Inventory Counting with non iOS devices

[ndixon]

I remember someone from Square mentioning that they were working on making it possible to do inventory counting on non iOS devices. Right now the only way to do inventory counts is on an iphone or an ipad. At the very least I feel like you should be able to do this through the dashboard on a computer. It's also crazy that you can't do this on the Square register. Are there any updates on this?

[Candlestore · Accepted solution]

@ndixon 

I was working on one with a Scanner and a Chromebook with Google sheets.  

Then I had to use Excel and formulas to make an Import file to update the information into Square.

I just found my way was a pain to SCAN every item, instead of going I have 8 or 9 there and enter that number.  So I started to add more fields.  Plus a few other counts when I would try entering say 1 case of 144 and then 8 boxes of 12, my inventory would end up being off by 1 or two when I was testing this.  This was because when I scanned an item, to say I had 15 boxes of 12, my formula counted the Scan as 1 and added that to the total of 15 times 12.  I then tried using more formulas to compensate and got all messed up.

I put the counting thing on hold because of Quickbooks messages of discontinuing / no support for Desktop.

Then I started looking for New accounting software.  Desktop versions for what I had / need went from $700 a year to about $1000 to remain with Desktop and not online.  This led me to Odoo.  I tried their Accounting, and was complicated to work with Square, BUT their inventory is awesome.  Now I can see items and where they are in my store if I assign them a location.   So it shows 10 in showroom 1, 2 on display showroom 5, 35 in basement room 3, 500 in the back barn and also shows a total.  This helps me out alot so I do not have to count all of this item but can count the items in one area and it gets updated.   This can be used with a scanner and mobile devices or chromebooks.  1 App like Inventory is free, but if you use 2 apps you pay per user, which can add up.  You can schedule Inventory Cycle counts too for every X amount of days.  So when I get the notification from Odoo to do a Cycle count I update this count in Square.  This is not perfect but now if a customer asks if I have 40 of an Item, I do not go to Basement and be 5 short then pull from showroom when I could go right to my back barn and pull all of them from one location.  Wish I could have storage locations for a Stores location in square instead of one total amount of inventory for my 1 location.

I do not work for Square but wanted to let you know what I was doing and am not sure if you were thinking of me saying I was working on this and where I am at now with it.  I still have the google sheets workbook if you want to look at it.

[ndixon]

I've never had the export/import work the way I wanted so I stay away from it. The iOS app makes inventory counting very easy. Luckily we have 4 iOS devices between us so 4 people can count at once. It would be great if we could have more hands on deck and get it done faster. Having an android app or the ability to do it on the $800 square register would be nice. Having to buy third party hardware to do something so basic is ridiculous to me. That said we did get through our inventory smoothly this year with the iOS app.

[Candlestore]

@ndixon ;

I agree that Square should make the Apps work alike between IOS and Android devices and since your original post was about someone from Square Working on this, I thought you may have saw my post before about me working on my own (non employee of Square) using a chromebook and scanner.  Yes I have also used the IOS device and Square for my inventory which works well, and would like something for Androids because we have more Android devices than Ipads.

[ndixon]

@Candlestore