Square Retail Unit Cost Change Archiving

[thewesterner]

Hi, I'm unsure if this is the correct Board, but I have a Square Retail recommendation for a new option.

When I reorder an item sometimes I buy the same item at a different price. Sometimes on sale, or lately with tariffs, an increased unit cost. 

I reorder and there may be the exact same items on my floor but with differing unit costs. The only way currently to track the COGS of these items is to create a Variation in the Item with the differing Unit Cost. Creates a new SKU.

This creates a bit of a jumble in my backend of the item.

It'd be great to Archive a Variation if I sell all of that item on my floor of that unit price. If I delete the Variation after it sells out, Square Customer Service said it would affect my reports. Archiving or Hiding a Variation would be a better option.

Or is there a way to handle varying Unit Costs without Archiving the whole item that I'm missing? Thanks🙂

[Ellie_]

Hi there, @thewesterner, 

Thank you so much for sharing your experience, we really appreciate the thoughtful detail in your message. You're absolutely right that tracking cost of goods sold becomes tricky when the same item comes in at different unit costs over time, especially with sales, tariffs, or other changes. Right now, Square doesn’t support tracking multiple historical unit costs for a single item without creating variations, and we understand how that can clutter your item library and backend reporting.

You bring up a great point about being able to archive or hide a variation once it's sold out, rather than deleting it, and you’re correct that deleting it could impact historical reports. While we don’t currently offer the ability to archive variations in that way, your suggestion is exactly the kind of feedback our product team needs to hear as we work on improving inventory and reporting tools. In the meantime, some sellers manage this by marking older variations as “Unavailable” once they’re sold out, which keeps them out of active sales screens while preserving historical reporting. It’s not a perfect solution, but it can help reduce visual clutter without deleting data.

Also, I noticed that this is your first post with us, so we wanted to say hello and welcome to the Square Community!