Is it possible to set up a percentage discount to only apply to certain items / categories?

[avaofarsaga]

I'd like to create a discount that, when applied to the entire ticket, only affects certain items/categories. I understand that this can be done on the POS manually, but adding the discount to each individual item on the ticket is cumbersome and prone to error. 

[Helen]

@avaofarsaga I think you might be looking for automatic discounts! With automatic discounts you can have a certain discount apply to an item automatically. This Support Center article has the steps to set up automatic discounts from your online Square Dashboard (note these can only be set up from your Dashboard, you can't set up automatic discounts from the app yet).

If you were looking for something else please let me know!

[avaofarsaga]

Hi. Thanks for your reply. When I tried to use Automatic Discounts, it automatically applied them to every transaction. Did I do something wrong? I'm looking for a way that, when I select the discount, it applies according to the pre-programmed rules, but I don't want it automatically to apply to every check. Does this make sense? Thanks. 

[kellyj]

@avaofarsaga

There are some limitations on Automatic Discounts, but we'd want to look into how you set them up so we can see why this wasn't working for you.

When you log into your Square Dashboard and choose the discount you'd like to Auto-apply, it will give you the option to Apply to Items and Categories.  You'll want to makes sure you have these specifics turned on - and you choose the specific items or categories you'd like to be discounted.

When you make any changes in the Dashboard, make sure you sign out and back into the App so that any changes on the Dashboard show up in App.

If this doesn't work, please give us a call so we can see what best way to help you set this up.

[avaofarsaga]

Thank you Kelly! That is indeed how I set up the discounts. For example, I set up a 50% employee food discount and applied it to only food items/categories. This resulted in an automatic 50% discount being applied to every transation that had food, every time. Is that how the auto-discount is intended to work? What I'm looking for is a discount that will only apply to food, but more importantly, only when it's added to a particular transaction.

[kellyj]

@avaofarsaga

With the way you are describing it- yes, that would be the correct way for it to work. But it sounds like you put this discount on the category that ring all customers out under.

The automatic discount doesn't trigger by who the customer is, so if you have applied 50% off for all items, and not made a specific item category for just employee food, then this would apply to all sales.