Feature Request: Square or Retail Inventory Counts Via Scanning Barcodes

[Riki]

[Note: The title of this thread and this post have been edited by a moderator.]

I need to preform an inventory count (or stock take) of our items currently in the store.

In other words, I need to go through the physical store, and scan all my products in to see what the actual inventory is and what the dependencies are between what square thinks we have in stock v. what is really there (due to shrinkage, or user error or whatever).

we have FAR too many variants to simply hand count each and manually alter stocks. Is there any way to preform this basic function with square, and if not, is there any recommended 3rd party software that could accomplish this task. I am a bit stumped to find that square retail's "robust" inventory system is not capable of such a basic thing.

[tranguyen]

Hi @TGPH, thanks for your post! With the Square for Retail app on an iPad, you can add stock for existing items by scanning the barcode. All you need to do is:

1. From the basket view, tap Inventory > Add Stock.
2. Search or scan items to add stock > enter stock amounts. You can also scan the same item numerous times to add multiple stock items, or scan multiple items once and adjust their quantities afterwards.
3. Once all items have been received, tap Next > Confirm.

To add stock in bulk:

1. Make sure your barcode scanner is connected.
2. From the Navigation menu in Square for Retail, select the list icon > Add Stock > Receive Stock.
3. Scan all relevant barcodes that you’d like to add > click Next.
4. Review all item information and add vendor information and unit cost, if applicable > click Continue.
5. From the stock added confirmation, confirm the number of items added.

We do have a number of integrations to help sellers sync, manage and track inventory across online and in-store but these are geared towards maintaining online sync. You can see all the integrations here. 

[TGPH]

Hello!

What if I don’t want to ADD stock but set stock levels.. so some items might go down.

a stock count

[tranguyen]

Hi @TGPH, I had a look at this on my end but at the moment, there isn't a way to perform a stock recount with the barcode scanner. To manage and adjust the stock, you'd need to click into each item from the Retail app or from the Item Library and update the stock manually.

Alternatively, you can export your Item Library, update your inventory count and then import it to your library again. That way, you'll be able to update the stock counts in bulk. 

[TGPH]

I honestly cannot believe Square doesn't have the ability to do a stock count.

This cannot be right?  Surely?  It's the most basic of functions..

Can anyone at square recommend how stock counts could be made?  Is there a third party app?

RIKI did you figure out a method?

Currently looking at orcascan / shopventory.

[BeauCorset]

I agree. New to Square this year and I am gobsmacked that I'm going to have to take stock of my inventory with a paper & pencil like this is 1998.

For Square's development team (whom apparently have never worked in retail) here's a play-by-play of what we expect:

- I click to perform "physical inventory recount/adjustment" or whatever you want to call it

- With my scanner, I physically scan every single item in my store, with a few options: 

- 1st Option: After scanning an item, I may click to modify the quantity (useful when I have large quantities of an identicle item)

- 2nd Option: Somehow I may also add items that do not have a barcode

- 3rd Option: Ideally, if I ran out of time in my day, I could interrupt the process, save and come back to it at a later time

- When ALL of the scanning is done, I can print out a report comparing the old inventory numbers with the new physical count

- Finally, with one click, I can substitute the old numbers with the new (correct) ones.

This is the minimum. Tell me it already exists and this entire thread was just a misunderstanding.

[AdamB]

In case you haven't seen it yet, this feature is now available! See our announcement of inventory counts with Square for Retail for more information.