Sub Categories

[Jpatla]

I know this has been mentioned in the past.  I know you can use variations and modifiers and that you can have site subcategories online.  But I am a Pizza/Deli along with a Retail store.  

I know you are looking for reasons why subcategories would be helpful so here I go.  For instance in my store I track cost in QuickBooks under major categories such as Grocery, Meat Dept, Lotto, Pizza/Deli etc. I use these as my major Roll up categories- See example of Grocery 

Grocery-

   Produce

        Weighed

            items

        Non Weighed

             items

   Candy

       Candy Bars

            items

        Novelty

            items

        Truffles

             items

   Local Items

       Maple Syrup

           items

       Private label Spices

          items

   Pet products

      Food/Treats

         items

      Toys

         items

    Dairy

      Cheese

          items

      Milk

        items

You get the idea, when I break them down into individual categories then I have to export to Excell, rearrange my rows and add roll them up manually.  

We are also Using Square for Restaurants to integrate our online Menu.  But I have to have all the menu categories in seperatly so they show on the Menu correctly and I can have correct tickets print to the kitchen but when it comes to reporting it would be nice to be able to roll up all the menu categories so I can see what the Restaurant did.  I know that is possible with Restaurants Plus but since we have both we need the retail tracking of Retail Plus.  So far I have been able to get everything to work together; with some workarounds, we have only had it a week.  But I do see reporting as an issue moving forward.  

Thanks

Jodie Patla

Joe's Jerky Pizza Deli & Corner Market

[#2]

If you have at least one other category, you can create a subcategory within your Square Online website.

Head to your Square Online overview page > Items > Site Categories > click the + button next to a category.

After saving your changes, the new category will appear nested underneath the category you just selected on the Items > Site Categories page. Learn more about categories here.

I hope this helps, @hishersbling - and welcome to the Seller Community! ✨ 

[#3]

Hi @coppermug84 👋 Thanks for reaching out! Happy to have you join us here on the Seller Community. Welcome!

We do not have any current plans to implement a sub-category system. We feel that the implementation of Variations and Modifiers offers these same features of potential sub-categories, and allow for trackable iterations of existing items.

We would love to hear more about what you would use sub-categories for! How specifically would sub-categories be beneficial to your business? - what kind of items do you sell?

I will keep an eye out for your response!

[Jpatla]

You can use sub-categories when building the website you just cannot use them in the POS system.  I would like them for reporting purposes in the POS.    For building the website they are called Site categories.  I am currently using them for categories on my menu.  If you have any questions or need any help let me know.    www.joesjerky.square.site 

Jodie Patla

Joe's Jerk Pizza & Deli

[theanogreek]

Subcategories is a VITAL thing for a true POS!   Not the online bit, but the in-store point of sale!

Example:

New Women's

- Shirts

- Slacks

- etc

Used Women's

- Shirts

- Slacks

- etc

New Men's

- same scenario

Used Men's

- same scenario

New Accessories

- Jewelry

- Hats

- Socks

- etc

Household

the list goes on and on.

Need to be able to quickly track any specific category. These are NOT modifier/variation scenarios by a long shot.

Again, this is NOT a Square Online request, this is a POS request that ALL other platforms handle easily as far as I know. There's no reason Square doesn't do it, period!

[joshcurtiss]

So does Square have any response to all of these inquiries? This is literally something that EVERY other POS System does, in ADDITION to modifiers and variations. 

Can we please get this in the system? This is VITAL for a multitude of reasons and no-one seems to be interested in listening to the community and making this happen.

[DF23]

Yes we need sub-categories too, and not for the online store, but for our retail POS. 

Square, please listen before people start to move to Shofify or other providers who have sub categories.

Thank you

[WWS]

We have been asking for this since we started with Square back in 2020! We are a wine & liquor store, and our inventory of items is varied, which is why we would very much appreciate the option of making parent categories & sub categories! i.e. being able to have a parent category of "wine" and then having all the varietals as sub-categories under it (merlot, chardonnay, etc.) and the same with Liquor. 

