Create and edit item categories
About item categories
You can use item categories to organize and group similar products or items within a larger catalog. For example, in a restaurant you might group your dishes by appetizers, mains, and deserts; in a shop you might have categories like clothes, accessories and shoes. Categories help you arrange and organize your items, report on item sales, route items to specific printers and assign online visibility.
Before you begin
You have two options for creating and managing item categories:
Create categories from the Square Dashboard on a laptop or desktop computer
Create categories directly from the Square POS apps
Make sure you’ve created at least one item in your item library before assigning an item category to an item. Learn more about how to create and edit items with Square.
Step 1. Create and edit item categories
- Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Items & Orders > Items > Categories.
- Click Create category or select an existing category to edit.
- Click Name and name your category within the Category details field. Optionally, add an image to your category.
- Click Save.
Step 2. Add item categories to items
To add a category to a single item:
- Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Items & Orders > Items.
- Click on the selected item from the list.
- Click Select within the Categorization section.
- Tick a category (or several of them) from the list > click Done.
- Click Save.
To add a category to multiple items:
- Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Items & Orders > Items > Categories.
- Click on the selected item category.
- Click Add items within the Items section.
- Tick the items you want to apply the category to > click Done.
- Click Save.
To add a category to a single item:
- Open the Square app and tap ≡ More > Items > All items.
- Tap on the selected item from the list.
- Tap Category and tick a category (or several of them) from the list > tap Done.
- Tap Save.
To add a category to multiple items:
- Open the Square app and tap ≡ More > Items > Categories.
- Tap on the selected item category > Add items.
- Tick the items you want to apply the category to.
- Click Save.
Rearrange categories
You can rearrange categories and set how they’ll appear on your Square Online site. Rearranging categories can only be done from your Square Dashboard.
Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Items & Orders > Items > Categories.
Click Rearrange.
Click and hold the drag handle (six-dot icon), then drag the category to a new position and release to update the order.
Click Done rearranging.
Remove categories from items
Once you’ve assigned an item category to an item, you can remove the item category assigned to this item at any time.
To remove a category from a single item:
- Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Items & Orders > Items.
- Click on the selected item from the list.
- Click Edit within the Categorization section.
- Untick a category (or several of them) from the list > click Done.
- Click Save.
To remove a category from multiple items:
- Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Items & Orders > Items > Categories.
- Click on the selected item category.
- Click Add or remove items within the Items section.
- Untick the items you want to remove the category from > click Done.
- Click Save.
To remove a category from a single item:
- Open the Square app and tap ≡ More > Items > All items.
- Tap on the selected item from the list.
- Tap Categories and untick a category (or several of them) from the list > tap Done.
- Tap Save.
To remove a category from multiple items:
- Open the Square app and tap ≡ More > Items > Categories.
- Tap on the selected item category > Assign items.
- Untick the items you want to remove the category from.
- Click Save.