How do I merge items from different categories?

[rschmitt]

Over time, duplicate items were created.  The name may have changed, a different description was given, item misspelled or various reasons why they were created.  Presently, each item is created correctly in the correct category.  However, when creating a report, that item will appear several different ways making it very difficult to read the report.  How do I merge these items so when reading a report, sales of the of the same item are more concise?

[EJ_ · Accepted solution]

Hello!

Unfortunately there isn't a way to merge duplicate items together. These items will appear in your reports as individual items sold. 

What you can do is bulk edit your item library using the Import/Export Tool. This would allow you to remove any duplicates and place the items in the correct categories from one spreadsheet. 

[Horsefeathers]

We don't feel Square has an appreciation for how much extra work this is for a shop with tens of thousands of SKU's. Here's what we have to do:

1. Export the entire items database.
2. Sort, filter, delete to get the list down to the items that need to be merged (multiple iterations)
3. Find the token for the proper item, edit the row for the incorrect item.
4. Import
5. Take the time to review
6. Find that Square doesn't properly handle adding inventory to an existing token/item properly (it overwrites it)
7. Give up and do it all manually

[nika]

Hey @Horsefeathers. I know this can be especially tough to do for merchants who have tons and tons of items with SKU's. Going through all of those steps is definitely time consuming. 

To be completely honest I wasn't able to find any plans for a launch on this feature request, but we'll continue to track posts on this topic.

Thanks for hanging in there on this. If any updates come about we'll be sure to post here.

[nickmoore]

Hi EJ_,

Since you are a square representative, could you expound on how the import export field could solve this issue. I don't want to remove the duplicates, I want to merge them. I would like for an item that has changed names or variations through out a year to be represented as a single item. 

This is very frustrating for someone trying to assess sales trends when the sales for 1 item shows up in 4 different rows. 

[nowheybakery]

This reply was created from merging an existing thread: How do I merge items from different categories?

Is there now a way to merge 2 items together?

I saw a post from 2017 that this was not available - wonder if this has changed

Two seperate items were created when i din't realize I had already created the item under a different name. There are sales now under both names and I'd like to merge them

[VanKalkerFarms]

there isn't a way to change past sales, but you can change them now, delete the duplicates, and going forward they will be just under the one's item.

[Montero627]

This is really a problem Square Team, hope you can come up with a proper solution soon. We all make mistakes and to have the same item appear 3 different ways because you corrected a spelling error or added a - is crazy when you think that you have multiple items on a menu and they will all appear duplicated several times!

sure we can clean it up in excel but it defeats the purpose of the report! PLEASE WORK ON IT!!!! 🙂

[Tom]

Hey @Montero627, thanks for taking the time to share your experience with this. Sorry to hear about the added work with reconciling the duplicate items—I'll be sure to surface your post with our Point of Sale Team.

Hopefully EJ's suggested workaround above helps get things going in the right direction for now. Please do keep in touch as we make iterations based on seller feedback.

[abbydoundrins]

***THIS IS A HUGE ISSUE THAT NEEDS RESOLUTION***

Simple modification of an existing item title should not result in 2 different data sets.  I changed the name of an existing item and now have 2 different data sets, making all of my previous data/reports inaccurate.  I literally decide what to keep on my menu from week to week based on item performance/sales.  I can no longer rely on comparison reports to show trends in sales of a particular item because they are now split.  This is ridiculous.  I understand the difficulty of the other situation as described by others of manually merging 2 data sets if the same item was put in twice.  This is entirely different, though, than if you change a detail on an existing item through "editing".  What will happen if I change the price on an item (normal for any business to do over time)?  Will it separate it into 2 data sets because the price has been changed?  I sure hope not.  Changing part of the title on an existing item is effectively the exact same modification type as a price change.  This is a modification to an item, not merging of 2 different ones that had different data sets to begin with.  At a bare minimum, editing of an existing item should not result in another data set creation.

[ashc]

Hi @abbydoundrins and welcome to the Community,

I really appreciate the feedback and the detailed information on how this affects your business and why this suggestion would be helpful for you.

I don't have a timeline on when this will be available but i'm happy to send this request up to our Product team. 

Here's some more information on how Feature Requests work as well if you're curious. 

[rsmithrksfarms]

Well put me down as a request for this feature. . . an important element in this type

of an application. Please get it started and keep us updated. Thanks.

[Joe]

We have noted your request, @rsmithrksfarms! Thanks for adding your voice to this one.

