How do I merge items from different categories?

[rschmitt]

Over time, duplicate items were created.  The name may have changed, a different description was given, item misspelled or various reasons why they were created.  Presently, each item is created correctly in the correct category.  However, when creating a report, that item will appear several different ways making it very difficult to read the report.  How do I merge these items so when reading a report, sales of the of the same item are more concise?

[EJ_]

Hello!

Unfortunately there isn't a way to merge duplicate items together. These items will appear in your reports as individual items sold. 

What you can do is bulk edit your item library using the Import/Export Tool. This would allow you to remove any duplicates and place the items in the correct categories from one spreadsheet. 

[nowheybakery]

This reply was created from merging an existing thread: How do I merge items from different categories?

Is there now a way to merge 2 items together?

I saw a post from 2017 that this was not available - wonder if this has changed

Two seperate items were created when i din't realize I had already created the item under a different name. There are sales now under both names and I'd like to merge them

[VanKalkerFarms]

there isn't a way to change past sales, but you can change them now, delete the duplicates, and going forward they will be just under the one's item.

[Montero627]

This is really a problem Square Team, hope you can come up with a proper solution soon. We all make mistakes and to have the same item appear 3 different ways because you corrected a spelling error or added a - is crazy when you think that you have multiple items on a menu and they will all appear duplicated several times!

sure we can clean it up in excel but it defeats the purpose of the report! PLEASE WORK ON IT!!!! 🙂

[Tom]

Hey @Montero627, thanks for taking the time to share your experience with this. Sorry to hear about the added work with reconciling the duplicate items—I'll be sure to surface your post with our Point of Sale Team.

Hopefully EJ's suggested workaround above helps get things going in the right direction for now. Please do keep in touch as we make iterations based on seller feedback.

[Horsefeathers]

We don't feel Square has an appreciation for how much extra work this is for a shop with tens of thousands of SKU's. Here's what we have to do:

1. Export the entire items database.
2. Sort, filter, delete to get the list down to the items that need to be merged (multiple iterations)
3. Find the token for the proper item, edit the row for the incorrect item.
4. Import
5. Take the time to review
6. Find that Square doesn't properly handle adding inventory to an existing token/item properly (it overwrites it)
7. Give up and do it all manually

[nika]

Hey @Horsefeathers. I know this can be especially tough to do for merchants who have tons and tons of items with SKU's. Going through all of those steps is definitely time consuming. 

To be completely honest I wasn't able to find any plans for a launch on this feature request, but we'll continue to track posts on this topic.

Thanks for hanging in there on this. If any updates come about we'll be sure to post here.

[abbydoundrins]

***THIS IS A HUGE ISSUE THAT NEEDS RESOLUTION***

Simple modification of an existing item title should not result in 2 different data sets.  I changed the name of an existing item and now have 2 different data sets, making all of my previous data/reports inaccurate.  I literally decide what to keep on my menu from week to week based on item performance/sales.  I can no longer rely on comparison reports to show trends in sales of a particular item because they are now split.  This is ridiculous.  I understand the difficulty of the other situation as described by others of manually merging 2 data sets if the same item was put in twice.  This is entirely different, though, than if you change a detail on an existing item through "editing".  What will happen if I change the price on an item (normal for any business to do over time)?  Will it separate it into 2 data sets because the price has been changed?  I sure hope not.  Changing part of the title on an existing item is effectively the exact same modification type as a price change.  This is a modification to an item, not merging of 2 different ones that had different data sets to begin with.  At a bare minimum, editing of an existing item should not result in another data set creation.

[ashc]

Hi @abbydoundrins and welcome to the Community,

I really appreciate the feedback and the detailed information on how this affects your business and why this suggestion would be helpful for you.

I don't have a timeline on when this will be available but i'm happy to send this request up to our Product team. 

Here's some more information on how Feature Requests work as well if you're curious. 

[rsmithrksfarms]

Well put me down as a request for this feature. . . an important element in this type

of an application. Please get it started and keep us updated. Thanks.