Feature Request: Inventory Management for Pints & Spirits

[SHSocialClub]

[The title of this thread has been edited from the original: Inventory Management for Pints & Spirits]

Hi everyone. I really hope someone can help....

I help run a small social club. I'd like to use Square to keep track of how many pints, half pints and spirits we sell.

I can't configure my items so that a variation like Pint and Half Pint of an item comes out of the same stock. E.g. 1 keg of Fosters = 72 pints, I would like to configure Square so a bar person can sell a pint or half and the stock level decreases by the amount of pints sold (e.g. 1 pint or half a pint). 

I've tried doing this, but when I add variations it treats them as separate stock, rather than coming out of the same barrel. I did have a look at a few options, but ideally I don't want the staff to have to enter the number of pints each time they make a sale (e.g. by typing in 1.5 pints for example) - I'd rather they just had the normal button.

Has anyone got an answer for how to do this please? Similarly the same would apply for spirits and if a customer buys a double or single measure - it should come out of the same bottle.

[tranguyen · Accepted solution]

Hi @SHSocialClub, thank you for reaching out! This would require ingredient level tracking which is currently not a feature on Square. 

I can see how having this feature on Square would be incredibly useful. The Product Team is constantly improving the product based on feedback like this, so I'll share you thoughts with them.

However, it is possible through an integration with our partner, MarketMan. You can read more about the integration at their Support Centre. 

[tranguyen · Accepted solution]

Hi @SHSocialClub, thank you for reaching out! This would require ingredient level tracking which is currently not a feature on Square. 

I can see how having this feature on Square would be incredibly useful. The Product Team is constantly improving the product based on feedback like this, so I'll share you thoughts with them.

However, it is possible through an integration with our partner, MarketMan. You can read more about the integration at their Support Centre. 

[SHSocialClub]

Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it. I think it would be a relatively straight forward change to make because you could just tell any item (e.g. Chardonnay wine) to all take from the same stock, no matter what demonation is being sold.

E.g. inventory says there is 3000ml of stock (4 bottles) then whichever glass size is sol (125ml, 175ml, 250ml) it all comes out of the same stock for that item. Sadly some of the solutions like Marketman are way too expensive for smaller businesses.

Anyway, if it can be considered for a future improvement that would be great. Other than this, square is really very, very good.

[tranguyen]

Thank for the used case @SHSocialClub! I will add that as an example for our team as well. Let me know if there is anything else I can do for you.

[becaf_uk]

Similar to my answer above, @SHSocialClub, if you have one item with one variation, you can stock it full of 25mls, then sell 5x with a discount for 7x (175ml), that way you will always know exactly how many bottles you have.

The other way is to use a Square Webhook to notify a separate stock management system that is counting the total of the variations sold in relation to the bottles or kegs, then maybe display that on a small screen in the cellar or on the back-bar, or even as an alert so you/ your managers can be notified.

That probably doesn't make much sense, but I can try to point you in the right direction if you want more help.

[Yvett]

Thanks for this question and replies . just spent the morning trying to figure out how to do this!! Looking forward to the changes. 

[ERFC]

We are a Rugby club and experiancing the same issue for keggs, spirits, wine etc. Development would be something a large audiance would benifit from. This is the only negative I can find when reccomending Square to other clubs.

[SHSocialClub]

Yes, still no sign of this changing as yet sadly. I can't see why as the functionality is there in square already. You can sell units of stock (e.g. 125 ml of wine) but we don't have the option to say that we want to configure a category (like "large glass" under the Wine item) to be 250ml. It should be a fairly straightforward change for Square to make I'd have thought.

You can do it now only by having the person selling the glass of wine/beer etc type in the number of ml sold! It's not worth it. As a work-around for spirits we do this:

Determine number of 25ml measures in a bottle (e.g. 1500ml / 25ml per shot = 60 servings per bottle)
I then key into square the number of stock we have (e.g. 2 full bottles = 120 stock)
Then as bar staff sell the spirit they put in one for a single and two for a double.

The above works OK and I can do similar for pints, but it messes up when half pints get sold and isn't very accurate. If Square could sort this (relatively simple?) change it would help anyone who sells pints, wine or spirits a lot!

