Home>Items and inventory

Create and edit items

Who is this article for?
  • Sellers with general items permissions. Set permissions in the Square Dashboard.
  • About item creation

    Items are sellable goods and services that make up your item catalog. As you add your business details to Square, you can create, edit, and manage items to check out customers faster, know what's selling best, and track inventory. Items can also be created and tracked across multiple business locations. Setting up items helps streamline your business by enabling you to count stock and see sales trends for your inventory across your entire business.

    Before you begin

    You have two options for creating items:

    • Create items from the Square Dashboard on a laptop or desktop computer

    • Create items directly from the Square Point of Sale apps and devices

    When you add, update, or delete an item, the change will reflect in your Square apps, Dashboard, and Square Online website.

    If your business uses specific unit types (such as yards of fabric, or food items by weight), you need to create your unit types first in order to apply them when creating items. Learn how to create and edit item unit types.

    If you are creating multiple items, you can Bulk import items.

    When creating or editing an item, you can choose the Item type from the dropdown menu, including:

    • Prepared food and beverage: Best for restaurants and other food venues. Includes optional nutritional information for buyers with calorie counts, dietary preferences and allergens.

    • Physical good: Best for retail items such as clothing or jewelry, or non-perishable foods like bottled wine.

    • Event: Sell tickets to events, and include an address/online link and times.

    • Digital: Lets you sell a digital file for download, like an eBook or song, that you can manually send to the customer.

    • Donation: Allow anyone to send donations for any cause of up to a certain amount.

    • Other: Best for items you will fulfill manually.

    Create and edit an item

    Square Dashboard

    1. Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Items & orders > Items.
    2. Click Create item.
    3. Click Change next to Item type, choose an item type, then click Change.
    4. Enter item information such as a name, a description. Optionally, click Generate in the Description field to have a description automatically written using generative AI.
    5. Enter additional item details and click Save when finished.

    To delete an item from your Item library, click (•••) next to the item name, then click Delete. Alternatively, click into an item > click Actions > Delete > Delete Item.

    Square POS apps and devices

    1. Open the Square app and tap ≡ More.
    2. Tap Items > All items.
    3. Click Create Item or tap an existing item to edit.
    4. Tap the square tile to add a label, upload an optional image, or choose the tile color that will appear on your item grid.
    5. Enter item information such as a name and description.
    6. Set up additional item features and tap Save when finished.

    To delete an item from your Item library, tap on an item’s name, scroll down and tap Delete Item From This Location > Confirm delete.

    Automatically generate item descriptions

    When creating or editing an item, you can use AI to generate an item description. For scanned items, product information is sourced from third-party databases and rewritten into item descriptions. Review generated content for quality and accuracy. 

    Square Dashboard

    1. Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Items & orders > Items.
    2. Choose an item to edit, or click Create item.
    3. From the description box, click Generate.
    4. Provide Keywords and choose a Length and Tone to include in your description. Click Generate.
    5. Review the generated description, then click Insert.
    6. Click Save.

    Click Rewrite > Insert to generate a new item description. You must choose a new length, tone, or keywords to rewrite an item description.

    Square POS apps

    1. From the navigation menu, tap ≡ More > Items > All Items.
    2. Choose an item to edit or tap Create Item.
    3. Below the description box, tap Generate description.
    4. Provide Keywords and choose a Length and Tone to include in your description. Tap Generate.
    5. Review the generated description, then tap Insert.
    6. Tap Save.

    Tap Try again > Insert to generate a new item description. You must choose a new length, tone, or keywords to rewrite an item description.

    Assign items to specific locations

    If your business has multiple locations, you may stock different items depending on location. Items and item settings, including modifiers, discounts, and taxes, can all be assigned to specific locations. Assigning items to specific locations can only be done from the Square Dashboard.

    1. Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Items & orders > Items.

    2. Select an existing item or click Create item.

    3. Select applicable locations from the Locations field. Click Save.

    4. Edit other item details as needed, then click Save.

    Create and manage price overrides

    If your business has multiple locations, you may have different prices depending on location. Price overrides can be used to set the price of an item to be different between multiple locations without needing to create a location-specific item. Creating price overrides can only be done from the Square Dashboard.

    For items with no variations

    1. Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Items & orders > Items.
    2. Click on the selected item from the list.
    3. Click Edit variation details within the Variations section, then next to the Price field, click Override price by location.
    4. Choose your price and select a location to apply the price override to, then click Done.
    5. Click Save.

    For items with variations

    1. Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Items & orders > Items.
    2. Click on the selected item from the list.
    3. Click on the name of your variation within the Variations section, then next to the Price field, click Override price by location.
    4. Choose your price and select a location to apply the price override to, then click Done..
    5. Click Save.

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