We will be sure to keep everyone updated here on this thread. Thanks for your patience!

[IonaTea]

Four years now and this still goes untouched. As a software developer, I can tell you that this should have required no more than maybe a week's worth of effort. The fact it continues to be an issue makes me highly suspicious of how the system was architected. If items aren't stored in a manner like ItemKey, Ver, Name, Description, etc., you've got issues. When one of the item's attributes are updated (e.g. name, description, whatever), a history record should be inserted and only the newest attributes displayed for all sales of the same ItemKey.

There is absolutely NO reason a change in item name should result in sales of the same item to be reported separately. This makes many aspects of reporting, product management, marketing, and other essential business functions extremely difficult and time consuming to the point of being useless.

It's worth noting another thread here, asking for the same thing.

[smarbon]

Has there been any progress with fixing this? It is still an issue and makes reports cumbersome and ineffective when all I am doing is just editing a name/description of an item. No change to the item itself but now it is listed multiple times in reports. I have to then manually go back and figure out what my TOTAL sales for that item is. Add me to the list requesting this change/improvement. Considering that Square is making money off of this service and advertising the ease of reports which in fact end up not being that easy it would be nice to get this update that has been requested for years. 

[Christachandler]

I also would like to be able to merge items.  I'm reorganizing my inventory into better categories with items having many VARIATIONS.  I'm doing this to make the items easier to find on my check out screen on my phone (the name doesn't scroll and in my case ...... can be very confusing). For example someone wants the Satin Hands-White Tea & Citrus Pampering set.  Do they want the Full Size Set, the travel go set, the Deluxe Mini (free gift with purchase), a sample of the lotion (also free) or did they change their mind on the set and just want a Full sized hand soap? The same set is also available in Fragrance Free. Getting all of that to fit in the name section of the phone screen with out scrolling & still being able to read it is impossible. When I started to get confused on what was what: I looked at the various ways I could set this inventory up, track all items in it, and have bundle prices all at the same time.  Difficult task to pull off using square, I tell ya. I read all of the inventory articles. The best I could come up with was make an item named Satin Hands  (kind of like a category within my skin care category). Make a variation for each item example: 1st variation named "Soap White Tea & Citrus" (Full Size), 2nd "Go Soap White Tea & Citrus" (Travel Go Size), 3rd "Mini Soap White Tea & Citrus" (Deluxe Mini sized), 4th "Sample Lotion White Tea & Citrus" (sample size and only thing available in that set in that size). Then I add the various sizes for the Protectant Cream and the Lotion/Hand Cream.  Then I also add the same variations for the Fragrance Free.  I honor the online bundle & save price by adding a bundle discount (so that all my items sold will still be deducted from my inventory (I wish the POS had the same options as the invoice app)) specifically labeled "Satin Hands Set Discount."  How am I reorganizing it?  I'm creating them in a whole new category named Revised Skin Care to keep the duplicates separated somehow. Maybe that will also help with future reports? If you only want to see the current item in your report, pick the current category your using for your report to prevent seeing duplicates? I don't know if that will work or not, just trying to think of a work around to get us all through until someone gets off their lazy but and does something. I had hoped that once the inventory of each category was rebuilt, that I would be able to merge the items, so I don't loose my historic sales data. The merger would result in only 1 item with no duplicates.  Since Square refuses to let us manually retro date our sales to fix these types of errors when we have time to do so, YOU NEED TO CREATE A MERGE ITEM OPTION!  EITHER OPTION RETRO DATING OR MERGING ARE EASY SOLUTIONS! PICK 1 AND LET US HAVE IT!

[VG22]

We have 15,000 different items in a gift shop and as stated above sometimes things are misspelled or upc's not working and duplicate items are created OR we choose to "merge" like items together after having originally created them individually. MERGE OPTION is NECESSARY for a store like us.  We have too many products to spend time importing and exporting and adjusting reports for 2 items or 6 items that we want to merge.  PLEASE CONSIDER RETAIL STORES NEEDS!  Also, there is no good report for year-end inventory.

[junkyard]

Count me as a vote for the feature. We need to be able to merge duplicate items.

[luvtbeach]

When will we see a merge option for items?? Desperately needed here for accurate reporting.  

[Arie]

Hi @luvtbeach,

While we don't have an update on this feature request at the moment, we'll be sure to tag everyone in this thread to notify you of any news! 

[TrinityTreasure]

How many years does it take to update this feature request from 2017?