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.

[holskies]

Thank you for reaching out. It is currently not possible to set up an item bundle with material and/or services combo for sale and automatically track inventory of those materials and services which are part of the bundle. Our team is actively working on incrementally adding this inventory functionality. We would love to follow up with you to better understand your use-case as we build this. Please DM your contact information.

[Paulyester]

@Popi @wheeler1 See the Seller Community thread requesting this at https://www.sellercommunity.com/t5/Square-for-Retail-Discussion/Grouped-Item-Sales/td-p/287270 ... It would be great!

[Inventory]

@Popi - Thank you for reaching out. It is currently not possible to set up an item bundle with material and/or services combo for sale and automatically track inventory of those materials and services which are part of the bundle . Our team is actively working on incrementally adding this inventory functionality. We would love to follow up with you to better understand your use-case as we build this. Please DM your contact information.

[RayleneTaskoski]

Hi! I do in home parties and often sell items I don’t have in stock! Is there (or can you make) a way to print a report of just items that are oversold and to whom I sold them? Also a check box saying “backordered” would be fantastic. Currently I put “backordered” in the notes and I keep a separate list of items I need to send after the fact. 

[Inventory]

Thank you @RayleneTaskoski Our team is actively working to incrementally add this product feature to provide better visibility into stock availability and commitments through various channels. Please stay tuned for the updates!

[Debbie2222]

I am a user of Square...love it!!!

But as a customer of a Square Users I can NEVER Print my receipts that are Emailed to me after a purchase.

No One has ever been able to help me figure it out.....Thank you...

Debbie

[issara]

@Debbie2222 Thank you for sharing this. It's not the kind of experience we want to provide. Would you be able to share a more detailed account of this issue and how to replicate it? Including screenshots in your response will be very helpful.

[TheOpenEye]

Why do my items disappear? I can put them in one day, make a sale and they are gone the next day. For a long time I thought it was just me. Then it happened in front of a couple of customers to indicated to me that it happens to them using Square as well.

I have asked support and have not yet received an answer to the following. It appears as if a visual update was made to Item section. Now, in order to add inventory or do a recount, I have to turn each item on and off, otherwise it appears off.

[Inventory]

Hello @TheOpenEye  Thank you for sharing this. It's not the kind of product experience we want to provide. Would you be able to share a more detailed account of this issue and how to replicate it so that we can address this asap? Including screenshots in your response will be extremely helpful.

[joeyd0909]

Is there a way to change a custom amount to an item. Example cashier couldn't find the item and just entered custom amount but wrote a description. Then upon review of the transactions I know what the item was, so how do I remove that quantity from inventory?

[Inventory]

Hello @joeyd0909  Thank you for your question. It sounds like the POS items catalog in this case was perhaps not up to date and the cashier could not find the correct item during checkout. The best possible alternative after sale is to send a physical recount for that item from POS. You won't be able to tie this inventory decrement to a past sale.

The best way to avoid this in future is to keep your catalog updated at all times. Please feel free to reach out in case you have a follow up question.

[SummittDorisM]

How can I post a description to Square when at a Cash sale/open show?

How can I add a picture to a cash sale?

[Inventory]

Hello @SummittDorisM Thank you for reaching out. Can you please share a detailed description of your use-case so that we can share an appropriate response? 

[allaboutnature]

How can I load  cost  including freight charges into square  so I can get an end of the year estimate as to what i have on hand.

Currently only able to upload retail inventory. ( this would help us do away with quick books for this purpose)

[LeahfromProduct]

Great news, you can add cost for all inventory received using Square for Retail Plus. You can add cost when receiving inventory, resolve missing costs, and when you're using the Purchase Orders feature you can add freight charges. After creating a purchase order, when you're receiving it, click ‘Add Fee’ underneath ‘Subtotal’ where you'll be able to label the charge ‘Freight’ and add the amount. The amount of the charge will be evenly distributed amongst received items. This will keep your inventory reports and costs accurate, also available in Square for Retail Plus. For additional information, visit: https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6110-manage-inventory-with-the-retail-pos-app

[Paulyester]

@LeahfromProduct  I use this feature, but when I do it doesn't adjust the 'cost' of each item on the PO... how, then, does it keep reports accurate?

[loribradeen]

If I could add more than one picture via the app (instead of via my computer) it would save me a lot of time because I edit my pics on my phone where they are readily available to upload AND...adding inventory via the app is quicker than online because online requires a "save" before adding inventory when adding a new product.  I am a potter so almost all of my pieces are one of a kind making for a LOT of inventory adding and deleting.

[Inventory]

Hello @loribradeen Thank you for raising this. It's something we hear a lot and would love to support. We don't have plans to make these changes in 2022, but it's something under consideration for the future.

[mossenvy]

Regarding inventory tracking... I want to be able to run out of something (if I sell it online or in the shop) and still have customers be able to order it online. I want to be able to see how many I have of something of the stuff I DO stock, but when it the inventory number reaches zero - I still want people to be able to make their purchase. Not run into an "out of stock" notice. A lot of my items if I don't have it in stock, I can just drop ship it pretty quickly to  my customer. Thanks!

[issara]

@mossenvy Thank you for sharing this feedback. Our team is actively working on accurately depicting item availability by variation across Square products - invoices, POS, Square online etc. In the next few weeks, our team will reach out to you for interviews so that we can incorporate your feedback as we build this functionality. Please DM your contact information.

[SaratogaMuseum]

It would be great if square inventory could keep track of the items we sell on our website. Square is the payment method we use on our WIX built site. It would save us some time so we wouldn't have to track the inventories separately.