning and sluggish by the afternoon, refresh the register page. A browser left open all day accumulates memory and gets slower. Many stores refresh at shift change as routine.

If the slowdown affects everything and not just scanning, that is a different problem. Report it with the store name, the register, and roughly what time it starts.

What to send support

The store name and which register
The exact scanner model
Whether the scanner types correctly into Notepad
Whether it fails on all products or only some
If only some, an example barcode that fails and one that works
Whether the scanner is USB or wireless

Video: barcode scanner setup — setting a scanner up from scratch, on video
Handheld barcode scanner setup — and the per model barcode sheets linked above
Receipt printer says "printed" but nothing comes out — if the printer dropped out on the same register
Editing products — where to add a missing UPC to a product

Barcode scanner beeps but the item does not appear