Switching To Square Inventory Management

[BofBArtStudio]

Hi Everyone,

Years ago, before Square made all of the great advancements in their Inventory Management System, we started using a third-party Inventory Management System that was found in the Square App Marketplace.

We love it and it has worked very well for us.  It integrates perfectly with all of our Square Locations and our Websites.

However, now, we are looking to utilize the built-in Square Inventory Management System, as it has really advanced, and the features that we were missing with it years ago are now there.  We are thinking that there may no longer be a need for the third party system.

There is one feature that we love, however, that we are not seeing in the built in Square Inventory System.  That is, when we enter the Cost of the item, we would like to be able to set the Price of the item by a specific margin.  The third party system we use does this and we can set the margin and automatically calculate price based on cost.

For those of you who use the built in Square Inventory Management System, what methods do you use to calculate price based on cost in order to be at or above a specific margin?  

Are there plans at Square to add such a feature to help sellers set price based on cost and display the margin?

Thanks

[MayaP]

Hey @BofBArtStudio  – Thanks for reaching out! It’s great to hear you're interested in using Square for Retail to manage your inventory 😊

Setting item prices by a specific margin isn’t currently supported through our Retail subscription, but to confirm, I’ll tag a few Super Sellers who may have insights to share: @timberhillwine @LocavoreStore @BlackAngelDsgns @CactusQuilter. 

If you need anything else, please let me know!

[BofBArtStudio · Accepted solution]

@MayaP 

Okay. Thank you.

it's easy enough to calculate margin and selling price manually, but it would be a nice feature to have it just automatically show the margin of selling price as a relation to product cost.  That way the entering of new products would be streamlined.

I can add this to the ideate board as I think it's a fantastic feature that comes readily available in other systems and would be great to add to the square inventory system.

[TCSlaguna]

@BofBArtStudio 

I love the idea, and it would be extremely useful for us. 

Thank you for surfacing this feature request. 

[MayaP]

I think this is a great suggestion @BofBArtStudio. Hopefully something we can explore down the line.

Thanks for contributing to the Ideate Board! 😊

[Candlestore]

@BofBArtStudio ;

I created a spreadsheet that distributes the cost of Shipping / Handleing fees over the quantiteis based by the total amount of items ordered.  This number is added to the actual cost of said item(s) based on the % of item ordered on that PO.

This then will give me a Column Total Expense for item (token Code). Then I have a column called New Price which I set a margin say 2x.   Then using Excel and powerquery linked to my Catalog I merge the Token fields and have the Total expense placed into the Cost colun in Square with updated price.   This is all based off the Token of the item ordered so no other fields get changed and I am not mis typing anything in Square.   Some of my items my Margin might be lower and some items I can get away with a higher Margin, which is why for me based on PO I can adjust this.  

Examples    

Cost of my essential oil might be $0.85 for .5 oz   but cost when delivered is actually $1.15 per bottle.  Then I sell for $4.99 which is over a 4 x markup..... But other items like a Wax Melter might be $8 cost but with Delivery they are $12.45 or so.... I sell these for about $35.99 or only a 3X markup.   When calculating your Cost do not forget to include the cost for the item to be shipped to you.

So what I do is create a PO.   Print it as a PDF.   Excel can open a pdf in power query and put the items into a table and convert it and set up a new csv file that updates the price in a catalog .csv file for Square to be imported.

[DinaLRosenberg]

@Candlestore maybe one day I'll be as good as Excel as you LOLOL

[Candlestore]

@DinaLRosenberg 

Youtube University has helped me immensly with Excel.

I watch the free videos but some of these people do have paid Courses.

https://www.youtube.com/

1. @KevinStratvert
2. @LeilaGharani
3. @HowtoPowerBI
4. @OzduSoleilDATA
5. @AccessAnalytic
6. @ExcelCampus

For example for #4 above :

https://www.youtube.com/@OzduSoleilDATA

I am not affiliated with any of these but these are my goto gurus for Excel learning, and I paid for no course.

I watch as I am trying to figure something out.  Meaning Can Excel convert a Table in a PDF to a Table in Excel in a Google search.   Then I watch the videos to see how easy it is and repeat till I learn it.   🙂  I may watch a few different ones to see which of these YouTubers explains it so I can understand.  So get technical and others explain a subject like a 5 yr old can understand lol.   Same person may not always explain topice the same.

[MayaP]

Wow, this is amazing @Candlestore!

Now I know exactly who to reach out to for any Excel questions 😉

[Candlestore]

@MayaP ,

I keep learning as MS adds features to Excel.  Then I just learn what I want or need from Exceland then go to my Excel instructors on youtube.  lol   They give out some instructions and new features on Youtube free but also offer instruction courses for sale.  I have not used any paid soursec yet and have pieced together different resources to accomplish things.  You can always ask or look it up to through YouTube  lol.

[MayaP]

I will look at this. I certainly need a refresh.

Thank you again @Candlestore!

[BofBArtStudio]

Thanks @Candlestore 

I do understand how to calculate margin. And using a spreadsheet is an okay option except we have thousands of products. 

Our current inventory management system that syncs with square actually has margin automatically calculate price based on cost.  We simply put in the margin that we're looking for like 80% and it'll automatically put the price in.  Or if we put a price, it will automatically display the margin. 

Hopefully we can get to that point with the square inventory system one day.

[DinaLRosenberg]

This would be an awesome feature. We try and 3x everything we can but books are standard keystone we do try and order when there are specials like 50% + 5% - It's incredibly important to leverage those relationships with vendors..