Which Square Pos are you using? Square Pos, Square for Retail (free or Paid)?
GTIN is a specific format, and if your vendor is actually using a SKU and not a GTIN you may not be able to use both a GTIN and a SKU for the variations. A GTIN lets say is 11 digits long, first 5 are the manufactures code, next 5 ID the Product the last digit is a Check Digit. The Check digit for example may add up the first 10 number and say you get 46, the check digit would be 4 to make the total a multiple of 10 for example. I do not know what a GTIN is suppose to add to but that is what a Check digit was for the USPS Zip codes Barcode. So if your Vendor is using a barcode and the total does not match what a GTIN check digit, it will not scan as a GTIN but as a SKU. There is no way to look at the Bars of barcode and tell the difference between a SKU or GTIN. Now what you could do is when you scan the GTIN into the GTIN field you may get a Red Message saying not a GTIN or something. I remember when Square first added the GTIN field I would scan a Barcode that was not in my Square catalog and Square would ask me if I wanted to add the GTIN as a New Item. If the Items barcode was not formatted as a GTIN it just asked if I wanted to add SKU as a New item.
Now if you are using the Manufactures Barcode Only, you could scan that in to Square as a SKU and not the GTIN. Works Just fine. I have some Items with a GTIN and my SKU, others with just the preprinted GTIN as a SKU, and then Some as only the GTIN entered in Square as the GTIN only, Or the GTIN as GTIN and SKU. I did most of these when I was testing the GTIN abilities for myself. My best example of when I use MY SKU and a GTIN is my 70oz Pumpkin Jars, I have 155 scents that COULD fill the Pumpkin jars and only about 5-6 that I actually make for Stock in the Fall. So the other 150 I count as Custom scents. I have people pay for Custom candles up front when they order, I scan the Displays GTIN - then I get my list of 155 scents to choose from to complete the order. When I choose the scent say Lilac for example my Receipt will show SKU-70oz Lilac.... not sure if it shows the GTIN also. The main thing is I need MY sku because my SKU are usually the Size candle followed by the scent.
Yes I have a WARNING that I used GTIN before but IT WORKS and gives me a Drop down to clarify at the Checkout which Variation I want.
If you look at the Top one Custom the GTIN and SKU are the Same, Leaves has the same GTIN as the rest but the SKU is 70oz Leaves.
Normal 1D barcode is LONG but I print 2D so my SKU can be up to 30 Characters.... I think that is QuickBooks Limit of SKU length, I forget Squares SKU length limit but its longer than 30 characters.
Square can easily Handle all the Different SKU/GTINS.... but you may need to have your catalog setup for it.
Category Number Balloons
Item Red Number 1 Balloons
Variations Vendor 1 Small GTIN 89662162 SKU 9668686
Vendor 1 Medium GTIN 47444443 SKU 4367365
Vendor 1 Large GTIN 45687053 SKU 5468735
Variations Vendor 2 Small GTIN 54676456 SKU 7852545
etc for example
You will not be able to have a Red #1 Large balloon with all your Vendors GTINs or SKUs but you can have a bunch of variations limited to some number. I say this because when I started the Variation limit For Online sales was 120, but I had more Variations than that and only sold in my Store with no Issues. My Items were the Size of my jars and the Variations were 120 scents at the time. Again I had a warning too many Variations to sell online. Depends how you are Selling you can go over Squares Limits sometimes. The other thing to enter items you can export your Items Catalog as a CSV or Excel file and fill your items in that way too. Hook a Scanner up to a computer and Scan to enter the GTIN or SKU fields.
Rust 'Freeze' the header row so you know what column is what. 🙂
