There is a growing use in most industries of hand held electronic data capture equipment to allow for direct entry of this information. The use of the variable virtual bar code technology now allows variable information to be entered without errors or manual entry. The variable virtual bar code product provides a mean to capture information from a variable source such as a weight scale, utility meter, process or product counter, or any other system where information is displayed from a variable source. The benefit of the variable virtual bar code technology is the ability to use existing low cost data capture equipment that includes a bar code scanner to collect information that is variable in nature.