NEW ITEM TYPE CLASSIFICATION

[MountainHouse]

We noticed an update to the Square Dashboard this week that is assigning "Item Type" to our products. Not only are most of the classifications wrong, but we are unable to change them to the correct type. The help message says this can only be adjusted when a new item is created! Whoever came up with this idea to allow existing items to be automatically modified AND not allow us to correct them must be crazy. There is no way I am deleting and recreating thousands of items. The option to properly classify needs to be added, or the entire update needs to be rolled back and rethought out....

@_Violet 

[TheRealChipA]

Hey again, @MountainHouse.  As far as the main item catalog is concerned, this restriction is not new.  Thankfully, i don’t have thousands of items, but all of mine are physical because that’s what they were when I created them years ago.

There is a work-around, of sorts, if you are using Square Online.  For some reason, the Square Online item catalog allows for item type changes.  Unfortunately for all of us, this capability only exists for item by item edits.  In other words, even though there is a bulk edit capability for the online item catalog, item type is not one of the fields that can be bulk edited.  So, you’re still stuck right now with editing thousands if items.  Ugh.

You already know where I’m going with this.  Head over to the Ideate Board and submit a feature request to the Square Online team to add the field “item type” to the bulk edit feature.  Since it allows item types to be changed there, it shouldn’t be impossible to allow that same field to be bulk edited, eh?

Honestly, I’m betting that we are right now in one of those odd in-between states between how things were at the beginning (the main item catalog) and where the engineers hope to go (the Online item catalog) and the tools just haven’t caught up yet.  At least, that is my hope.  Item creation and maintenance is still something of a nightmare and one of those areas in the Square ecosystem that I dread having to get into anymore.

One more thing.  If future items will mostly be of a certain type, head to dashboard > Online > Shared Settings > Item Preferences.  There you can set a default item type for new items as well as a default item fulfillment method.

Regards,

[MountainHouse]

Hi..Its brand new to me. Just this week suddenly each item has a type at the top, and any new SKUS require me to pick a type. We are a very busy store that receives inventory almost daily, this feature was never there before this week.

[MountainHouse]

@_Violet 

PLEASE HELP! This new items classification is driving me crazy! Our items have all been changed on their own!!! And we cant change them back!!! We have durable goods, for example a CANDLE, and now it wants us to enter calories!!! As I said before we have THOUSANDS of SKUS and there is no way that I am going to corrupt our historical records, much less delete all my SKUS and start over from scratch for a whole store!!! Can engineering PLEASE enable us to change the item type, WITHOUT deleting and creating a new SKU. This is probably one of the most poorly thought out decisions I've ever seen square make! And for the record, NONE of these items are for sale on a square website. This is strictly in store, face to face sold items. I noticed my previous post didn't receive any formal replies, so please please pass this on tp the appropriate team!! 🙂

[_Violet]

Hi @MountainHouse - Thanks for reaching out to us to report this.

I've reached out to the Square for Retail product team on this one to get the best answer for you. I'll reach back out to you here once I receive a reply from them.

[alexws · Accepted solution]

Hi @MountainHouse — thank you for the feedback on this. For context on this update, our teams are working on bringing Square Online item attributes, such as Item Type, to the main Square Dashboard to create a more unified item catalog tool. We are doing this so that sellers who sell both in-person and online no longer must use both the main Square Dashboard and Square Online to fully merchandise their items. Since you had previously signed up for Square Online, items you create via Point of Sale or the main Square Dashboard are assigned an item type behind the scenes based on the default item type setting in Square Online > Items > Item Preferences. The update we made recently is to allow sellers who have a Square Online site to select an item type when creating a new item in the main Square Dashboard's Item Library, and to also display the item type of your existing items in the main Square Dashboard's Item Library. Previously, viewing and selecting an item's type when creating an item was only possible in Square Online > Items > Site Items. I'm sorry that this update to the main Square Dashboard's Item Library has surprised you and caused confusion. 

As @TheRealChipA mentioned, it is possible to change the item type of an existing item without deleting the item in Square Online > Items > Site Items. We are also working on introducing the ability to change an existing item's type in the main Square Dashboard, including in bulk (rather than one item at a time). However, since you are only selling your items in-store and not selling online, I would actually suggest ignoring the item type altogether for now because the item type classification currently is relevant only to online selling. The Point of Sale app does not yet differentiate items based on their item type in any way, and on your Square Online site there is in fact no buyer-facing difference between a Prepared Food & Beverage item that doesn't have any nutritional information added (e.g. Calorie Count, Dietary Restrictions, or Food Allergens) and a Physical item. I hope this info is helpful while we continue to work on improving our item types feature in the main Square Dashboard, and please let me know if I can help clarify anything further.

[MountainHouse]

I appreciate the detailed explanation and look forward to being able to reclassify my items correctly.  I guess my only remaining question is why, for example did a candle that I sell in store only and has never ever been sold online automatically get switched to a food and beverage item? I feel as if this transition might have been a little more thoughtfully handled that this issue wouldn’t have arisen at all. I sell simple items with accurate descriptions and it seems like more then half of my items were automatically incorrectly categorized by this change. Why would the method employed  choose to need to switch a candle to a food item? 

