Tracking inventory manually is a laborious process. With barcodes applied to each item in inventory, portable scanners can be used. Barcode inventory control provides accurate, real-time inventory updates. This allows a company the opportunity to reduce stock levels and thereby reduce carrying costs. It also reduces the time taken to collect data for purposes such as annual ultralight light inventories. With improved efficiency, operating costs are lower.

Reduced cost is the most obvious benefit of barcode data collection. In many cases, this cost savings alone is enough justification for implementing such a system. Reduced revenue losses resulting from data collection errors can however surpass the savings in labor costs.

Although hard to measure, improved management and better decision making due to automated data collection technology could be the best benefit of a barcode system. A barcode system can easily gather information that would be difficult or impossible to gather in other ways. This allows managers to make fully informed decisions that can affect the direction of a department or company. Faster access to information goes hand in hand with better decision-making.