Square Feature Request: Expiration Date Tracking

[JTPets]

TLDR Square Feature Request: Expiration Date Tracking

What: Add expiration date fields to Square's product catalog with filtering, alerts, and reporting.

Why: Retail stores lose 2-3% of revenue ($40-60K annually for $2M store) from expired products. Current manual tracking is inefficient and risky.

Key Features:

• Expiration date per product variation
• Filter by "expiring in 30/60/90 days"
• Automated alerts for approaching expirations
• Compliance reports for health departments
• Mobile-friendly staff interface

Business Impact:

• 50-75% reduction in expired product losses
• 80% less time on manual tracking
• Improved food safety compliance
• No need for expensive third-party systems

Technical: Extend existing Catalog API, add dashboard widgets, integrate with POS alerts.

Bottom Line: Native Square expiration tracking would save retailers tens of thousands annually while improving food safety and operational efficiency.

@isabelle @alexschiff 

[SVLFever]

Impressive @JTPets John!!!!!

Fortunately for me, we turn food over here extremely quickly, but bowling balls do go out of style (yes folks, I'm not making that up), and this would work for that.

Nice work with the APIs!

[JTPets]

This could easily have a configuration for shorter dates for food service like prepped salads and other shorter shelf life items

[alexschiff]

Sorry for delayed response! Was at an all-team event when this came up and then Community was under maintenance. 

This is super cool 1) that you're prototyping it yourself, as usual and 2) the feature totally makes sense. Let me share this with some folks here internally

@SVLFever out of curiosity, how would you use an expiration date for a bowling ball? Is there a time you know you want to use it for and you just plan to rotate in advance? I never would have thought of that for your use case

[JTPets]

@alexschiff Thank you! prototyping is becoming far to frequent a necesity for me as I try to scale, but I am grateful for the opportunity to have stuff like this shared internally!

[JTPets]

It evolved!

[SVLFever]

@alexschiff , yeah, new bowling balls are released monthly, and after about 6 months of it sitting on a shelf, it would be nice to get a notification that it's "old".   Everyone always wants the "latest and greatest".  

[wfmarket]

we have snacks and teas in our home decor store and checking those is not always top of mind since its a small part of the space.  This type of alert would be wonderful.