[US Only — Need Beta Testers] Add "combo" functionality

[BistroSupport]

We'd love to have the ability to build combs in Square for restaurants.  We see it working something like this..

1) assume a full inventor of items already in system (drinks, food, etc)
2) a new section in items called "combos" is added
3) create new combo, give it a name - ex "Breakfast Sandwich w/ Coffee"
4) when you "build" this combo, you pick items from your existing item library - ex, Breakfast Sandwich, fruit bowl, coffee.
5) show the calculated combo price (the sum of the items)
6) allow us to apply % or $ discount to combo (combos are always cheaper then the sum of the items)
7) save combo

In POS, when this combo is selected...
1) it automatically adds the respective items to the check under the combo name.
2) any "item conversations" remain in place b/c the combo button is essentially a quick way to add multiple items to check w/ one button press.
3) item printer routing remains in place

By doing it this way, we can keep a neater item library and we get proper tracking of items sold.  ex - coffee sold, by combo or al-la-carte, would produce an accurate count.

Thoughts??

[#2]

Hi all - I'm Hadley, I work on the Square Restaurants product team. Thank you all for the great feedback and requests for Combos. I wanted to share that we are starting a Beta program to offer Combos functionality. It is for Square for Restaurants Plus POS users in the US to start but will soon expand to other channels, counties and tiers.

If you think you'd be a fit for the beta at this time, or are interested in learning more, please join the Beta Program. You can request to join through this link: https://www.sellercommunity.com/t5/Combos/gh-p/Combos#_=_

Thanks! 

[#3]

We'd love to have the ability to build combs in Square for restaurants.  We see it working something like this..

1) assume a full inventor of items already in system (drinks, food, etc)
2) a new section in items called "combos" is added
3) create new combo, give it a name - ex "Breakfast Sandwich w/ Coffee"
4) when you "build" this combo, you pick items from your existing item library - ex, Breakfast Sandwich, fruit bowl, coffee.
5) show the calculated combo price (the sum of the items)
6) allow us to apply % or $ discount to combo (combos are always cheaper then the sum of the items)
7) save combo

In POS, when this combo is selected...
1) it automatically adds the respective items to the check under the combo name.
2) any "item conversations" remain in place b/c the combo button is essentially a quick way to add multiple items to check w/ one button press.
3) item printer routing remains in place

By doing it this way, we can keep a neater item library and we get proper tracking of items sold.  ex - coffee sold, by combo or al-la-carte, would produce an accurate count.

Thoughts??

[Donnie-M]

@_Violet The classic use case for quick service is the entrée + side item + drink.  I think this is the typical option that many QSRs will use where they want to drive up ticket sales with an incentive to buy a drink with a side, etc.  I also think that an ideal use case scenario would be a sort of "scripted" ordering where the you have item A when flagged for combo/addon will pop up item B choice then Item C choice = final total price/combo.  Where   A --> B --> C --> D --> E --> F etc.  

What I am currently doing is with an entrée + 2 sides is I have entrée as the main item...then I use modifiers to have side items 1, 2, 3,4,5.  I set the first modifier as 2$ second modifier as 2$ and each other one the appropriate price and then I customize that modifier set to the item to REQUIRE 1 choice and then maybe a maximum of 3 or 2 or no maximum depending on my use.  One of my modifiers has a 0.00$ price and says NO SIDES...so this fixes the problem on a blue plate special.

But this way is tedious and if you are out of an item it is really difficult to go through and kill a bunch of custom modifiers on items.

[AbistrobySea]

@Square this is a key feature in competitors' software (LS) that's sorely missing from square - making it harder for us to move to square from LS.

[TheRealChipA]

So…. Square is beta testing Retail Bundling, and has been for a while now.  Though I can’t be certain, if I were a betting man I’d wager that once this concept is proven to work, it won’t be long before it can be ported to Restaurants.  This is the description of that beta, which sounds very much like this feature request:

This beta allows Retail Plus/Premium subscribers to bundle multiple items to be sold as one while tracking inventory for each individual component.

Disclaimer — I’m not a Square employee, nor am I privy to the roadmap for things like this.  So take this at face value.

[BBCafe1]

I want to be able to create a combo where I fire items to different KDS.

Example: 1 Sandwich + 1 Juice + 1 Fries

Sandwich Station: Receives 1 Sandwich + Frieds
Juice Station: Receives Juice (even if the juice was just a modifier for the sandwich) 

Would that be possible at the moment? 

[DeutschEssen]

Been 3 months since the last comment and still no progress from Square. I hope they take the request for the ability to bundle multiple items into a combo and have inventory reduced for each item. Using modifiers ir not an acceptable compromise for us.

[sayra]

Hello, @DeutschEssen. We understand how this can be frustrating.  The ability to bundle multiple items into a combo with synchronized inventory reduction is a valuable suggestion. It seems like this feature would greatly enhance the efficiency and user experience for businesses using Square.

At this time, we don't have an update to provide regarding this feature. Please rest assured that our product team will take a look at this feature on this board. All of your feedback is an added value to our product team. 

We appreciate your feedback and patience while our product team works on gathering more details. 

[TheRealChipA]

Hey all in this thread…. There is a new beta test for combos that can be found at this link.  Here is the description posted regarding who is eligible to join this test currently:

”This beta allows Restaurants Plus subscribers to optimize their menu with combos to drive sales and diner satisfaction. This beta is currently only for US sellers, processing on the Restaurants POS, have only one active location, and DO NOT use Square Online.”

If you meet those requirements, I’d suggest joining this if you want to be part of the feedback that helps shape this new feature.  Unfortunately, since I use Square Online, I’m excluded for now.  I’m told by the admins that this restriction is only temporary, though.

[5iveSpice]

I requested to join that beta back in Oct but never got "accepted".

I also wanted to add that as a "Combo" it would be nice to be able to send the combo items separately to kitchen (ie: App first, Entree, then Dessert).

[tiptopwineshop]

One more vote for combos! I have a retail wine shop that would like to make 'combo meals' of wines, which automate a discount when the specific items in a combo have been purchased. Please please!

[gbosschic]

Having this option it would be much easier to offer to the customer via online order for example.