Question: Designing to track two different inventory methods

Hi,

I apologize if this is the wrong part of the forum for this question.

I have searched both this forum and the filemaker.com forums for a few days. I am looking mainly for advice.

I am working on a filemaker solution to track two different types of inventory as it is moved around the building to different projects.

One type has individual barcodes/serial numbers for each asset. For instance we may have two of the same product, say a mac book pro, but they would each be individually barcoded giving them a unique identifying number.

The second type are items that it would not be cost effective to individually barcode, so they have a barcode for the type of item it is. For instance, something like small hdmi cables has a barcode for "small hdmi cables" and then a quantity to count how many are in stock.

I think I have figured out how I could track the individual assets with their own barcode (which I call assets), and I have figured out a way to track items that don't have individual barcodes (which I call bin items because they will be stored in a bin with like items and the bin will have a bar code). I am having trouble figuring out how to merge the two methods of tracking. 

I would ideally like to be able to have a form where you enter the tracking information (ie. where it's going, what the project it will be out on it, etc) and then scan the items you are taking out on that project (which may include both assets (inidividually barcoded items) and bin items (not individually barcoded)).

Any advice on how to sort of merge the two methods of tracking inventory so that it can be available through one form would be much appreciated. 

Right now, I have a parent table (InventoryItems) that holds one record for every type of item in our inventory and a child table (Assets) that holds one record for each asset (individually barcoded inventory items. One inventory item can be many assets, each asset is obviously only one type of inventory item. Does this sound like it is going down the right road? I hit a block when trying to figure out how to track or count the InventoryItems that are not also assets because they don't have individual barcodes. 

I hope that makes sense. Does anyone have experience with this type of inventory? I am happy to explain more, but am looking for more general advice on how to move forward. Am I headed in the right direction? Or should the assets and the bin items just be completely separated in unrelated tables?