Adding item via App

[MittenBeach]

Why is it when I add an item via the app and all the information (photo, description, price, modifier and category) everything shows up except the category it’s been assign too? I have to manually go in and find the item on my dashboard and assign it the category again. Very frustrating!!! 

[TheRealChipA]

Hi @MittenBeach.  Is it not showing up in the appropriate category on your POS, or your online store?  Or both?  I’m having a problem trying to reproduce this, so I’m guessing I’m making assumptions that I shouldn’t make.  LOL

Thanks!  Hopefully we can get to the bottom of this pretty quickly once I can reproduce it.

[MittenBeach · Accepted solution]

It’s not showing up in my Online store. I have to go to my dashboard and manually add the category even though I chose the correct category when I created it in the app. 

[TheRealChipA]

@MittenBeach.  Thank you for the clarification.  What you are experiencing is actually a feature of the online store, one that it was designed to do.  Square designed the Online Store to allow for a completely different categorization that our item library.  This is because quite often how we categorize items for reporting purposes is very different from how we categorize them for presentation to our guests. So, there are actually two categories for all items — the Item Catalog category used for reporting purposes AND the Online Store Category used for organizational purposes.

A real world example from when I had a bar component to my business.  When I created my items, all beers were categorized as Beer.  But to make it more intuitive for my guests, my online store broke up beers into “Domestic” and “Import/Craft.”  I never wanted my sales reporting to be that granular, but I did want the guests to see the difference.  Likewise, all of my mixed drinks were categorized under Liquor in my item library.  But to make it easy for my guests who preferred certain liquors, my online store had categories like “Bourbon Drinks,” “Vodka Drinks,” etc.  

In a retail setting, sellers often want to be more granular and specific when presenting items to their guests and Square Online gives us the ability to do so.  Unfortunately, this means that you MUST specify (through the online store) your store category, even if it is the same as the reporting category.  If you don’t do that after you create a new item, then Square Online automatically groups it into a special category called “Items” at the bottom of your store page. All items without specific Square Online categories are grouped here by default.

I would agree that having two steps is quite unnecessary and frustrating, and it might be a good idea to submit a feature request for Square Online here.  If you do, let me know that you did and I, for one, would upvote it and support it wholeheartedly.  I see no reason why the add function in master item catalog can’t give us the ability to specify the Online Store category at the same time we create it.  But, for now, it will always be a two step process as far as I’ve been able to figure out.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Regards,

[MittenBeach]

Thanks for the clarification. I will add a request eventually. Good to know it’s not just me. 
My next question then is why when I add something on the dashboard to my online store,  it doesn’t show up on my retail app? It’s like the reverse of adding the item in the app as I described previously. 
Thanks 🤨