Square Stand Inventory Management When Sold Out

[LarsonJ]

I want to use square stand to sell lunch tickets in a trade show type environment at 4 different stations around the venue. I have 8 lunch options, and I would like to be able to stock all stations with more than enough physical tickets, and just have the inventory option display as sold out when the actual number of available lunches are sold out, and not allow any more sales to be processed. This way I don't have to worry about printing the exact number of tickets and some stations having extra tickets when others are sell out even if there is "stock" left. Essentially I want the option to have inventory work like it does for an online store at the physical register. Is this a possibility?

Thanks, Josh

[EJ_ · Accepted solution]

Hi Josh,

Unfortunately if you’re processing a sale from the Square app, you won’t be blocked from selling an out of stock item.

This is intended to be this way. The thinking here was that if say you do not keep your quantity levels accurate (i.e. forget to update the amount after you receive goods), we don't want to block your sales if the quantity level goes below 0 on Square, but you actually have the item in stock.

Perhaps a few of your fellow sellers can chime in with some work arounds that they use to help with this. 

[watbworks]

Our previous POS software had a pop-up that told you that the "item is out of stock. Would you like to proceed?"

That could be a possibility.

[Sean]

@watbworks - Appreciate the suggestion! We'll be sure to pass it along to our product liaison team. 👍

[willowcityfarm]

This is a GREAT suggestion, and something that's very necessary!  We sell products at a farmer's market, and we get busy.  I don't want to have to open the freezer and search for the one Bloody Mary Bratwurst I have left, if the register can just tell me I am out. 

[liveedgedetroit]

Is this "out of stock" pop-up or warning an option yet?  Or anything like that?? 

[puka]

Hey @liveedgedetroit  - The Low Stock alert is currently limited to email alerts at this time. To turn it on, you would just need to go to your Item Library, select an item to edit, and click "None" next to Low Stock Alert to edit the stock level you would like for it to alert you.

Our Product team is still tracking feedback for a pop-up alert so we will make sure to forward your post as well

[Arise]

I would love this option!

We sell shirts/jackets/etc with a traveling band. Being on the go constantly doesn't make it easy to have good storage/display options where I can readily see inventory quickly, so having something pop up detailing that "hey, it looks like this is out of stock" would be helpful if we're searching and searching for a Large lightbulb t-shirt that doesn't exsist, in the stack/rolling tote we roll it around in.

I do like the option of "looks like you're out, but do you want to proceed?" should there be any small discrepancies, and we have the shirt in hand.

But having the update on the app itself would rock!

[katieand]

Hi @Arise - Super helpful that you shared your use case. I'll be sure to pass on this feedback to our team who manages all the features associated with inventory. And how cool that you work with a traveling band. Happy travels ✌️

[Cpadgett]

Many POS systems give you the option to sell or not sell an out of stock item.  Similar to the tracking toggle. The user can decide if they want to block the sale of an out of stock item or allow. The purpose of tracking is to have accurate inventory and sales reporting. By not allowing the sale of out of stock items, it keeps from the incorrect item from being rung. Some employees will ring the easiest item, for example the first item in the list, if the price point is the same. 

This can be avoided by using barcode scanning, but giving  the end user the option, allows for them more control of how the run their business.

All that said, for the price and ease of use, Square is a great POS for small business and first time users.

[vcochran]

Offering a "Renew" button, with an option for entering quantity of new inventory would be fast for those who need this feature.

For those of us selling one of a kind or limited numbers of each item, from multiple points, the overselling feature is horrible.
What's worse: the Inventory/Warning, as it's set up now, implies that this feature functions like the majority of other POS solutions, which leaves you blindsided on your first outing, as you (and your customers) discover you've sold items you don't have/won't have and you suddenly have to start issuing refunds. There's also no quick way to come up with alternatives, while you're in the midst of sales. Yuk.

[AEndelman]

 Does the fact that this answer is marked as "Best Answer" mean that the requested feature won't be added?

[Helen]

Hello @AEndelman! This feature is still being tracked as a feature request. When there's a Best Answer it helps other sellers in the Community to find the thread. Sorry for any confusion! If we have any updates to share we'll also update the Best Answer. 

[AEndelman]

Any updates on this?  The lack of this feature continues to be an issue for us; we continue to have to choose between risking overselling of items, or paintstakingly checking inventory of each item while a line of customers is waiting to check out.  Both are bad.

[gvc]

Hey guys are you still using Square? I'm having doubts about jumping from shopify to square. I love the platform but the lack of features and slow pace of implementation for really necessary features is frustrating! 

[MikeM]

Has this feature been built yet? Or is there a workaround for this? We're overselling items and it's becoming an issue. Thx

[AshleyK]

Hi @MikeM great question! We still are tracking requests for this feature, so at the moment you still can sell items if they hit an inventory level of 0. We appreciate your patience in this and I have pushed your feedback to our Development Team. 

[Whatafood]

It’s taking too long to fix a thing that is so obvious.

A simple boolean do ‘you sell items with no inventory?’ Yes/No would work.

This post has already couple years, how many years more going to be needed? 

[Lbcreamery]

We requests this feature too. Now that we are selling online for pickup the feature is more necessary so we don't sell something in the shop that has already been sold out online.

[jordangill]

Have you all worked on this yet? It is very important to my team to disable being able to sell items that are no longer in inventory or even in the shop. This is a feature that needs to be available to many people as soon as possible. Does Square have a timeline for when you will update this inconvenient feature? 

[TreeAmigos]

note: this reply is not appropriate for this thread. When replying to Jordangill we thought they were referring to how there was no easy way to take sold out items off of the online shop. Not having accurate inventory control on the POS creates complications

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Even though we have over 300 items and a revolving stock of what’s available depending on the seasons or month, we are pretty happy with how it’s done now.

Filter your item list for items not in stock then either mark them hidden or unavailable with bulk edit option

The extra step could be troublesome for your operation. For us, having our inventory control manager manually doing changing what’s available or not is helpful since some items may restock in a week and other items might be done for the season.