Do you run a plant nursery with square for retail/POS?

[CrazyHill_GNB]

Greetings community members. 

Do you run a plant nursery and use Square as you POS/Inventory platform?

Some recent updates to Square have made my workflow....inconvenient, to say the least and after submitting help requests and getting feedback from the community (on another thread) I am more frustrated than I was before. 

What do I do? I run a plant nursery and small art gallery. We are of a boutique nature so we are constantly resupplying the nursery (weekly basis, hundreds of plants/dozens of varieties, most of which are more unique and unusual...it's our thing) so this means I am always in front of my dashboard entering in items into the system. 

Historically, while tedious, this process is fairly cut and dry. Select a category, "enter item" and fill in the blanks. The pre-selected category was the only space you were working in until you selected a different category. I was able to make that selection once and get into my workflow. Now, even if you select the category once you select enter item, you still have to manually select the category in that space and there are something like 8 steps/clicks you have to make to manually select the pre-selected category again just to enter one item. 

Hundreds of plants, dozens of varieties. Every week. Those 8 additional steps/clicks per item really add up, time wise and mouse-work. 

I reached out for clarification/help and ultimately hopefully the re-addition of that feature. So far "no other seller has complained" about the removal of this feature and they aren't sure it will be reversed. What I did get was a bunch of well intentioned and very polite people trying to explain that they've never had to do any of that because they enter their library on a spreadsheet and upload that and the library apparently updates itself. 

So my question has been and still is, how does that happen? I feel like I missed that day in class when everyone learned the really cool trick that solves the algebraic equation in 3 steps instead of 15. I was provided a link that explained part of something that kind of sounds like the process but there is a risk of losing my entire item library if not done correctly and that isn't on the calendar for me. 

Does anyone who enters in hundreds of items, often enough, have any sage advice for me on how to streamline this process. I am of reasonable intelligence but spreadsheets have never been my thing and while there are worse problems to have than being a very busy and successful small business, I don't have the luxury of losing the last 3 years of library entries on an "oops". 

Thank you in advance for any help any of you can lend. There's just two of us running the joint and I could use the support. 

[CrazyHill_GNB]

Stand down red alert. 

It would appear that the powers that be reinstated the deleted feature. 

I would still appreciate someone who has experience with the csv library management method to chat with, I gather that would be a much easier way of dealing with the volume of items entered for my business. 

Thank you Square for fixing this feature!!!

[Candlestore · Accepted solution]

@CrazyHill_GNB ;

Actually the Import Method is easier to work with then the Square Dashboard.

Step 1 ANYTIME before trying to upload to your Square Dashboard, Download (Export) your entire Catalog.

This is your Back Up so you do NOT loose 3 yrs Plus of data.

You would need a Spreed Sheet Program to be able to open and edit the CSV or Excel File.

Most businesses use Excel.  Google Sheets, and LibreOffice Calc are both free.  Apple has Numbers, but I never tried Numbers.

Excel, Sheets, and Calc I use so I could help there.

Your Orders you get from your suppliers are they in a csv format or a pdf?

Either way both of these can be made into a csv for easy import to Square.

The below image is the Header row in Excel when you export your Catalog to excel.

new Items Leave the first 2 columns Blank under Reference Handle and Token, Then Square knows these are NEW items.

Item Name would be the Item you received, Variation Name would be for if there are many Variations (Size or Color maybe).

Unit and Precision can be left blank.

SKU - if you use Barcodes can go here.

Description - maybe best time to plant or amount of Sun required Full partial or Shade  How Big it will get.

Category - In door out door, Plant, Bush, Tree for example.

SEO Columns,  Permalink can be left Blank, unless you know what to have here if you sell Online.

GTIN - You could use instead of the SKU field.  SKU is more forgiving (Letters and Numbers) GTIN needs to be only numbers and certain Length.  I only use the GTIN for Pre Printed Barcodes.

Square Online Item Visibility _ Mine is Blank, but I do not sell online

Item Type - Physical goods  Square filled this in on mine so put it in for Items You actually sell for example

Weight (lb) - you could probably leave this empty, unless you ship.

The rest can mostly be left Blank if selling in Person.

Price - You should fill In the price you Sell it for

New Quantity - is the Total amount you have on Hand after Uploading this

Tax - is a Y or N value if you charge Tax for this item or not that is already set up in Square

Reference Handle

Token

Item Name

Variation Name

Unit and Precision

SKU

Description

Category

SEO Title

SEO Description

Permalink

GTIN

Square Online Item Visibility

Item Type

Weight (lb)

Shipping Enabled

Self-serve Ordering Enabled

Delivery Enabled

Pickup Enabled

Price

Online Sale Price

Archived

Sellable

Stockable

Skip Detail Screen in POS

Option Name 1

Option Value 1

Default Unit Cost

Default Vendor Name

Default Vendor Code

Current Quantity Pocono Candle

New Quantity Pocono Candle

Stock Alert Enabled Pocono Candle

Stock Alert Count Pocono Candle

Tax - Pa Sales Tax (6%)

Now what you should do in Square is create a New Category of something you would not sell.

Fill in AS much as you can about this item for an Item you already sell.  Just so you know when you Export this Item it has everything in Squares Dashboard filled in that you would require in your new items. For Example:

Item Brand New Car

Item Name Car

Variation Corvette

etc for all details you can in the dash board.... if you do not use it or can not think of an answer put in the name of the Box or Blank... 

When you complete this step, Filter so the export is ONLY this Item.  Which is why I suggested a car, and then you can create a Car Category (Sports Car) and filter for that in you Items.  Then export your catalog by the Search filter. 

Then you can use this as a Template for what all you need to fill in in the Spreedsheet.

Then Save it. 

Now BEFORE you upload anything if you have not done so yet.... DOWNLOAD your entire Catalog from Square...

when it is on your computer save it as GOOD CATALOG (DATE).

Now upload the spreadsheet to Square that you added all new items to.  

Make sure to choose not to OVERWRITE exsisting catalog.... you want the screen to look like : with the slider GREY, if Blue you will earse your catalog except for the new Items in the file your uploading.

The next screen will verify the column names to the headers in your spreadsheet.  If you left these alone you should be fine and just click Next.  Which should upload your New items and automatically give them a Token and refrence number.