Inventory Q&A: Ask our product team anything about Square Inventory 📊

[Tom]

Calling all sellers — especially those signed up with Square for Retail and Square for Restaurants. Our product team wants to hear your inventory questions and feedback!

On Wednesday, May 11th, we were grateful to have Mukta Dhanuka (@Inventory) and her team in our forums to address questions and feedback about Square Inventory. See the thread below for answers to your questions and keep watch for a summary of the top themes discussed.

To learn more about Square Inventory and its features, take a look at our Support Center: Basic Inventory Management. 

A few example questions:

• What are the best practices that will ensure I'm getting the most out of Square Inventory?
• What are the latest feature improvements with Square Inventory?
• If Square Inventory could take care of "_______," it would save me so much time and help me run my business more efficiently.
• I can’t seem to figure out “______” or I need help with “_________”.
• An inventory issue that keeps me up at night is “____________”.
• I wish Square for Restaurants or Square for Retail would support “________”.

Note: We can't share specific details on our product roadmaps, though this information will be helpful as we continue to make improvements.

[meggyj113]

Hello! 

We run a small salon and carry inventory for retail but of course inventory for backbar. It would be so much easier if there was a seperate area to keep track of in house inventory (Colour tubes, developer, gloves, foils, etc.) So that when placing our orders with our distributors it would be much more streamlined. Ideally a system that we could scan "in and out" product and by  that I mean add all inventory in as it is used and than use the bar codes to scan all used products that would than be deducted from the inventory levels. 

We would also love a way to group retail items together but still deduct each of the items seperated from the main inventory. Ex. Making a basket of shampoo, conditioner, and a treatment, link each item together and create a "package". Once this package is sold each individual items inventory would be decreased by one.

Thank You!

Meghan

[Inventory]

Hi @meggyj113 Thank you for sharing your inventory use-case. It is currently not possible to set up an item bundle or kit for sale such that inventory is automatically decremented for each component of the kit when the bundle is sold. Our team is actively working on incrementally adding this inventory functionality. We will follow up with you for research as we build this. Stay tuned for updates. 

Please DM me your contact info and a few time slots that may work for you for an interview in the next two weeks.

[rtfulk]

I have 2 questions.

1. why can't we bulk edit the price on the app like we can on the website? If you have a lot of SKU's for one item it takes forever changing it individually, on the website you just check edit all and change the price 1 time.

2. Is there any better way to sync inventory with Etsy? The current app seems to just sync one way Etsy to Square. Also I don't like paying .20 every time I sell sometime on Square that is not listed on Etsy. We work events and it can add up.

Thanks,

Randy

[Inventory]

Hello @rtfulk Thank you for sharing your feedback. Currently, bulk catalog item changes are only supported on the dashboard experience, not on POS. Our team is currently working on a bulk edit items functionality for Square for Retail App.

You can find some of the details about Square and Etsy integration here: https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6399-etsy-and-square. If you can share your exact Etsy integration use-case, we may be able to share additional best practices.

[smachokas]

Does square have a physical inventory scanner option that can be used with an IPAD to scan all physical inventory during an inventory audit? 

We are approaching the end of our fiscal year and will be doing an inventory with our audit. We were hoping there was a function that enables us to scan all tags and verify items in the store vs our projected inventory in square.

[Inventory]

Hello @smachokas yes we do have a physical inventory scanner option. Socket Mobile S700 can be connected via bluetooth and is the best way to perform a physical inventory audit on iPad. Please feel free to reach out if you have a follow up question.

[overhillgardens]

Will the new inventory addition have a way to allow for size options and barcode generation? Also it would be nice to have a picture attached to each item as well. 

Real-time inventory? When something is bought or culled will the inventory be directly affected? 

Will there be any website integration? 

Multi location storage? Where that inventory is located?  

[Inventory]

Hi @overhillgardens Thank you for reaching out. Our team is actively working on many of these features. Please stay tuned for the details!

Would love to set up a call to learn more about your business and inventory management strategy in detail. Please DM me your contact info and a few time slots that may work in the next 2 weeks. 

[nicholausb]

I would love to have the ability to process cycle count or full inventories and see the items that were NOT counted/verified.

[Inventory]

@nicholausb - Our team is actively working on this feature. Please stay tuned for the updates.

[All4Kids]

I wish there was a way to not sell into the negative. Sometimes my employees get a little scan happy and accidently scan a tag twice, which brings inventory to a negative. 
Make it easier to conduct a physical inventory check. Some way to send a scanner and ipad out onto the floor and do a physical inventory count in a certain category.

Reports that show items that are not selling well.

Inventory reports that load faster.

[Inventory]

Hello @All4Kids - Thank you for reaching out. We will love to understand your use-case in detail. Please DM me your contact info and a few time slots that may work for you in the next 2 weeks.

[thoctagon]

Hi

WHYYYYYY when I have a Default Vendor selected for all of my thousands of items, can I not run an accurate Vendor report?
When I run "Vendor Sales" (Reports>Inventory Reports>Vendor Sales) - Several items show up under "No Vendor" when they do have a Vendor. 

I have looked at items side by side on different tabs and I can't see what has been entered differently for an item that reports correctly in "Vendor Sales" and an item that is listed under "No Vendor"

When I click on "Some stock adjustments in your inventory history are missing vendors. Add missing vendors (the hyperlink) for accurate reports and margins." that appears at the top of the page of the report I have described above, it lists just about EVERY ITEM in my inventory as not having a vendor and also does not pull the Unit Cost from the inventory.

Did something go wonky on the last update??

I feel like I am losing my mind.

Thanks.

[Inventory]

Hi @thoctagon - Can you please share this issue in detail with screenshots?

[thoctagon]

I am unable to upload a screenshot. When I click on "Insert/edit image" there is no upload button.  I am not sure how to deal with the form that pops up.

[BOSSI]

We have issues when a customer makes a gift return with no receipt.  We would like to be able to issue a gift card without any transaction info. Like scan the item and pick "issue store credit" 

[littleflower]

Good morning -- Since yesterday, my Inventory Reports - Vendor Sales is no longer filtering by vendor.  Every item sold is reported under "No Vendor."  Will this be fixed soon?  Please help. This is really hurting my productivity.  thanks

[Inventory]

@littleflower - Can you please explain the issue in detail? Sharing screenshots will be very helpful

[littleflower]

The problem has been fixed.

[Beth0416]

Tom looking for an alternative to comment sold and square. We have them now and they are integrated for inventory tracking. 
Are there any other platforms you sync with and also I can use my square barcodes with. 
our inventory is barcoded with square acceptable barcodes. 
looking for a live Facebook selling platform that my square register and inventory will be compatible with. 
I want to keep using square in my retail store but need options for tracking Inventory. 

[Inventory]

@Beth0416 - Thank you for reaching out. Square supports plug and play integration with several 3P solutions. For details, please check out our app marketplace : https://squareup.com/us/en/app-marketplace/

If you can share your use-case in detail, we may be able to offer other best practices for inventory tracking.