Modifiers and Categories with Square for Restaurants
When creating items in your Square Dashboard, you have the ability to customize and group them in a few different ways.
Item Variations allow you to create multiple price points for a single item. For example: a small coffee and a large coffee, the variations are “small” and “large”.
Item Modifiers edit, modify, or specify to the kitchen a change to a pre-existing item. Modifiers can also add to the cost of the item if necessary. For example: extra avocado for $0.75, no mushrooms.
Categories route items to your specific printer sations and control how your reporting appears.
Display Groups organize how items appear on your Square for Restaurants app.
Variations
Item Variations are added to your items during the creation process and are best suited for sizes. Unlike item modifiers—which are usually used for food (toppings, add ons, or special requests)—variants or price points will reduce your inventory count if you’ve enabled inventory management. Item modifiers won’t reduce inventory.
To learn more on how to create item variants, check out our Menu Management article.
Modifiers
If you need customizable options—toppings, add-ons, or special requests—create item modifiers. Modifiers that are applied to items will display on your customers’ digital receipts, from Transactions in your online Dashboard and in the Item Details report. Keep in mind, you can choose to hide individual modifier sets from your customers’ receipts.
Unlike variations used for sizes, colors or SKUs, item modifiers don’t decrease inventory counts if inventory management is turned on.
Create Item Modifiers Online
From Items in your online Square Dashboard, click Modifiers > Create Modifier Set.
Enter the modifier information.
The Modifier Set name is how your modifier set appears in your POS.
Add New Options, these will be your individual modifiers.
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Select the locations where you’d like your modifier set to be available.
Customer can only select one option will make the modifier required, and only allow one option to be selected. This is best for modifiers like meat temperature, bread type for sandwiches, etc.
Conversational Modifiers will include the buttons “add,” “extra,” “side,” “sub,” “no,” and “allergy” to your modifiers screen in your POS for faster order entry and improved reporting.
Click Save.
From Items > Modifiers, you’ll see your modifier sets when creating and editing items. Click the box next to the modifier set to apply it to an item.
Apply Modifier Sets
You can also apply modifier sets from both the Items and Menus sections in your online Square Dashboard.
From Items in your online Square Dashboard, click Modifiers.
Select Apply to Items and choose any applicable items > confirm Apply to Items.
Keep in mind, you can choose whether you’d like modifier selections to appear on guest checks, as well as set a minimum and maximum number of modifiers allowed for each item.
From Menus in your online Square Dashboard, click Add Modifiers.
If the modifier set already exists, it will appear in the drop down menu. If the modifier set does not exist, there will be an option to Create New.
Modifier Progressions
Once a modifier is enabled, you can customize your modifier progressions. To customize, select Automatically Add Item to Check for the item to be added after choosing required modifiers. If this setting is disabled, the item will stay on the screen until selecting Add to Check.
Modifiers will also appear on the screen in an Auto-Progression and print in the same order on the ticket. The auto-progression rules are as follows:
Choose Seat (if seating is enabled)
Choose Variation (e.g. small, medium, large)
Modifiers
Notes and Options
Add to Check
Modifier Rules
Required Modifiers: Modifier set will automatically appear when an item is selected.
No Required Modifiers: Modifier set will be available to add to an item, but will not automatically appear when an item is selected.
Maximum Modifier Limit: If required, the modifier set will stay on the screen until maximum number of selections are made. If not required, the modifier set will only allow selection of the maximum number of modifiers.
No Maximum Modifier Limit: If required, the modifier set will stay on the screen until another selection is made or an item is added to check.
Note: Modifier sets progress in order of how many requirements/maximums are required — from the least number of requirements to the most. If multiple modifier sets have the same requirements, they’ll progress in alphanumeric order.
Mark Modifiers as Sold Out
When a modifier sells out, you can update its status to indicate such. This sold out status will be reflected on your online store, thus maximizing omnichannel sales based on available inventory while minimizing accidental oversells.
From your online Dashboard:
Go to Modifiers in your online Square Dashboard, and click the modifier set you’d like to mark as sold out.
Toggle off the Available status and click Save. Note: If you have more than one active location on your Square account, you will be prompted to select the location(s) in which you want to mark the modifier as sold out.
Categories
Categories simplify your item library and sales reports, and they give you control over what and when items are sent to certain printers.
To create a category:
Log in to Categories from your online Square Dashboard.
Click Create Category.
Name your category (i.e. Drinks, Appetizers, Entrées).
Click Assign Items and check the box next to each item you wish to include.
Once you have created your categories, you can begin to customize when and where items are sent.
Assign Categories to Printers
Once you’ve created your categories, you can assign them to be sent to individual printers. For example, all of your drinks can be sent to the bar printer, while all appetizers, mains, and desserts can be sent to your kitchen to make sure no tickets get lost in the shuffle of running your restaurant.
To assign your categories, you’ll need to head to Square for Restaurants:
On iPads, log in to your Square for Restaurants POS app and tap Account > Setup Hardware. On Square Register, select Utilities > Settings and scroll to Printers.
Select the printer station you’d like to assign categories to, or create a new printer station.
Name your printer, for instance “Bar Printer”.
Under Print From This Device, you can choose Receipt, Bills, and Reporting print options, as well as Order Tickets (tickets containing food & beverage orders) and Order Ticket Stubs (numbered tickets for Quick Service Restaurants)
To assign Categories, you’ll need to toggle on Order Tickets and scroll down to select the Categories that you’d like to have sent to this printer.
Click Save.
Keep in mind, you’ll need to have a printer connected to your device before you are able to create a printer station and assign categories.
Assign Categories to Straight Fire
You can automatically send items in specific categories to your kitchen or bar when you enable the Straight Fire Categories setting for your points of sale. For example, you can enable a Drinks category to send to the bar without coursing.
To enable:
Head to your Square Dashboard > Settings > Devices > select Points of Sale from the navigation bar.
Click Service Settings > Straight Fire Categories.
Select the applicable categories. Items in the selected categories will not be included as a course to either hold or fire since they’ll be sent straight away to the back-of-house.
Display Groups
Display groups utilize color, size, and placement options to keep your menu items organized for easy access within the Restaurants app, but they’re not used in reporting.
To create a display group:
Select the Apps Menu in the upper left corner and click Menus.
Select the Add Display Group drop down and type in the name of your display group over the light gray Add Display Group and hit enter.
Choose the color you’d like to be assigned to your Display Group.
Click Save.
Once you’ve created your Display Group, it will appear on your Menu page and you can start adding items.
To add items to your Display Groups:
Select Add Item from under your newly created Display Group.
Scroll through the drop down or type out the item name to select the correct item to your Display Group.
If you need to edit or remove an item, click on the item name.
Learn more about getting started with Square for Restaurants. Check out the full comparison of features between Square for Restaurants Free, Plus and Premium Plans.