Printing SKO and unit labels

The unified label

The label panel opens on Unified: one unit, SKO and carton label that is the same in every centre, so stock moves between the United Kingdom, Spain and Slovakia without being relabelled. The Unified / Localised switch at the top of the panel takes you back to the labels described in the rest of this page, for the few cases that need a label of one organisation only.

All three print one label per page for a 100 mm wide roll. There is nothing to tick: the unit label carries the name in every language the trade unit has one in, the country of origin, the material, the batch, the warnings and the three importers; the SKO label says how many units are in the pack; the carton label adds units per pack, packs and units per carton, weights, origin and HS code.

The pack and the carton get a number of their own, worked out from the unit EAN-13, so a pack no longer scans as one unit. The barcode scanner page reads these new barcodes and still reads the numbers already on the shelves.

The batch code is the only thing you type. It is proposed as the supplier's code and the month (for example PKS202610) and takes up to 20 characters: A to Z, 0 to 9 and hyphen.

A unified label with something missing does not print. The panel lists what is missing and the PDF button stays off until the record is corrected:

• the unit has no valid EAN-13;
• the name in Spanish or Slovak is missing on the trade unit;
• the country of origin is missing;
• the product has warnings but none in English, Spanish or Slovak;
• the carton label needs the units per carton of the supplier product;
• the texts do not fit on the label.

A carton weight is printed only when the supplier product has both the net and the gross weight and the net is not above the gross.

The two localised labels

They are not the same label at two sizes. They are for two different readers.

The unit label is the one with the small print. It names where the goods came from and who made them, states the weight and signs the organisation underneath, because that is what a label on a product is for. The SKO label throws all of that away: the code is set reversed out of black, the count and the name sit under it, and the barcode runs the full width of the label.

Printing one

Open a SKO and find the barcodes. Click either barcode — the SKO one or the unit EAN — and the label panel opens on that one. If only one of the two can be printed, the panel opens on whichever it is; if both can, a small SKO / Unit switch appears at the top and you can move between them without closing the panel.

From a delivery note it is quicker. Every line in the Items tab has a small PDF icon next to the code. Press it and the same panel opens for that SKO, without leaving the delivery note.

Choosing what goes on it

Every element is a tick box, and what is ticked by default is what Aurora printed by default: everything the SKO has a value for, except the account signature and the custom text, which stay off until you ask for them.

A tick box you cannot press means the SKO has nothing to print there. Hover it and it tells you which — This item has no image, This item has no country of origin, This item has no manufacturer, This item has no weight. That is the SKO's data talking, not the label: fill the field in on the trade unit and the box comes alive. It works this way so nobody prints a label with a hole in it.

Custom text is free text for this print run only. It is not saved against the SKO. Use it for the things that change between runs and belong to nobody's record.

Sizes and sheets

The sizes are the label stocks Aurora offered, to the millimetre, so a roll bought for the old system still prints straight out of this one.

The SKO label is offered on four because it carries far less, and the four are the ones that suit a box.

Layout is either a single label, cut to its own size, or A4 27 labels (EU30161) — three across and nine down on a sheet of ordinary A4. The sheet is die cut to 63.5 × 29.6, so when you choose it the size picker steps aside and says so. Every one of the 27 is the same label; a sheet is for printing a run of one SKO, not a mixed page.

Type, barcode and picture all scale with the label you choose rather than being fixed, so a 140 × 90 fills its space and a 63 × 29.6 stays readable.

When a label will not print

The unit label is built around its barcode, so a SKO with no unit EAN13 cannot print one. The panel says so and the PDF button greys out. Put the EAN on the SKO first — the unit EAN has its own editor on the SKO page — and the label prints.

The SKO label is more forgiving. It prints for a box that has not been given a barcode yet; it simply prints without one. See Checking SKO barcodes with a scanner for putting the outer barcode on the right SKO in the first place.

What the wording comes from

Nothing on the label is typed by hand except the custom text. Each line is read off the record, so correcting a label means correcting the record.

Where a SKO holds several trade units that disagree on one of these, the line is left off rather than guessed: a label naming one country for a box holding goods from two would be wrong rather than merely short.