My guess is there's a premium thing you have to pay for that's not available in the standard version as to be honest this really lets it down for pubs/bars,

[iain697]

I'd love to see this feature as well, it would really help drive small and medium-sized hospitality businesses. We sell both bottles and measures, plus we have ingredients for our food items as well. Other POS software does this, for example, our previous software which we moved from to square had this feature despite being cheaper per month. Even a simple solution would be better than nothing.

[swalker92]

I'm trying to figure out if I can keep track on the number of pints and half pints I have to minimise my time with running up and down from the cellar. 

For example:

When I by a keg of beer I know I have 88 pints which on the square restaurant POS would be 88. At the bar we sell 1 pints and half pints. Is there a way to track the half pints? e.g. If I had 88 pints and I sold half a pint my square restaurant app would show 87.5 pints? 

Hope the above makes sense. 

Steff 

[frances_a]

Hello @swalker92!

I have moved your post to a thread where a Seller is requesting this same feature, so your feedback can be seen by our developers when planning for future updates. 

Thank you for stopping by the community!

[swalker92]

I would also love to see this feature as someone who runs a small bar!!

[becaf_uk]

Hi @SHSocialClub, you can actually add custom Units (https://squareup.com/dashboard/items/units), so if you add a single variation of say, half a pint and add a discount for 2 halves to make the pint price correct. That way the stock is always on one item with one 'variation'. So it will always show exactly how much is left.

Yes, it will look odd on customer receipts (e.g. 2x half pint Fosters), but most people won't care.

[Yvett]

Hi. I actually tried this on the weekend with just on item..Shipyard. It appeared on KDS as 2 X Shipyard (1/2 pints). But I thought  - this will cause confusion, and staff wont know when it is truly two 1/2 pints  or one half pint. Have you been able to overcome that?

[NSC1]

This was requested over two years ago now, has there been any progress?

as another user above said it’s the one thing that would prevent me recommending Square to other clubs as volunteer led clubs need all the help they can get rather than having to roughly picking the barrel up and estimating what’s left. 

[k_atie]

Hey @NSC1, welcome to Square's Seller Community! We have no update on this feature as of right now, but we'll be sure to announce it here, on the Community, if anything changes.

In the meantime, you can read up on how Feature Requests and the Seller Community work. 

Let me know if there's anything else I can help out with!

[Steven_Burlton]

Has this feature been implemented yet?  It's crazy we cannot get accurate stock figures because there is no ingredient tracking?  It's pretty much required for any restaurant or bar?

[LouK]

Hi Square,  has this feature been updated yet?  I run a bar for local clubs and struggle to maintain stock.  It can’t be that difficult to have halves and pints come out of the same running total can it?? 

[Sineaid · Accepted solution]

Hi @LouK!

Thanks for getting behind this feature request, and welcome to the community. 

While the Stock Conversion feature referenced above might not meet the needs of all bars when considering the vast array of measures that are used, it should allow you to keep a more accurate track of your stock by allowing you to sell items at different units of measure. 

If you find that you need a more feature rich tailored solution, you might want to consider one of our industry specific integration partners.

Both BevSpot and Backbar on our App Marketplace are popular choices when it comes to advanced reporting in the bar and hospitality space. They offer free or paid plans, and offer a wide range of other features that might help with inventory tracking and drinks costing.

[Steviee]

We have single products for items, with a variation for volume sold. I.e. One item for a beverage, with a variation of Pint and Half Pint. Or a Spirit sold as 25ml or 50ml.

In the reporting however, it counts each of the variations as 1 quantity.

It would be good if we could configure the reporting quantity for each variation for this instance.

For example:

Birra Moretti:

Pint - Reporting Qty: 1

Half Pint - Reporting Qty: 0.5

Then the reporting will calculate accurately how many pints have been sold (in this example).

[Sineaid]

Hi @Steviee,

Thanks for your post!

I've gone ahead and merged your query with another thread where other Sellers have discussed the same, and similar topics. 

Hopefully the advice on Stock Conversion and Custom Units will help you more accurately track your inventory. 

As mentioned above, if you need a more robust solution there are also a number of highly rated options available on the Square App Marketplace.