Square is supposed to help my business thrive. And over the course of the last year there have been more and more incidents like this. Half thought out updates. The global outage. Horrible POS updates that have to be rolled back after customer complaints. It seems that there is inadequate quality checks on updates before they are released , and that decisions would be better made for changes after consulting a group of “power users”. We pay a lot to use your services and they cause a lot of headaches. Customers always ask us our opinion of square as well. And honestly we can only share mixed feelings at this point.  While square offers amazing bonus features such as the specialized apps and savings account etc, it also it the most unstable POS system I have worked with in my 40 years in retail. 

Hoping to get it all back in correct working order again soon.  

@_Violet

[alexws]

@MountainHouse If you can please share the exact name of the candle you're selling we can take a look at the history of the item type classification and see if there was an inadvertent change. I checked your Square Online settings and I see your default item type in Square Online > Items > Item Preferences is Physical. If your default item type was previously set to Prepared Food & Beverage, that would explain why the candle item that you created was automatically classified as a Prepared Food & Beverage item. 

I hear you on consulting power sellers as we work on new features and updates. If you're open to it, we have a Beta Community where we engage with sellers to get feedback on new features, including those in the design phase that haven't yet been built. https://www.sellercommunity.com/t5/Beta-Seller-Community/ct-p/Beta-Seller-Community-Global

[MountainHouse]

Hi there, thanks for the prompt reply! 🙂 Here is an item for you to look at "Harvest Moon Holiday Mug Candle CLEARANCE" SKU is 8088755. This item was created originally 11/01/22. It is an example of a non-food item being switched to a food item during the last update.

[alexws]

Hi @MountainHouse — we looked at the history of that item and it was already classified as a Prepared Food & Beverage item prior to the update we released last month. In Square Online, I see that your default item type is currently Physical. If your default item type setting in Square Online was previously Prepared Food & Beverage, that would explain why the item was classified as such when you originally created it on 11/01/22.

[MountainHouse]

I can assure you we have never classified a candle as food or beverage, this must have been some obscure background setting that was doing this automatically. Furthermore this classification with calories etc wasn't even available in the items management screen until the update. However, my concern isn't that the items were changed, tons of them were. My issue is when is the ability to change them to their correct classification coming? We were told in January that it was coming soon, so far nothing.....

[MountainHouse]

@_Violet Still waiting for a solution to this issue. When will be be allowed to change the item classification manually?

[RobynR]

@MountainHouse, we've contacted the relevant team for an update and will let you know as soon as we have more information. We understand that this is taking longer than anticipated, and we sincerely appreciate your patience.

If you prefer to speak with a live representative, please get in touch with our Retail support at 855-809-9000 between 6 a.m.-6 p.m. Pacific Time (9 a.m.-9 p.m. Eastern Time), Monday through Friday.

[Electricalshop]

This option has just stopped! I've come back after the weekend and tried to change 1 of the items listed as food and beverage to physical ( I also had hundreds of items changed to food  etc back when this was rolled out and have been gradually manually changing each one) when you click on website item now.  You are now directed back to item dashboard ( you cannot change the item type on dashboard! )

[MountainHouse]

This has been going on all year. They either can’t or won’t fix this issue. Same goes for the gift receipt button on square stand and the saved carts not synchronizing between stands, and the vendor and cost not populating when you create a new item. I’ve even shared video of the problem and literally nothing has been done. Been ghosted by moderators. Frankly it is getting old reporting all the bugs and to basically be told they can’t duplicate it or it’s just you. 

[alexws]

Hi @MountainHouse and @Electricalshop, we just finished rolling out the ability to change an existing item's type, including in bulk using the Bulk Edit capability in the Item Library in Dashboard > Items. Thank you for your patience as we worked on moving Square Online's item editing capabilities into the main Dashboard this year. Please let me know if you have any other feedback on this feature in Dashboard. 

@MountainHouse I've forwarded your feedback about vendor and cost info to the inventory product manager. Can you please share more details about your feedback for the gift receipt button and saved carts so I can route that feedback to the right persons too? 

[tonysq]

Hey @MountainHouse -- I'm here to help with the vendor and cost info issue. I'm not quite understanding your current experience and what you're expecting. If you can elaborate, I can try to help find a fix!

[MountainHouse]

Hi there, so the vendor and cost info as I've detailed before and uploaded video proof is simply that vendor and cost do not populate until after you save the new item. Before, as you received stock and entered cost and vendor, once you closed the receive stock dialog that information would instantly be listed on the create new item interface, now its not there until you save and go back into the item. If you force it after receiving the item, then save and go back, it will have an odd setup where it can list more then one vendor.

As far as the gift receipt button many of us have requested its removal from the final checkout screen on square stand. As it confuses the customer and wastes paper. Once checkout is completely done, and customer has already selected PRINT, then they are presented with a screen with a 4" long blue button asking about a gift receipt, and they hit yes again, because they want a paper receipt and are confused by being asked twice. If this option must stay, then at least give us the option to control whether it is displayed or not. Previously gift receipts were only available if we manually went into transactions and generated a gift receipt. 

Saved carts seem to be doing better the last few weeks, however the issue that comes and goes is that the first entry into a saved cart works fine and is available on all square stands, however if someone goes back minutes later and adds additional items it does not populate on any other stands. Oddly the time stamp will show when the secondary items were added, but the added items will not be shown unless you hard restart the app, and then check again.

[jawsfree]

what if you exported your item library and then made the changes in the spreadsheet and then uploaded them back into square, would that work? Square can be very frustrating.