US Patent 10204251 Network based vendor-managed inventory system and method

A network based system and method for managing inventory is disclosed. A smartphone device is connected to a portable barcode scanner using a communication connection. A scanner adapter application on the smartphone device receives output date comprising order data, and parses the order data, passing it to an upload application. The smartphone device further comprises an order management application to take order data from the scanner adapter application and smartphone user data entry to access a backend server system to retrieve and collect detailed order data in support of order submission. The detailed order data contains data elements necessary for completion and submission of orders. An API configured to receive the at least part of the order data from the upload application processes the order information into an electronic order, and sends the electronic order to a vendor server.