Add SKUs to service items

[jmorell]

We use the free version of Square for our community bike project where we both recycle donated bikes and perform service and repairs on customer bikes. I'm trying to make the team's lives easier by allowing them to scan barcodes for service items from a laminated sheet of barcodes.

This is absolutely fine for items that are physical goods, but service items appear not to have a SKU, so I can't generate barcodes for the team to be able to scan them. Has anyone managed to find a way to make this work?

I could convert all the services back to items but that kind of defeats the object of having them as services, but am I missing something?!

Thanks!

[Summer2024 · Accepted solution]

Hi, @jmorell ! Welcome to the Square Community! Kudos to you for running such an awesome community project! 😁

Unfortunately, Square currently does not allow SKUs to be assigned to service-type items, which is why you're hitting that limitation when trying to generate scannable barcodes. Services in Square are treated a bit differently from physical items. They're not inventory-tracked, so the SKU field isn’t available by default.

Here are a few potential workarounds:

Option 1: Convert Services to Regular Items (Non-Inventory)

You can still list them as "items" instead of "services" but turn off inventory tracking.

• Go to Items > Edit Item

• Change the item type to a regular physical item

• Uncheck "Track stock"

• Assign a SKU (this is what you'll use to generate barcodes)

Pros: You can use your laminated barcode sheet as planned
Cons: A bit of a mislabeling workaround, but harmless for reporting purposes

Option 2: Use Custom Barcodes + Description Matching (limited)

If you don’t want to relabel items, you could create custom barcodes that scan into the search field, which would then match a service name.

• This only works well if your service names are short, unique, and match the barcode scan input precisely (e.g., "Tune-Up Basic").

• Not as fast or clean as SKUs but can work in a pinch.

Option 3: Use Square for Retail (Paid Plan)

If you’re ever considering upgrading, Square for Retail lets you assign SKU-like identifiers more flexibly (even to custom or service-like entries). That may be overkill or cost-prohibitive for a community project, though.

To use your barcode sheet seamlessly, the simplest fix is to reclassify your services as regular items with no stock tracking and assign them SKUs. This gives you scanning functionality without messing up your inventory counts.

I know this may not have been exactly what you were looking for, but I hope this helps!

[Candlestore]

@jmorell ;

I sell items and am not sure if this would work for a Service but its free to try.

Create a SKU of your own for a Service.     Brakes003   as a SKU for example.

Then enter that exact SKU of Brakes003 at the end of Item Description.

Then try and scan a Barcode that you created of Brakes003.... see what pops up.

I say to try this as I have entered the Product Identifier of say model 120518 in the description but not the name and have been able to type 120518 in the Search area and may work if you would scan a Barcode of 120518 for example.  I do have the Square generated SKU and if the iten comes with a Barcode GTIN but this works for me when The GTIN or SKU is damaged to locate said Item.  

Again since I never made a Service I am not sure if it would work but if you already have a Scanner and a Barcode (any Barcode)  Scan it to see what pops up in a text document and enter that in your Service Description area someplace and then save it.  Got to the checkout screen and scan the barcode and see what happens.  

1 of 3 things will happen:

1. Item you chose will be found
2. You will be asked to create said Item as a GTIN
3. You may be asked to create Item with said SKU

Now you will know if my idea works or doesn't work.  

I just tried this for an item test.

used galcook in the Description area and did a search on the vertual terminal.

Here are some images of my search and settings:

Typed in galcook in the virtual terminal Search area:

See no galcook in SKU or GTIN:

Galcook in the Description area for the Items Details (not sure if you have a Description area for a Service) which is where I have galcook

[Summer2024]

Thank you, @Candlestore ! This is also something worth a try. 

[jmorell]

Thanks Keith, I will give that a go, that's a good shout - we use the SKUs of all the bikes in product descriptions at the moment too as they're all individual items and it makes it easier to find and identify them.