thread Re: Can multiple scanners / phones do physical inventory simultaneously? in Orders, Menu Items, Catalog & Fulfilment

Can multiple scanners / phones do physical inventory simultaneously?

repopgifts — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 11:21:42 GMT

Can multiple scanners / phones do physical inventory simultaneously with square for retail plus (assuming each person/scanner will be doing different categories)? I searched the threads and can't find an answer, this will be our first end of year with square for retail and I'm hoping this makes inventory run smooth and quick. Would love to get my full team involved!

Re: Can multiple scanners / phones do physical inventory simultaneously?

TCSlaguna — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 19:53:45 GMT

Yep. We did it on July 4th, and it worked great.

What we did:

1) Reset all quantity counts to zero

2) Square Retail mobile app -> Inventory -> Stock Overview -> Adjust Stock -> Receive

Note: Receive: I scanned 3, you scanned 2 -> total 5. Count: I scanned 3, you scanned 2 -> last wins, total 2

3) Everyone pick an area of the store, start scanning

Big caution: Have employees submit their progress frequently.

There is no cloud backup of each person's scanning progress. We had one employee who lost two hours of progress because the app crashed. We immediately told everyone to click submit every fifteen minutes.

Beyond that, very easy. We had people put post-it notes on areas of the store they finished, just to keep track.

Good luck. Let me know if you have any questions, and definitely let me know how it goes. We are due for an inventory counting day again.

Re: Can multiple scanners / phones do physical inventory simultaneously?

repopgifts — Tue, 21 Dec 2021 02:15:43 GMT

Do you have to reset quantity counts to zero first? that seems like extra work, I thought it looked like the new count would override any existing number and show as stock adjustment.

I will do a few test items before we get too far in 🙂

Re: Can multiple scanners / phones do physical inventory simultaneously?

TCSlaguna — Tue, 21 Dec 2021 18:21:13 GMT

If you do Count, it will override any existing number.

We wanted to make sure that if we had zero of an item, it would be zero in the system. So we reset quantities and used Receive.

Re: Can multiple scanners / phones do physical inventory simultaneously?

AndreaTCB — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 20:07:28 GMT

Thanks for laying out what you did as it's very helpful.

Question for you: If you have a SKU that is in multiple locations in your store, how did you handle that scenario? For example, I may have 5 salts in a front window display, 5 salts in the salt rack at the back of the store and 5 salts in the basement backstock. If three different employees are counting those sections, does Square know it should have a total of 15 for that particular salt SKU? It seems based on your description above, the last count overrides others? I contacted Square support and they said it wasn't possible, but we can't be the only store that has the same SKU in multiple places.

How do you deal with the same SKU that may be in multiple spots within the same location?

Re: Can multiple scanners / phones do physical inventory simultaneously?

TCSlaguna — Sat, 11 Jun 2022 16:38:18 GMT

Hey @AndreaTCB

To do what you are asking, you want to make sure to select RECEIVE, not COUNT.

We also have the same products in different parts of the store and Receive works great. Every employee's receive will be added to the total.

Count will have the last count override the others.

Let us know how your counting goes!

Re: Can multiple scanners / phones do physical inventory simultaneously?

AndreaTCB — Mon, 06 Jun 2022 15:08:51 GMT

Thank you. You've been way more helpful than Square support! Sorry, but I have a few more questions for you, if you don't mind.

Just so I have this super clear to bring to my team, you first reset the quantities to zero and had your employees download the Square for Retail Plus app on their smartphones and went to Inventory - Stock Overview - Adjust Stock - Count. When someone counts 5 of a SKU and another person counts 10 of the same SKU - it totals 15. When do you actually use the total to adjust the inventory in Square? Is that done at the end of counting? Or is it done as each person counting hit submits?

I found this help article (https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7401-inventory-counting-with-square-for-retail) that says: Note: Progress will only save on the device used to count inventory, meaning you can’t access a saved count from another device, even if it’s logged in to the same Square account.

I just want to make sure all of the individual counts end up as one final tally for each SKU.

Re: Can multiple scanners / phones do physical inventory simultaneously?

TCSlaguna — Sat, 11 Jun 2022 16:39:20 GMT

@AndreaTCB I'm glad I can be of help.

1) Yes, reset the quantities to zero and download the Square for Retail app

2) Yes, go to Inventory - Stock Overview - Adjust Stock - Receive

3) Yes, when someone receives 5 of a SKU and another person receives 10 of the same SKU - it totals 15.

4) The total is processed as soon as anyone clicks Submit. So if I receive 5 and click submit, the total is 5. Then you receive 6 more and click submit, the total is 11. If Bob receives 10 and his app crashes, you're still at 11 (have everyone click submit every 15 minutes).

At the end of the day you should have one final tally for each SKU.

Our physical inventory counting day is July 4th. When is yours? Let us know how it goes!

Re: Can multiple scanners / phones do physical inventory simultaneously?

AndreaTCB — Mon, 06 Jun 2022 16:34:03 GMT

Thank you! Our inventory isn't yet scheduled. I'm trying to decide whether to switch from Shopventory to Square for Retail Plus (we currently use the free version). Being able to count inventory with a mobile app is important since we have a lot of SKUs, and Shopventory's app overrides counts as they happens and doesn't allow multiple counts of the same SKU, which is ridiculous.

Re: Can multiple scanners / phones do physical inventory simultaneously?

