Transferring Inventory Values from Square to New System

[GLG]

The title of this thread has been edited by a Square Moderator from the original: Is inventory value correct when inventory transferred to new account?

I'm selling my business. The inventory value in the buyer's system after import must be identical to the inventory value in my system before I export.

As with all retail businesses, a single product can (and often has) multiple costs associated with a single product because of different shipments or whatnot. A spreadsheet can't transfer historical data. Using the last unit cost wouldn't be accurate, nor would the default unit cost. Does the exported spreadsheet average the costs of a product? For instance, I have 2 of an item. One cost $7, the other $5. Does Square add the costs and divide by 2 to give each item a $6/unit cost? If the average is taken, is that the new default unit cost?

If Square uses the last or default unit cost for all items, then WTH am I supposed to do for thousands of products? My inventory value could easily be off by $10K.

[Candlestore · Accepted solution]

@GLG ;

I believe Square uses the most recent Cost of an Item times the Quantity on hand to get your current Value.  So if you had items bought say last year at $5.00 and added some this year at $5.50, the Value would just be $5.50 X Quantity on hand in Square.  I am only guessing as this is what my valuation appears to be with Square.

Do you track your Inventory with an accounting program?  With the Accounting Program you can set how inventory is calculated usually FIFO or LIFO methods.  Then when an Item is sold the Accounting software would adjust your $ amount of Inventory.   Square is not an Accounting package that only tracks the Quantity on hand.  When I first setup my account with Square there was no Cost of Goods Sold reporting or even a way to track when an item was sold or bought.  I just went back in my Square Reports for Inventory Management History, Tracking started sometime in 2021.  Since I already had everything in my accounting software, I did not bother too much with Square for tracking the actual cost of my inventory and used My accounting software.  

So your question here as to how the Square Software package calculates the Value of Inventory would be better handled by making a Call to Square Support.  The only other option is to look at one item that you know you had a change in the cost of the item and see if the Value is based on the current cost showing multiplied by the Quantity on hand.  This is 1 reason why I try to tell new people on here that Square is NOT an accounting package and to get one.  

[Sammie_C]

Hi @GLG, we appreciate your post. Thank you @Candlestore for your insight as well.

When importing an item library, the system will import one unit cost per item (whichever cost you set). So in short, the system does not create an average. You are able to do so manually, by using a ‘receive’ stock action on the new account and adding a unit cost that aligns with the previous stock actions in the source Square account, but this may be a bit time consuming.

I hope this helps a bit! Please let us know if you have any further questions.