Labels and Barcodes
A container earns its printed identity the moment you print its first label. Here’s exactly what gets encoded on that label — and the honest limits of what “GS1-conformant” promises.
Where the SSCC comes from
The first time you print a label for a container that doesn’t already have one, that print is what assigns it a Serial Shipping Container Code (SSCC) — the global identifier covered in full in SSCC & container barcodes explained. It’s a one-time assignment, not a per-print action: reprint the same container’s label later, after a move or a partial pick, and it carries the identical SSCC. Printing again never changes a container’s identity.
If you haven’t read the Learn section article on SSCCs and GS1-128, this page assumes you have — it explains the structure of the number and the barcode symbology in full. This page only covers how that standard actually shows up on a ContainerQ label.
What’s actually on the label
Every ContainerQ label carries its container’s SSCC, always, encoded as a GS1-128 barcode. Where the contents call for it, that same barcode also carries the item’s GTIN, the packed quantity, the lot number, and an expiration date — chained onto the SSCC as additional Application Identifiers in one scan, the way GS1-128 is built to do. An untracked item’s label carries just the SSCC and the relevant item and quantity data; a lot-tracked item nearing its expiry date carries all of it.
A typical encoded string looks like:
(00) 3 0614141 00041872 9 (10) LOT4471 (17) 261231“Conformant to the GS1 standard” — not “certified compliant”
These two phrases sound interchangeable and are not, and this Help Center is deliberate about which one it uses.
Conformant to the GS1 standard means the SSCC and its barcode follow GS1’s own published rules exactly: a licensed GS1 Company Prefix baked into the number, a correctly calculated check digit, Application Identifiers formatted the way GS1-128 requires. That’s a defined, checkable property of the number and the barcode format — and it’s the claim this Help Center actually makes.
It is a different claim from “this printer, this label stock, and this barcode size have been scan-graded on a specific trading partner’s dock equipment.” Whether a given printer/label/carrier combination scans reliably in the real world is a print-quality and hardware question, specific to your equipment and theirs — not a numbering-standard question, and not something this Help Center measures or certifies. If a trading partner runs its own label-compliance program, that’s a conversation for your printer or label vendor, separate from whether the number itself is conformant.
Why practice labels carry a watermark
Until your organization’s GS1 Company Prefix is entered and verified in setup, every label ContainerQ prints carries a visible “internal use only” watermark. That’s not a bug or a missing feature — it’s a deliberate safety rail. A label printed before a real prefix is configured cannot carry a genuinely globally unique SSCC, because there’s no licensed prefix backing the number yet. Marking those labels clearly during setup, testing, or training means they can never be mistaken later for a real, trading-partner-ready identifier once your warehouse starts shipping for real. See setup reference for how the prefix gets configured and exactly when the watermark stops appearing.
Reprinting a label
A label can get damaged, smudged past scanning, or lost between the print station and the pallet. Reprinting it is safe: because the SSCC is assigned once, at first print, reprinting simply produces a fresh copy of the same identity and the same encoded data as it currently stands. It doesn’t create a second container, and it doesn’t re-assign a new number. If the container’s contents have changed since the original print — another item packed on, a lot added — the reprint reflects the current contents, the same as the original would have if printed now.
What to check before you rely on a printed label
Two things determine whether a printed ContainerQ label means what it appears to mean: whether your organization’s GS1 Company Prefix is real, verified, and correctly entered (an unverified setup still prints a visibly watermarked, internal-use-only label, by design), and whether your printer, label stock, and barcode size actually produce a barcode your own scanning hardware — and any downstream trading partner’s — can read reliably. ContainerQ is responsible for the first. The second is a hardware and print-quality question worth testing directly with your own equipment before depending on it for outbound shipments, exactly the same way choosing a license-plate app for Business Central recommends verifying any vendor’s barcode claim rather than taking it on faith.
Labels only mean something once the identifiers on them are genuine — which depends on your GS1 Company Prefix and your users’ access both being set up correctly first. That’s exactly what the setup reference covers next.