Silent Auctioneers! How do you enter items into Square?

[BethSMF]

I am with a nonprofit.  We have items (70+) for Silent Auction, all individually priced, but some of which may have the same price.  For example, the Minimum Bid for items 1, 20 and 52 are all $50.  How do you create your items, one at a time or upload from a system like Airtable?  How do you indicate in Squareup that there should be a minimum and that the volunteers who are doing the checkout enter the actual price paid (winning bid)?  I've been doing it one entry at a time.  I'm trying to do a big data dump into Squareup, but I can't physically edit the word SKU to Minimum Bid.  I can't get the Item Number and description to all appear on the screen.  I have "merged it" so that it's one line, but only the first 3 letters, which happen to be the number, appear.  I haven't touched Squareup since September 2023 so it could be there were some changes.  Help!

[Candlestore · Accepted solution]

@BethSMF ;

I am not sure how to set up an Item for a Minimum Bid amount with Square.  Best way I know to do this would be leave the Price blank that your Volunteer would enter the Sale price at the end of the auction.  You may have to have the minimum bid $ amount in either the Field name Before or after the actual Item name or in the Description Field.  

You can Download your Square catalog to a csv file like Excel, Google Sheets, or Apple Numbers.  You can edit the Rows Under the Headers to what you need.  SKU can be numbers and letters and can be read by a Scanner if you have one.  So not sure how your entering a Price there If you have the $ that might be why.  I have 1.99 for my SKU for Items I sell at $1.99.  I alsom have a Barcode of Miscellaneous for when we have a Price on an item but it is not in Square.  We leave the Price field blank and then enter the actual amount at the time of sale.  This is all for In store purchases as a price needs to be entered for online sales.  

For New item in a CSV or Excel file:

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 (Your Company)

New Quantity (Your Company)

Stock Alert Enabled (Your Company)

Stock Alert Count (Your Company)

Tax - Pa Sales Tax (6%)

BLANK

BLANK

Table (for Example)

Small

Minimum Price

Minimum Bid plus Description

Kitchen Furniture

Barcode on item

Leave Blank to Enter at end of Auction

Sales Tax (Y or N)

Reference Handle: This field leave Blank for New items - Square Creates this

Token :  This field leave Blank for New items - Square Creates this

Item Name:  is the Name you call the Item and you may add te minimum bid to this as Square treats it as a Text field

Variation Name can be Blank if not needed

SKU can be a text or numeric value or combination for a Barcode.  I have used 1.99 for items I sell at $1.99.  This SKU should be unique per item so do not use it if you have Multiple Items with same minimum Bid value... Maybe have SKU of "item 1 50.00" etc

you could also enter the description as for a tabel the Make if Brand name, Type of Wood..etc then have the last line Minimum Bid of

$50.00.

Category If you need or want these in a Category - optionally you can leave blank

Gtin - is a barcode of Numbers 8 to 14 digits long that are assigned to a specific company for a certain Item.  Not sure if you auction these off but can be used or blank.

Price - Leave Blank till the Auction is over.  Then when Item 1 sells   Search for Item 1, add to cart, and a screen will ask How much.... type in the Hammered Auction price.  

Tax is a Y or N for the Item, if Y then your Sales tax is added, if N then no extra Sales tax is added to the Sold price you entered.

My suggestion is if you have Typed in Item 1, and have it all setup in Square the way you Like, Export your Catalog, and use that Item YOU created as a Template for the Image above.  Also use my tips for what goes under each header for how to fill the cells out.