Locations and Inventory

[Ciderboys]

We make hard cider.  We sell out of our cidery, as well as at several farmers markets.  I need to be able to report sales from each farmers market.  Last year was my first year with Square and I created separate (duplicate) items to identify what was sold where.  Square told me it would be better to create separate locations instead.  I did that but then Square wants me to add inventory to each location.  But all our inventory is located at the cidery.  Is there a better way to do this?

[TheRealChipA]

Hi @Ciderboys.  There are a couple of ways I could answer this question.  But, I need clarification, first.  Do you NEED inventory tracking through Square?  Or do you just need reports and don’t track inventory?  Also, are you using Square POS, or Square for Retail?

[Ciderboys]

Hi Chip,

I dont absolutely need inventory tracking.  But without it, I would have to manually track it, which is doable but would be ideal to leverage inventory in Square.  I am using Square POS on my phone for in person sales.  I dont understand what Square for Retail is.  What is the difference?  We have an online store for pickup orders and at farmers markets we use the square POS app.  

[londontea]

Hi @Ciderboys! I think the best way to handle this is with device codes. You can then filter your reports by device nickname.

1. Go to Devices in your Square Dashboard
2. Click the button to add a point of sale
3. Enter a nickname, which should be the name of the farmer's market
4. Generate the device code and write it down along with the nickname.

Sign into Square on your phone/tablet with the relevant device code for the market. When the market is over be sure to sign out. At the next market you'll need to sign in using the code you created for that market.

Device codes can only be associated with a single device, but you can have multiple device codes assigned to a single device. This means that you can use the same phone/tablet across multiple markets. You can always create more device codes for the same farmer's market, just give them nicknames like "Midtown Farmer's Market 1" and "Midtown Farmer's Market 2".

In your reports, click the button to "Filter By" and choose "Device Nickname." You can then choose which nicknames you want to see, giving you accurate reporting for all sales made by those particular devices.

It's a little complicated, but it'll let you manage your inventory properly since all the devices are still associated with the same location in Square.

[Ciderboys]

Thank you!  However, I have two partners and we each use our own phones at farmers markets.  And sometimes we are both selling at beer gardens at the same time from each of our phones.

[londontea]

One other thing that you could do is use the team management feature, though there are two big caveats:

• You need the paid version of team management (I think it's $35/month). It's included in the paid version of Square for Retail if you're already using that.
• If you already use team management then this won't work.

To do this:

1. Create a team member for each farmer's market. You don't need to assign an email address or phone number, just a first and last name (which can be something like "First Name: Midtown, Last Name: Farmer's Market")
2. Assign this team member permissions and a PIN.
3. Enable passcode management on the Square app for each of your devices.

Once passcode management is enabled on the Square app you'll be asked to enter a PIN before you can use the app. Enter the PIN for whichever market that you're at and it will track sales made by that "employee." This lets you and your partners to make sales across multiple devices without having to worry about device codes and signing in/out.

You can then filter your reports by team member. Again, the main downside is that team sales tracking is a paid feature and it might not be worth the cost for you.