How to change to see negative inventory vs “Sold Out”?

[MikeSL]

Today, my items list switched from showing negative items to “Sold Out” this is huge issue. How can it be switched back???

[#2]

You'll find the toggle in the Square Dashboard. 

Click on Items > Click on an item > Click on Stock. In the overlay that opens, you will see a toggle with the label "Tracking."

I expect we will be able to remove the Sold out label tomorrow! The red highlight styling will remain.

[#3]

Hi everyone 👋

I saw that a few of you had posted about this topic, so I brought the threads together so I could respond to you all! Sorry to hear about the troubles here. I've gone ahead and reached out to the team that launched this feature, and directly provided them quotes and feedback from this thread.

I'll be back with another post to provide updates when I have them.

[elaine_p · Accepted solution]

Hi @collinsandcoupe, I can give some more details about this. 

When an item variation does not have inventory tracking on, the toggle gives you the option to mark it as sold out manually. If you turn it on, then the item will have the red highlight in the Square Dashboard: 

In Square Online, the item will have "Out of stock" displayed on your site: 

  

In Square Point of Sale, it displays in your item grid grayed out with a strikethrough, and in the item search with a Sold Out label: 

 

In Square for Retail point of sale, there is no change. To see current stock at a location, you can tap on the item in the cart and there is a current stock row. When you do not track stock, it will say "Receive Stock". 

 

In Square for Restaurants point of sale, the item will be grayed out like several examples in this screen shot.

Hope that helps! 

[ScottyV]

MikeSL,

I am seeing the same thing, both in the web app on my PC and in the phone app as well.

I looked around and did not see any switches in the settings to change it back.

I also rely on seeing the "negative" number for stock items.
Additionally, in the phone app, the screen is quite busy with all the "Sold out (x variations)" business.
I don't need or want this.
I'm guessing this support forum is going to blow up with this stuff in a bit.

[bmmog1959]

Same here. As of this morning, in the Item Library, items that should have a zero quantity now say Sold Out in pink in the Stock column. Other items still just have a zero instead of Sold Out. There seems to be no rhyme or reason. What changed and was there a notification for it? I'm signed up for those already and didn't see one.

[elaine_p]

I can give a little more info about the color coding: 

If any variation is out of stock at any location, highlight red

If all variations are sold out at all locations, display sold out. 

Based on the feedback here and the need to see values, we can use the highlight red style everywhere and will make that update soon.

[bmmog1959]

What I'm hearing from fellow users is that none of us actually want the Sold Out status forced on us. When I get more merchandise and I don't have time to add an item's quantity to inventory, a negative number shows me how many I sold and then automatically adjusts when I have time to enter the quantity. And going into each item and toggling off the location, which was suggested by your team, does not give me a zero quantity, which is what I need. Why not make the Sold Out label optional?

[GLG]

Agreed. They aren't listening. This is a dumb feature that makes Square even more difficult to use than it already is. 

[GLG]

NO! We need to see the actual negative numbers. Changing the color doesn't address our issue. 

[GLG]

I NEED my dashboard to show me negative numbers, not "Sold Out". This is important so we can do a quick browse to check inventory and transfer items and costs. We often get an item, say a 6" pot, enter it as received under 6" pot, but then print unique SKUs such as "blue", "purple", "yellow", etc. We then move inventory around to make the negatives positives or a zero. We also operate in the negative for random things such as service fees. We need to be able to see these negatives so we can add inventory and costs. 

I do not want to see "sold out." I'm not an idiot. I know a zero or negative number means it is sold out. But honestly, most of the time it is not for us simply because of how we manage our inventory.

How do I display negative numbers?

[GLG]

OMG I know this sounds dramatic but I'm going to have a breakdown about this. I know for a fact that we do not have (3) of an item that Square says we have and that there is another item with (-3) that we accidentally sold in it's place. However, I can't see which item has (-3) so I can't reconcile those items and related costs. I also can't click on EVERY single item to see what has (-3). PLEASE MAKE IT SO I CAN SEE NEGATIVE NUMBERS. I know you didn't intend it to be but this is so unbelievably stressful and unhelpful. Seeing "Sold out" solves literally nothing and provides zero benefit. 

HOW CAN I CHANGE WHAT I CAN SEE ON MY DASHBOARD?

