Tracking inventory in excell or access

I'm trying to keep track of inventory going through multiple steps in a very
long process. The items in question leave the facility in batches of 100 or
more on a daily basis and return in much smaller batches a week or two later.
Each item has its own unique alpha-numeric barcode.

At the present moment I attempt to go through each item on an individual
basis and record which step they are on and if they're have been any problems
in Excel. However, I do not have the time to keep up the consistency
considering there are so many.

For each batch, I am able to export a .CSV file of the items being sent out
and I also receive an Excel worksheet for the files being sent back to me.

What I would like to do is combine the two lists based upon their barcode
field so that when one is imported into the other, it simply updates the
fields based on the barcode and does not simply add the same barcodes to the
end of the list.

Does that make any sense?

If you have any solution to my problem or any other suggestion, please feel
free....

I don't think you're going to get a complete answer here. Too many unknowns
at the moment. The basic premise of comparing one list to another using
unique identifiers (the barcodes) is relatively easy to do, and we can
probably work something out if we confer more directly.

If you want, I'll give it a quick shot - I'll need copies of an out going
file, an incoming file and a file/worksheet showing how things should look
once the lists are matched up.

If you can, send those as attachments to an email to (remove spaces)
Help From @ jlathamsite.com
and I'll see what I can do for you.

"tracking_guru" wrote:

I'm trying to keep track of inventory going through multiple steps in a very
long process. The items in question leave the facility in batches of 100 or
more on a daily basis and return in much smaller batches a week or two later.
Each item has its own unique alpha-numeric barcode.

At the present moment I attempt to go through each item on an individual
basis and record which step they are on and if they're have been any problems
in Excel. However, I do not have the time to keep up the consistency
considering there are so many.

For each batch, I am able to export a .CSV file of the items being sent out
and I also receive an Excel worksheet for the files being sent back to me.

What I would like to do is combine the two lists based upon their barcode
field so that when one is imported into the other, it simply updates the
fields based on the barcode and does not simply add the same barcodes to the
end of the list.

Does that make any sense?

If you have any solution to my problem or any other suggestion, please feel
free....