The reporting could also use some updating, as we really don't have some of the reports we'd like, forcing us to export the inventory list and make our own in Google Sheets (very time consuming). There also isn't a great way to create custom reports - they only give certain options in the current custom reporting.

We are in NY, so alcohol sales are very regulated here. We do not have an online store, so many of the square features are unusable for us in that regard. I know many businesses are online these days, but it would be great if Square had options us brick & mortars could use too!

[Donnie-M]

@WWS This feature is available in square for restaurants plus.  I am not sure if you can get it the regular point of sale or if it is part of the retail app, but you can subscribe to restaurants plus and still use the point of sale app if you like.

Basically you can create a category roll up for reporting purposes say of Wine and then include all of the categories of white, red, rose or of Liquor that includes tequilas, whiskey, gin, etc.  Then you can pull a report that shows the Category roll up of Wine, liquor, beer, etc. but you can still have your categories for the granular organization.

It might not be the perfect answer you are looking for, but this feature is available now.

https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6433-reporting-with-square-for-restaurants

"

Category Rollup Reporting

When you create a Category Rollup, you’ll be able to group and view the sales for several categories at once. Category Rollups are visible from your Category Sales and Item Sales reports online, and will also display on your in-app Employee Shift and Close of Day reports.

For example: If you have three item categories (Liquor, Beer, and Wine), you can create a Category Rollup Alcohol to review the performance of all three categories. You can also apply additional filters on the Category Sales report (such as date, time of day, and employee) to help you drill down further into your item sales.

Just make sure you’ve set up item categories online first.

To get started:

1. From your online Square Dashboard, head to Reporting > Reports > Category Sales.

2. Click Rollups.

3. Select multiple item categories. When you’re all set, tap Create a Category Rollup.

Keep in mind, although you’ll see your Category Rollups for both online and in-app category reports, you will not see a change to your item layout or menu display on the Restaurants app. Rollups are for reporting purposes only."

[Candlestore]

@Donnie-M ;

I just went looking for the Category Roll Ups on my desktop in Square for Retail Plus and following Reports > Reports > Category Sales -  There is no Roll Up....  I wanted to try this to see if it would help me out.  Maybe I am missing it being hidden somewhere else in Square for Retail.

Now If roll Ups is only for Reporting..... How can I put a Roll Up in a Discount like I would be able to with a Sub-Category?

Thank you though because now I after replying to this tread asking for Sub Categories again I am thinking of more reasons why we as Retail subscribers need this feature in my Ideate.  Donnie-M I am not upset with you, you are doing a great job of trying to give advice to do a work around, just frustrated with Square not actually having the sub Categories that people have asked for for YEARS and no real way from square to do anything people want to do with the sub categories in their POS.  If they have it in Online they have the technology to do it for the POS.

For example:

Category - Jar candles

    Sub Categories - 10oz, 16oz, 28oz, 64oz, 70oz and 128oz

Category - Pillar Candles

    Sub Categories - 2x3, 2x6, 3x3, 3x6, 3x9, 4x4, 4x6, 4x9, 6x6, 6x9

Category - Holiday Special Occasion Candles

    Sub Categories - New Years, Valentines Day, Anniversary, Wedding, Fall (Halloween), Christmas etc

But let us have items in Sub or Multiple categories so we can fine tune sales.

I could put Item 70oz Pumpkin Spice in Categories(Sub Categories) Orange, Specialty, Fall, Halloween and 70oz Jars.  Then if I wanted a sale on Fall candles it would be in there, I wanted a sale on Specialty Candles the 70oz Pumpkin Jar would be in that sale, But now with it being a Variation of Pumpkin Spice I can not have IT on sale at all unless I put every Pumpkin Spice candle on sale since that is the Item Name.

Current Inventory is

Category - Scented Candles (155 plus different Scents)

     Vaiations - Size ( 20 different sizes)

Item - Pumpkin Spice in Category Scented candles

  Variations of Pumpkin Spice - 8oz, 16oz, 28oz, 34oz, 64oz, 70oz, 128oz, T-lights, Dozen Votives, 2x3, 2x6, 3x3, 3x6, 3x9, 4x4, 4x6, 4x9, 6x6, 6x9, wax melts.