[ScottyV]

GLG,

I replied to a different thread about this same topic this morning.
The Android (I assume iPhone) App has a similar issue going on.
All kinds of extra garbage on the screen now that I do NOT need to see.

There has been no traction on the earlier post.
If somebody requested this "feature", they have no clue about other folks methods of operation.
If a developer just slammed this in place with no acceptance testing or input from the masses, shame on them.
Additionally, I have items that have a zero inventory and it does not indicate "Sold out" So, it's not even accurate.

SQUARE! Get this either:
A) Put back the way it was yesterday.
B) Add a setting to be able to change it to show "Negative numbers" or "Sold Out".

[mcellitti]

This update has created major problems for many of us customers. So many businesses rely on being able to see negative inventory counts in order to manage our inventory. Please tell me you can make an option to revert back to the old way. Seeing SOLD OUT is useless in many circumstances.

[RofT]

Suddenly our square register today shows sold out inventory in several categories. We have never tracked inventory and I have no idea why this has appeared. Can anyone from Square help????  I don’t understand where this is coming from and why.

[elaine_p]

Hi - if you are seeing Sold Out, it sounds like tracking may have been turned on. This can happen if you receive inventory or add a stock count for example. To disable tracking, on the Square Online Dashboard, these are the steps: 

1. Click into the item
2. Click Edit Variation Details 
3. Click Manage Stock at the top
4. Turn the tracking toggle off for each location

[mcellitti]

This is a HUGE problem for us as well. We share SKUs between two different bundled products and must have the ability to quickly see negative counts in order to balance inventory every day.

I can't believe these changes are implemented without an option to disable.

[villagebeer]

We noticed today that many items in our Square POS are now showing as SOLD OUT. Did this get turned back on? These are items that we let run into negative counts and are not seen by customers. 

See attached image.

[Valentina]

Hi everyone 👋

I saw that a few of you had posted about this topic, so I brought the threads together so I could respond to you all! Sorry to hear about the troubles here. I've gone ahead and reached out to the team that launched this feature, and directly provided them quotes and feedback from this thread.

I'll be back with another post to provide updates when I have them.

[ScottyV]

Valentina,

I feel the best course of action at this juncture would be for the development team to put things back as they were.
Moving forward, that team could work on developing a setting to allow the display to show either the negative number count (as most folks probably want) or the "Sold Out" tag.
Just assuming that we would all just "want" this change and/or be happy with it is very short-sighted.
Understanding the needs and wants of your customer base is paramount to being successful!

Literally, it is the difference between the users excited to tell others about the great products and services you have, or just ho-hum say you use a so-so payment system that is sometimes problematic.

Thank you for pushing this forward with the developers, I (and the others here) hope that it is resolved soon.

[GLG]

Meanwhile there is still no way of going into inventory history and changing a recount. Recounted 10 when you meant 100? You're inventory count and COGS are completely F'd. As as your reports. You can't change it and it's ridiculous and infuriating. Nor can you download a report of your losses. Again, ridiculous and infuriating. These are basic issues that need to be addressed to solve problems. I'm tired of Square making cosmetic changes. It's NEVER helpful.

Put negative inventory back!

[Grassroots1]

Please get rid of this ridiculous sold out function, we need the negative numbers back!  We use the negative numbers to keep track a lot of things, and now they are gone.  This change is going to cost me hours to manually figure  out how much of certain items we have.   Please quickly give us back our negative numbers!!!!  

[Ria]

Hi Grassroots1 - Welcome back to the community.

We appreciate your feedback and will make sure to make this visible to our product team.

[elaine_p]

Hi 👋

I'm on the Inventory product team responsible for the launch. One idea to help you see negative numbers: Catalog Export. 

1. In the Square Dashboard, go to Items. 
2. In the upper right, click Actions
3. Choose Export Library

This will allow you to see all of you negative stock numbers for each location in a column labeled Current Quantity.

I'm sorry this isn't ideal for all of you. I would love to better understand how you are using negative stock values because I think three might be an opportunity for us to make some of these tasks easier. You can share details in the thread, or schedule a :15 or :30 chat with me to tell me more about it here. 

@ScottyV @GLG @Grassroots1 @mcellitti@bmmog1959 @villagebeer