AndreaTCB — Thu, 09 Jun 2022 00:58:30 GMT

Since you've been so helpful, I'm hoping you can clarify something else. Can you tell me the process for zeroing out the inventory? Do you have to do it item by item or is there a way to do the entire inventory at once? This article shows how to mark items as "sold out" but that's not what we would want to do: https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5228-basic-inventory-management

Also, when the employees are counting with their phones, do they have to have a square user set up for them in order to login to the app? Our employees clock in/out with Square Team using a 4-digit code, but they don't all have user permissions with an email and password. Thoughts on how you handled that?

Re: Can multiple scanners / phones do physical inventory simultaneously?

AndreaTCB — Fri, 10 Jun 2022 16:28:57 GMT

I hope you saw my other questions for you yesterday re: zeroing out inventory and employee access to the app. We have officially switched to Square for Retail Plus and have scheduled our inventory for 6/24 so I'd really appreciate your guidance on those two issues! Thank you in advance.

Re: Can multiple scanners / phones do physical inventory simultaneously?

TCSlaguna — Fri, 10 Jun 2022 16:50:32 GMT

@AndreaTCB Sorry I missed your post, busy two days.

Congrats on moving over to Square for Retail. I'm sure you'll love many of its features.

To zero out inventory, we go to:

Dashboard -> Items -> Actions -> Export Library

Open in Excel, under "New Quantity" put 0 for everything (zero for first item, then click bottom right corner of cell, hold, and drag down to last item)

Save file.

Dashboard -> Items -> Actions -> Import Library

Select file.

That should do it!

When setting up the employees, we have every employee setup a PIN and login. You can probably handle this in two ways: 1) Setup logins for every employee, limit their access to Items. 2) Create one login called Inventory Counting, have everyone login using that email and password on their own phones, change the login after inventory counting day.

You'll be doing your inventory 10 days before us. Let us know your experience.

Re: Can multiple scanners / phones do physical inventory simultaneously?

TCSlaguna — Sat, 11 Jun 2022 16:36:50 GMT

@AndreaTCB ALERT ALERT. I don't know what I was thinking.

You want to do RECEIVE, not COUNT. I just tested now to make sure.

Sorry for the confusion. I've updated all the posts above to note the correct thing.

Re: Can multiple scanners / phones do physical inventory simultaneously?

AndreaTCB — Sat, 11 Jun 2022 16:42:21 GMT

Thanks for the clarification! We will test a few items too before we do the physical count. Thanks also for your answers on zeroing out the inventory and how employees should access the app. Again, you are most helpful!

Re: Can multiple scanners / phones do physical inventory simultaneously?

GoodEarthFoods — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 19:45:08 GMT

Thank you for all of your great wisdom. I was worried about how to count such a large inventory all alone!! I do have 2 questions, if I may. How does using the zero method effect reports and history? Also, how do I get a report on discrepancies in order to update my financial software?

Thank you again!!!

Re: Can multiple scanners / phones do physical inventory simultaneously?

TCSlaguna — Sun, 26 Jun 2022 22:23:52 GMT

@AndreaTCB How did inventory counting go on 6/24?

Interested to know what worked well and what challenges you faced.

Re: Can multiple scanners / phones do physical inventory simultaneously?

AndreaTCB — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 16:43:42 GMT

Unfortunately, we had to cancel inventory. We have a construction project going on in the retail store that we thought would be finished in time but it wasn't. So, we're now hoping to do the inventory sometime the week of 7/11.

However, we did run into another issue. I created two "dummy" accounts with manager access in Square for two teams to use as counters. However, my general manager said she couldn't access them with the 4 digit passcodes I created when I set up the users. I just got back from vacation yesterday, so I need to play around and test this some more, but I don't understand why she couldn't access the accounts, since they were created with real email addresses (our info@thechoppingblock.com and our location's specific email lincoln@thechoppingblock.com). The GM can access her account on the app just fine and mine works too, but I'm remote, so not very helpful for a physical inventory.

Re: Can multiple scanners / phones do physical inventory simultaneously?

Doran — Sat, 16 Jul 2022 21:26:51 GMT

Ok, so I'm using your method tomorrow and I'm terrified.

Just kinda prepping and I don't see where to reset the quantity counts to zero.... where to do I find that?

Re: Can multiple scanners / phones do physical inventory simultaneously?

AndreaTCB — Mon, 18 Jul 2022 15:27:45 GMT

@TCSlaguna outlined their method above. Let me know how your inventory goes, please. We are still working to reschedule ours.

To zero out inventory, we go to:

Dashboard -> Items -> Actions -> Export Library

Open in Excel, under "New Quantity" put 0 for everything (zero for first item, then click bottom right corner of cell, hold, and drag down to last item)

Save file.

Dashboard -> Items -> Actions -> Import Library

Select file.

That should do it!

Re: Can multiple scanners / phones do physical inventory simultaneously?

TCSlaguna — Tue, 19 Jul 2022 16:33:06 GMT

@AndreaTCB Thanks for stepping in. I was on vacation so I didn't see the posts.

@Doran How did it go?

We did our inventory counting day on July 4th. Started at 9am, ended at 3pm. It went smooooooth sailing!

Challenges:
Old worn out labels
No labels
Sometimes iPhone camera wouldn't focus, take some time to scan

As you can see, most of the challenges were on our end. I tried to add photos to items as we went to help us later verify it's the right product.

One other thing I learned in the process: When you export the item library to Excel, non-inventory items show Quantity as blank. Obviously we wanted to keep non-inventory items as non-inventory. So we used the formula =IF(O2=””,"",0) in Excel to zero everything out while keeping non-inventory items blank.