Sub Categories

[Jpatla]

I know this has been mentioned in the past.  I know you can use variations and modifiers and that you can have site subcategories online.  But I am a Pizza/Deli along with a Retail store.  

I know you are looking for reasons why subcategories would be helpful so here I go.  For instance in my store I track cost in QuickBooks under major categories such as Grocery, Meat Dept, Lotto, Pizza/Deli etc. I use these as my major Roll up categories- See example of Grocery 

Grocery-

   Produce

        Weighed

            items

        Non Weighed

             items

   Candy

       Candy Bars

            items

        Novelty

            items

        Truffles

             items

   Local Items

       Maple Syrup

           items

       Private label Spices

          items

   Pet products

      Food/Treats

         items

      Toys

         items

    Dairy

      Cheese

          items

      Milk

        items

You get the idea, when I break them down into individual categories then I have to export to Excell, rearrange my rows and add roll them up manually.  

We are also Using Square for Restaurants to integrate our online Menu.  But I have to have all the menu categories in seperatly so they show on the Menu correctly and I can have correct tickets print to the kitchen but when it comes to reporting it would be nice to be able to roll up all the menu categories so I can see what the Restaurant did.  I know that is possible with Restaurants Plus but since we have both we need the retail tracking of Retail Plus.  So far I have been able to get everything to work together; with some workarounds, we have only had it a week.  But I do see reporting as an issue moving forward.  

Thanks

Jodie Patla

Joe's Jerky Pizza Deli & Corner Market

[#2]

If you have at least one other category, you can create a subcategory within your Square Online website.

Head to your Square Online overview page > Items > Site Categories > click the + button next to a category.

After saving your changes, the new category will appear nested underneath the category you just selected on the Items > Site Categories page. Learn more about categories here.

I hope this helps, @hishersbling - and welcome to the Seller Community! ✨ 

[#3]

Hi @coppermug84 👋 Thanks for reaching out! Happy to have you join us here on the Seller Community. Welcome!

We do not have any current plans to implement a sub-category system. We feel that the implementation of Variations and Modifiers offers these same features of potential sub-categories, and allow for trackable iterations of existing items.

We would love to hear more about what you would use sub-categories for! How specifically would sub-categories be beneficial to your business? - what kind of items do you sell?

I will keep an eye out for your response!

[kcbrickstore]

Hey @Valentina!

Thanks for the answer here! However, it looks like this is just for Square Online - is there a timeline on when this feature will be available for the Square POS? I'm currently evaluating a few different POS options for our store, and I'm worried that 1 layer of categories in the Square POS may be limiting.  I'm also worried about the dual-maintenance cost of having sub-categories in Square Online but not Square POS.

Thanks!

[Arie]

Hey @kcbrickstore,

Stepping in in @Valentina 's absence here. We don't have a timeframe for subcategories on the Point of Sale at the moment. I understand your concerns, and will highlight this feature request with our product team! 

[zmartin]

we just moved to square from counterpoint and are having some issues with the move. we need to set up our wines in subcategories for reporting purposes (ie a wine category that has red, white, sparkling...etc) we would like to pull a report that shows all our wine sales compared to last year as well as seeing specific wine sales vs last year.

[_Violet]

Hi @zmartin - Thanks for reaching out to us here on the Square Seller Community with your question.

I went ahead and merged your post to an existing thread where other Square Sellers and some of our Seller Community Moderators have been discussing this as well. At this time, this would be considered a feature request but please see the answer provided by @Joe for suggestions on how you can set up something similar to subcategories within our available features.

I hope this information is helpful but please do let us know if you have any additional questions. 

[Candlestore]

@zmartin ;

For Square Pos and the Square Reporting this has been a feature request since at least 2018.  As of 11-29-2021 according to Arie, Square still does not have a time frame for this request.  I would like to see which Subcategory of My Category sells the best. Since my other Web host has them broken up that way.  Even Square Online has the ability to have subcategories but not the POS for reports to compare.

[alltimecoffee]

I am new to Square - I would also like to create sub categories. I have a cafe that also sells retail. Same as above, for reporting it would be incredibly useful to have categories broken down a little:

BEVERAGES

    Coffee

        -Drip

        -Iced Coffee

        -Cold Brew

    Espresso

       -Latte

       -Cappuccino

       -Macchiato

       -Shot

       -Flat White

    Specialty Drinks

       -South Swell

       -Ol Helga

       -Banana Hammock

       -White Hayes

    Cold Brew Shakes

       -Dirty Bird

       -Mint CC

       -Swell

    Tea

       -Jasmine Pearls

       -Harry Crab

       -Earl Grey

BAKERY

    Bagels

    Croissants

       -Ham

       -Spinach

       -Bacon

       -Chocolate

       -Plain

    Muffins

        -Blueberry

        -Cranberry

        -Banana

        -Chocolate

GROCERY

    Drinks

        -Kombucha

        -Spindrift

        -Rishi

        -Acqua Panna

        -San Bennedetto

    Snacks

        -Fig Bars

        -Bobos

        -Granola

RETAIL

    Artists

       -Dawn

       -Mike

       -Noah

       -James

    Clothing

        -Tees

        -Sweatshirts

        -Hats

    Mugs

        -MagJag

        -TimberSeas

        -Will

    Trinkets

        -thiswillbecoloful

        -TCB

        -decals

......the list goes on. As you can see, main categories in BOLD, then broken into subs, then following with the items (with a -) that have variables etc. Being able to break categories greatly helps organizing the POS and generating specific reports. Seems crazy to me this is not already implemented in Square.

[Kassi_]

Hey there, @Jpatla & @alltimecoffee - 

Thank you for taking the time to post this Feature Request on within the Ideate Boards. Your feedback and insight on this feature request about sub-categories is greatly appreciated and it's a huge request by other sellers. 

Since this particular feature isn’t currently available on our platform, I have updated the status to “Reviewed”. Once more information becomes available from our Product Team, a Community moderator will update the status to the next phase. Keep an eye out for the email once this change has been made.

[joshcurtiss]

I would like to add my 2 cents into this request for subcategories. I think Square might be the only POS system that does not have subcategories. I own a retail butcher shop and grocery. We carry fresh meats, house made products and have a curated list of about 400 retail items for sale. I want to make my items easy to find and available online but my only option is to add it all into one 400 item long list of retail products or have 15 different full categories that I then have to pull and combine data on them all individually to compare them to my P&L for a cost basis.

Additionally it makes it impossible for customers to find items online. I need a category structure like this:

Dry Goods/sauces, dry goods/grains, dry goods/pickles etc. This applies to all of my items. It additionally applies to all of my fresh items. Beef/dry-age, beef/grinds bones etc, beef/roasts, etc. 

This feature would make navigation for both me and my customers so much easier. My former POS system had subcategories which was so nice! Whatever needs to be done to make this happen and add my voice to this request I would appreciate it.

[WebersFarm]

I am working on setting up our item inventory on Square in hopes to transition to Square fully from NCR's Counterpoint system. In the counterpoint system we have our inventory broken down in to Categories and then Subcategories - for example, we have a Bakery Category and within that we have Subcategories for Rolls, Breads, Cakes, Donuts, Pastries, and others. We have several "departments" within the business and they are all broken down in to Category and then Subcategory. At this point, we do not have an online store, and I'm really just looking to get the inventory on the business side organized, but I am finding it challenging without having the option to add a Subcategory.

Any help/advice would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Stephanie

Weber's Cider Mill Farm ,Inc.

[Barksnco]

Just my two cents. I also am surprised that Square is the only platform who does not have sub categories. I am a new business and regret not going with clover as they have this feature and it would be really helpful while building my website.