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Use GTINs

Who is this article for?
  • Account owners or team members with general items and inventory permissions. Set permissions in Square Dashboard.
  • Square for Retail Free, Plus and Premium subscribers
  • Square Free, Plus, and Premium subscribers
  • Sellers with retail or standard mode enabled in the Square Point of Sale app.
  • About GTINs

    A Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) is the source of truth and used to identify trade items and products throughout the supply chain, primarily within barcodes. GTIN is a term used to describe multiple families of product identification numbers such as:

    • Universal Product Identifiers (UPC-E, UPC-A, GTIN-12): A 12-digit number used primarily in North America.

    • GTIN-14 (EAN/UCC-14 or ITF-14): A 14-digit number used to identify trade items at various packaging levels.

    Data associated with a GTIN typically includes all of the details required to catalog a physical good including item name, image, description, brand, etc.

    Manufacturers and brands register their product information to databases such as Gs1 to ensure that retail businesses have access to complete and accurate information about products for sale. Learn more about GTINs.

    Before you begin

    You can add GTINs to your items or item variations from the Square Dashboard, Square Point of Sale app, or Square Retail POS app.

    Once a GTIN has been associated with an item or item variation, you can take the same actions on the associated items that you normally would — including monitoring the item’s progress through reporting, tracking and adjusting inventory, and creating/printing labels with a GTIN barcode.

    You can also add the item to your customer’s cart by scanning the barcode with a compatible barcode scanner or your iOS device’s camera. Learn how to add items to a cart by scanning a GTIN.

    Reusing the same GTIN across multiple item variations is strongly discouraged, as each variation should have its own unique GTIN. Unique GTINs will ensure seamless inventory scanning, scanning for checkout, and listing a product for sale in online sales channels such as Google Shopping.

    Manually add a GTIN

    Square Dashboard

    1. Sign in to your Square Dashboard and go to Items & services (or Items & menus or Items & inventory) > Items > Item library.
    2. Select an existing item or click Create an item.
    3. Under Variations, enter the GTIN information into the applicable sections.
    4. Enter all remaining item details and click Save.

    Point of sale app

    From your Square POS app in retail or standard mode or your Square Retail POS app on your mobile device, Square Terminal and Square Register:

    1. Open your point of sale app.
    2. Tap ≡ More > Items > All Items.
    3. Select an existing item or tap Create Item.
    4. Under Price and inventory, enter the GTIN.
    5. Enter all remaining item details and tap Save.

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