How to Scan Serial Numbers Into a Spreadsheet

The fastest way to scan serial numbers into a spreadsheet is a phone app in continuous-scan mode: point the camera at each Code 128 or Code 39 serial label, let the app collect one row per asset, then export the session as an Excel or CSV file and deduplicate the serial column. Two hundred laptops is an afternoon of walking, not a week of typing.

The 200-laptop problem

Serial number audits are where manual entry truly falls apart. A serial like 5CD1234XYZ is not a number you can hold in your head while your eyes move from label to keyboard — it is a random string, and random strings get mistyped. One wrong character and that laptop effectively vanishes from your records: warranty lookups fail, the asset register says you own hardware you cannot find, and the audit you just did loses its credibility.

The barcode next to the printed serial exists precisely so nobody ever has to type it. Every scan is a perfect copy of what the manufacturer encoded — the error rate drops to zero and the pace rises to roughly one asset per second on open shelves.

Know your labels: Code 128, Code 39, and friends

Serial plates on IT equipment are overwhelmingly Code 128 (compact, encodes letters and digits) or the older Code 39. Newer gear increasingly adds a QR or Data Matrix code that packs the serial plus model data into a small square. DataScan reads all of these — 13 symbologies in total — so mixed fleets from different vendors and eras are not a problem. If a label carries several barcodes side by side, enable barcode-type filtering so the scanner only accepts the type you are auditing, and stray UPC codes never pollute your data.

Step by step: serial number audit with your phone

1. Check what kind of label you have Point the camera at one representative label before planning the audit. If it decodes (it almost certainly will), you know the whole fleet is scannable and roughly how fast you can move.
2. Choose the right scan mode For pure speed — a rack of servers, a shelf of laptops — use Continuous Scan: aim, beep, next, with a touch-and-hold pause when you need to shuffle equipment. When each asset also needs a condition note or a location, use Multiple Value Scan, which attaches multi-line notes and GPS coordinates to every serial.
3. Set up the export columns Rename the barcode column header to Serial Number, pick an ISO date format, and choose Excel or CSV output. The exported file then pastes into your asset register with zero rework.
4. Scan the assets room by room One session per room, rack, or floor, named accordingly. Sessions keep the audit organized and make it trivial to re-check one area later. Everything stores locally with timestamps, so the server room with no phone signal scans exactly as well as the open office.
5. Export and deduplicate in Excel Export each session, merge them in Excel, and clean the serial column: Data → Remove Duplicates for a quick pass, or a =COUNTIF(A:A,A2)>1 helper column if you want to review repeats before deleting them.

Practical tips from real audits

• Decide the dedupe rule before you start. A repeated serial is usually a double scan — but occasionally it is two devices wearing one label, which is a finding, not noise. Flag first, delete second.
• Capture condition while you are there. Walking back to check whether asset 147 was the one with the cracked lid costs more than typing the note did. Multiple Value mode makes the note part of the scan.
• Timestamps are your audit trail. Every row records when it was scanned, which answers "when was this last verified?" without any extra process.
• Cross-check against the register, not just into it. After the scan, a VLOOKUP of scanned serials against your existing asset list surfaces both ghosts (in the register, not found) and orphans (found, never registered) — the two lists an auditor actually wants.

Reconciling the scan against your asset register

The scan file is half the audit; the comparison is the other half. Put your existing register on one sheet and the merged scan results on another, then build two checks:

• Ghost assets: in the register sheet, look up each registered serial in the scan column — =IF(ISNA(VLOOKUP(A2,Scans!A:A,1,FALSE)),"NOT FOUND",""). Rows flagged NOT FOUND are hardware your records claim you have but nobody scanned: retired, stolen, or sitting in a drawer.
• Orphan assets: the mirror lookup from the scan sheet into the register finds serials you physically hold but never registered — typically direct purchases that skipped the process.

Both lists, with the scan timestamps as evidence, are exactly what an auditor or insurer asks for. If you would rather catch mismatches while still standing at the shelf, import the register into DataScan first and use Lookup mode — that live-verification variant is covered in verifying scans against a product database.

Other ways to do it

A Bluetooth keyboard-wedge scanner typing into Excel works at a fixed imaging bench, but an asset audit is a walking job — you go to the hardware, not the other way around. Enterprise asset-management suites with bundled scanners do this well at enterprise prices and setup times; if you have thousands of assets and a dedicated team, that is a reasonable road. For everyone between "a drawer of spare phones" and "a data center", a phone plus a spreadsheet is the pragmatic middle: see how an IT department runs it in the IT asset management case study, or start with the basics on the DataScan homepage.