Managing Items with Square for Restaurants
Updating Item Availability
You can update availability of items right in your Square for Restaurants POS App. Check out the full comparison of features between Square POS, the Square for Restaurants Free Plan and Plus Plan.
Manually Make Items Unavailable
To manually make an item unavailable on the fly, log in to your Square for Restaurants app:
Select a saved bill or create a new sale.
Tap Actions > Item Availability.
Use the search tool or select an item from the list.
Choose Available or Unavailable > Save.
You can also press and hold the item tile you’d like to make unavailable and choose Unavailable.
If an item is only temporarily unavailable, you can select Make Available at End of Day. The item will be automatically re-enabled based on your business hours, or the next morning at 05:00 if you have not set business hours.
Automatically Make Items Unavailable
You can also set up guidelines to make items automatically unavailable by tracking the item quantity from the Restaurants app – so your team members will only be able to add available items to a bill.
To get started:
From the Restaurants app, tap and hold a menu item.
Toggle on Track Remaining Items and enter the item count.
If the item is a part of your fixed menu, you can enable Make Available at End of Day.
Tap Save.
During the course of a shift, each time a team member places an order to the kitchen or bar, the item quantity will reduce. When the item count reaches zero, team members won’t be able to add it to a bill.
Note: Setting the quantity for item availability is different from setting your stock quantity from your online Square Dashboard. Just make sure to enable item tracking from the Restaurants app to use automatic call off.
Discounts
When you need to set up discounts for things like happy hour or specials, you can use Square’s advanced features to automatically trigger a discount for specified items and time frames.
Learn more about advanced discounts with Square for Restaurants.
Inventory
Square for Restaurants inventory management gives you basic tools to keep a clear count of in-stock items in your item library. Marking items as unavailable from the app is great for specific dishes, drinks or starters – items you might run out of on a daily or weekly basis. Inventory tracking from your Square Dashboard is geared more towards wholesale items, like spirits or wine bottles.
When you enable inventory levels, you can receive alerts in your dashboard for low-stock or sold out items, so you’ll know when to reorder and restock.
Keep in mind, if you are tracking items with decimal quantities from your online Square Dashboard, item counts will round down to the nearest whole number once sold in the Restaurants app.
For example:
Item Count = 10
Sales = 2.4
Resulting Item Count = 7
Support for decimal quantities in the Restaurants app is something our team is actively working on.
New to managing inventory? Make sure to check out our best practices for inventory management.
Manage Items and Inventory in Bulk
The Item Import tool allows you to download a report of your current item library and manage items in bulk.
To get started:
Visit Items & Orders > Items in your online Square Dashboard.
Click Actions > Import Library.
Select Modify Item Library to add new items and update existing items, or Replace Item Library to delete all existing items and replace them with your uploaded items.
Click Next > Download your item library. Choose between Excel (recommended) or CSV file.
Open the file and add or edit items as needed.
Save the updated file to your computer.
Drag and drop the file into the upload area of the Import Inventory window or click select it from your computer > Upload.
Review your changes and click Confirm to upload your new item library.
To print this information for your records, Visit Item Library > click Actions > Export Library and follow the on-screen prompts.
| Library File | Field Descriptions |
|---|---|
| Token | Your Square Dashboard will automatically populate this token. If you are importing a new item, leave this field blank. If you are editing items, do not change the token. |
| Item Name | Can include numbers, letters or symbols. Maximum 128 characters. |
| Description | Can include numbers, letters or symbols. Maximum 1024 characters. |
| Category | Can include numbers, letters or symbols. Maximum 128 characters. |
| SKU | Each variation should be assigned a unique SKU. |
| Variation Name | Can include numbers, letters or symbols. Maximum 128 characters. |
| Unit and Precision | Unit type and precision. The precision helps you keep track of your inventory and item sales price by allowing you to set the item count up to the hundred-thousandths place (.00000). |
| Auto-Add Item to Bill | Y (yes) or N (no). Choose items to automatically add to the bill without displaying additional options during order entry. |
| Price | Numeric. Must be €0.00 or greater (a fixed price needs to be a positive number). You can also leave blank or write in ‘Variable’ to indicate a variable price. |
| Enabled [Your Location Name] | Y (yes) or N (no). This will set your item as visible in individual locations. If you only have one location and see this column, make sure all items are set to Yes. |
| Current Quantity [Your Location Name] | Numeric. If you are using Inventory Management, this is the current quantity of this item defined as in stock. Changes to this field are ignored on import. |
| New Quantity [Your Location Name] | Numeric. If you are using Inventory Management, enter your current stock count here. This count will replace any existing stock count. |
| Stock Alert Enabled [Your Location Name] | If you are using Inventory Management, you can set Y (yes) or N (no) to enable or disable items for inventory alerts. |
| Stock Alert Count [Your Location Name] | Numeric. If you are using Inventory Management and have alerts enabled, this is the quantity at which you will be alerted. |
| Price [Your Location Name] | Numeric. |
| Tax [Your Tax Name] | If you have created a tax, set to Y (yes) or N (no) to apply it to the item. |
History
You can view your inventory history and gain insights into the flow of your inventory by viewing historical adjustments.
To get started:
Visit Items & Orders > Items in your online Square Dashboard.
Click on a specific item to bring up the item details page.
Select View Inventory History.
You can filter by location, adjustment type and item variation.