So if I put Category Scented Candles on Sale..... that has every scented candle we make on sale.  I use to have all my 28oz candles in a Category, so no matter the scent by 12 get 1 free.... once I switched to using Option Set to create Variations I lost that ability.  Now we do it manually no automatic discount.  It took me a few weeks to switch from the 28oz category to the Option Set system and I do not have the time to keep switching my inventory around to try different things that may or may not actually work for me.  Which is what I feel happened with Option Sets in my case.  Square seems to think their customers fit into little boxes of Food, Retail etc and are all small with a few items in inventory.  I have over 6000 inventory items, I saw someone else in the forum has over 56,000.... trying this or that by changing your entire inventory is not always feasible is my point.

[Candlestore]

@Joe , @Helen , @Valentina ;

I tagged you 3 since your Square Moderators following this.

Another Reason for Sub-Categories would be for Discounts.

With Discounts you can choose and Item or Category to be in the Discount.

If I could have Items in a Sub Category then it could be in the Discount.  I already Cannot put Variations in a Discount.  Why would I need a Variation as a Discount.... Well Square department that created the Options Set ....makes option sets as a Variation.  One of the Variations created by the Options Set for me is my SIZES.  So all my 28oz jars are a Variation of the Scent (Item).  Now if I created a Sub Category or was able to have Variations or the Option Set Name in a Discount that would be great.  So no I do not need Sub Categories for Item organization in the Background since I use Scanners but then I could have Items in different categories and Sub categories.  Or maybe let us put one item in multiple categories.  Why would this be helpful.  I could have Categories as Color of Candle, Time of Year, Holiday, etc  So A red candle could be in Holiday, Red and the type size it is.   This way I may want to reduce red Candles but not reduce my Green Xmas candles.  Then you say well you can add the Item to the discount..... wrong because the red candles are a Variation thanks to Square not having sub categories.  I am thinking along the Lines of Walmart online for use for Discounts and the idea of sub categories..... Catagory Outdoor accessories    sub categories of Grills.    Walmart may want Grills and Out Door Cookware on sale but not their outdoor furniture.  But with Square limiting us to only the category of OUTDOOR accessories all these would be on sale if we selected the Category for sale items.   Or we would have to select each item and hope there are no variations that were created by an Option Set or Modifier of an item we do not want on sale.

[Donnie-M]

@Candlestore This is a great example and response as to what you are looking for.  I would take a look at the restaurants plus subscription as that is where this is now, but I can see it needs to be available to retail plus as well.  I am subscribed to both and can use it across all my stores also.

The discounts part, that is where I have advocated for a scripted ordering type system where you go down the line, Main item, modifier 1, modifier 2, but you go from a--->b--->c but without having to have 1000 items the way options work currently.  With retail, I see that you need that ability to take inventory and variations does that, but there is not a good way to organize a complicated tree with only 3 basic levels...category, item, variation...you just end up with too many variations.

The sub category item is functional in many different ways and makes sense to most people.  The roll up feature is really just a reporting item to see broad sales, but some sellers need and want the more granular ability to organize their catalog.

[_Violet]

Hi @WWS @Donnie-M @Candlestore  - Thanks for reaching out to us here on the Square Seller Community👋

I went ahead and merged your posts to an existing thread where other Square Sellers have discussed requesting a feature for "sub-categories" as well. We merge duplicate conversations together to keep like comments in one place, and to make it easier for others to find the thread in the future. 

I've updated the status to "Open". This step in the Feature Request process will be a time in which other Square Sellers can add their use cases to your idea to make it stronger and demonstrate further how much it is needed. Later on, we'll re-visit the most popular feature requests in the "Open for Votes" status and bring them to our Product Team.

To other Sellers who see this feature, please “like” the post and reply with a use case that your business would have. This will help to signal that this feature request is even more important to address.