Inventory Management - Does anyone have any suggestions or best practices?

[ASOTV_Daytona]

For retail locations, how do you manage your inventory day to day? How do you update stock when a delivery arrives? How do you verify stock? For reference i do not have  a computer in my shop, just the iPad. Looking for suggestions on how best to manage the workflow. Working on the iPad seems slow and cumbersome, waiting till I get home to use my computer seems to introduce human errors.

[Tom]

Hi @ASOTV_Daytona, thanks for surfacing this!

Currently, Square's inventory features are best managed from a computer by signing in to your dashboard. Find more details and best practices for inventory management in our Support Center.

I would also suggest taking a look at our partner apps under Items & Inventory. You might find some useful solutions for your inventory needs!

I can see how having everything managed on one device (e.g. all on your iPad) would be helpful for your business. We don't support inventory management within the Register app but we've been tracking this request. I'll share your experience with our product liaison team.

Please feel free to chime in with any other insight or feedback.

[bandoraone]

are there plans to link sales of finish goods to the bill of materials? Say, I sell a gamburger, then I want to decrease my inventory of buns by one and inventory of meet by 3oz. 

[Keithppp]

stay away from intrakr which is in the square app store, i tried them, but they take 5-6 days to respond to a support ticket (only after i messaged them on facebook).  it is not ready for prime time!

[beardsandbeers]

Please bring inventory management to the register app ASAP!

[armando98]

We'd really like this feature too to manage inventory from the Ipad. I have looked into third party partners but haven't found one for right price and features.

[Kelly]

@bandoraone @armando98 I don't have an exact timeline for you but we love hearing what our merchants are looking for so thanks for the feedback! I'll send your requests over to our Product Liaison team.

[JackSulaiman]

I'm looking for a solution, too, as I have nearly 5,000 SKUs and I cant figure out any way to make squares invennory management template interface with anything else. It would be really awesome if the inventory could be adjusted from ipad/iphone within the square register app and using the camera as a barcode scanner, THAT. WOULD. BE. AWESOME.

[Keithppp]

I hear you.  I wish they would improve the inventory system.  Right now it pretty much sucks to update items. 

[Kelly]

@JackSulaiman @Keithppp Thanks for taking the time to post! Our product teams are aware of these requests and we will share any updates that we receive from them. In the meantime, you may want to check out our App Marketplace for information on all our our integrations with third party systems, including options for inventory! 

[BebeStL]

Has anyone tried the Shopventory app in the App Market Place?  We HAVE to have a better system to updated inventory!

[Tom]

Hey @BebeStL — I wanted to circle back here and see how things were going with your inventory solution.

I noticed that @dutchessdnn716 and @BethH mentioned some experience with Shopventory. If anyone has any additional insight on how it has been working for their business, feel free to chime in!

[BebeStL]

Hello Tom,

We did eventually sign on with Shopventory.  They give a 30 day free trial, so we put it through a heafty test run!  But we are a smaller store, with only one location.  

The Starter Level works fantastic for us!  But again, we are a small store with one location.  It interfaces perfectly with Square, updates instantly, well worth the $29/mo for the Starter Level.  The description field on Shopventory is much longer than on Square, so that has led to a few challenges.  But we've found a way around them easily. 

And their Customer Service is stellar!  They even follow up with us at different intervals; 1 week into Free trial period, 15 days in, before the free one expired.  All questions answered immediately in a chat format.  & They have checked in with us each month at least twice to see if we're doing okay & if we're aware of helpful features.  

Would definitly recommend, from our experience!

[Tom]

Thanks for taking the time to circle back, @BebeStL! I'm so glad to hear that you were able to find a good fit for your business and that you've had a stellar experience with Shopventory. 💯

Hope things continue to go well, and please don't hesitate to let us know if you have any other topics/questions you'd like to bring up. 🙂

[heavymetal]

Hi all, wanted to jump into this threat if I may? I also run a very small business (mostly apparel) and use Square for in-person sales and SquareSpace for website sales. I'm looking for a way to not only (1) manage inventory but also (2) track sales. 

- (1) Based on @BebeStL review Shopventory integrates nicely with Square. Since SquareSpace doesn't integrate with third-party apps I'm guessing I can manually updates my website sales on Shopventory? 

- (2) Does Shopventory also provide an overview of sales derived from Square + SquareSpace, or would I have to use yet another third-party app?

Would appreciate any input on how to better manage my inventory and track sales. I'm great with interacting with clients and knowing my product, but business management is clearly my weak point.  😞  Thanks all! 

[BebeStL]

Actually, Shopventory does an immediate update to the inventory count in Square when I add inventory into Shopventory, usually in less than 30 seconds, for sure!  And, we can update in Shopventory manually, or do a mass update via a CVS file when we get a bigger shipment in.  (There's a nice tutorial in Shopventory to help walk you through it.)

And sales run through the Square register app, or any time we do mobile sales like at a Con, all reconcile the inventory count back to Shopventory automatically!  Even when Square is running in offline mode, when it comes back online, the updates run.  

So it really should be all you need!  My GM who does my buying, inventory & sales tracking just loves it!  & I do too!

[BebeStL]

The Square Space I'm not as familiar with.  But I'm sure Shopventry will be more than happy to answer all of your concerns.  I've found them to be VERY helpful!  

The only thing I've found a little klugy, are if you put an item in the wrong catagory in Shopventory, the only way to fix it is through the CVS file upload.  You can't just fix it real quick with a line item update.  

But other than that, I've found it to work great!

[uniquelyyoursdr]

HAVE YOU FIGURED OUT HOW TO USE THE INVENTORY SYSTEM ON SQUARES.  WE ARE A SMALL BUSINESS ALSO.  DONT REALLY WANT TO GO TO ANOTHER SYSTEM. WE ARE TRYING TO FIGURE OUT THE SIMPLEST WAY TO RECEIVE IN MERCHANDIZE. THANKS, CLAUDIA

[finderskeepers]

It's really difficult to decide what I need to order without seeing side-by-side what I started out with and what I have left. Inventory alerts aren't helpful to me when I have thousands of items and variations to keep track of. 

[Helen]

Sorry to hear the Inventory alerts aren't helpful @finderskeepers!

You might want to check out a partner app from our App Marketplace (scroll down to 'Inventory') to find a solution that works for you. Or, you could take a look at Square Retail (a paid subscription) which has advanced reporting features. 

[JoelPSU82]

I would like to be able to take a physical inventory using a barcode scanner (scanning all items in inventory and creating an inventory report that could be exported).