Bulk import items in Square Dashboard
About bulk importing items
If you want to add multiple items to your catalogue at once, you can use Square’s item import tool to make bulk additions or changes to your catalogue using a spreadsheet. The import functionality is useful if you have a large item catalogue, rather than manually entering or updating items one by one. The import tool can be used to upload your catalogue for the first time, as well as make changes to your catalogue, or transfer your catalogue to another Square account.
Before you begin
You can bulk import items in the Square Dashboard through a web browser on a laptop or desktop computer.
If you are using the import tool to make changes to an existing item catalogue, we recommend exporting a copy of your catalogue and saving a distinct file before continuing — this way, you can always revert back to the previous library if you have any issues or lose any information.
Step 1. Download your library template
When you download your item library template, the file is formatted to text, not numbers. If you want to use the template to perform number functions, you must change the downloaded file to a numeric format.
- Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Items.
- Click the Actions drop-down menu > click Export Library.
- Click Blank import library to download the template.
- Click Export to download the template and the Excel (.xlsx) file will automatically download to your desktop.
- Open the downloaded file. The file will have the title ‘template-YYYY-MM-DD-XXXX.xlsx’.
- Review the instructions at the top of the file and example text above each column field to start editing.
Before you export your library, update your filters to reflect what items you would like to export. The export will only include items you are currently viewing.
- Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Items.
- Click the Actions drop-down menu > click Export Library.
- Choose to export All items or Items matching applied filters.
- Choose between an Excel or CSV file format (we strongly recommend downloading the Excel (.xlsx) format)
- Click Export. A spreadsheet will download to your computer.
Step 2. Transfer items between Square accounts (optional)
This step is only for Square sellers looking to transfer items between Square accounts. If this is not your intention, go directly to Step 3.
If you have created a new Square account and would like to transfer items from an existing Square account into a new account, the Import/Export tool can be used, but additional steps are required.
Once you have downloaded your Excel file, you’ll need to make a couple of changes before transferring your items to your second account.
Delete location specific tokens
The first column in your Excel spreadsheet will display a Token. Tokens are unique labels created by Square for every item variation. To transfer items to a new account the token field must be blank.
Do not delete the entire column. The Token column and Token column header are required to successfully import.
Edit location specific names
If your new account contains different location names, you will need to update the names of the locations in the location-specific headers to match the new location names. If you do not use Inventory Management many of the cell values may be blank; you can leave them blank.
If the account that you are copying from contains:
more locations than the new account, you do not need to remove the extra location-specific columns. The extra columns will be ignored.
fewer locations than the new account, you must add additional location-specific columns to match. The only location-specific column that every location is required to have is the “Enabled Location” column. The other location-specific columns are optional.
Step 3. Update your item library spreadsheet
When editing your Excel (.xlsx) file, we recommend using the most up-to-date version of your spreadsheet programme.
- Update the template columns with your item information. When editing the template:
- You can’t create or update a unit type or unit precision from your Excel spreadsheet – you’ll only see the option to select one of your existing units from the cell drop-down menu.
- Don’t change any information in the Token column.
- Don’t reorder or delete any columns. Changing the columns will result in an error when you import the library into your Dashboard.
- Leaving the Category field blank means the item will show as Uncategorised in your Item library in Dashboard. If you re-import an existing item that already belongs to a category and leave the Category field blank, the item won’t be removed from the existing category that it belongs to.
- Any new values you enter in the Category column will create new categories in your Item library in Dashboard.
- Leaving the Price field blank or writing ‘Variable’ will create a variable-priced item.
- Leaving the Modifier Set field blank will default the modifier to Off. Place a Y in the appropriate Modifier Set field to apply a specific modifier to an item.
- Any changes made to the New Quantity column will replace the existing item quantity. If you enter a zero in the New Quantity column, your inventory for that item for that location will be set to zero.
- You can assign a location-specific price, stock count or availability by setting values in the location-specific columns.
- Items that use rich text formatting will have HTML tags included in the item descriptions in the exported file (HTML tags are small pieces of code, such as ‘</p>’ and ‘</br>’).
- When you’re done editing your library, save the Excel file to your computer.
The following information only applies if importing items using a CSV file, not Excel (.xlsx).
You can’t create or update a unit type or unit precision from your CSV file. If you’re using a CSV file, you’ll need to manually enter the unit and precision. Make sure you enter the full unit type name and precision – don’t use abbreviations or the cell will return an error.
While you can import the CSV data into a spreadsheet, if your item library contains SKUs, don’t open the CSV file directly as some spreadsheet editors will modify your SKUs in unexpected ways. Specifically, they may remove leading zeros or convert them to another format.
If you have SKUs in your CSV, open the data in Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets to make sure there are no errors in your file.
With Square’s item import tool, you can add or remove items to and from multiple categories or subcategories. To do so:
Add an item to multiple categories in the Categories column by separating the categories with a comma.
For example, you can add an item called Logo Jumper to two categories, New Arrivals and Jumpers, by writing New Arrivals, Jumpers.
| Item name | Categories |
|---|---|
| Logo Jumper | New Arrivals, Jumpers |
Add an item to a subcategory in the Categories column by including its category hierarchy using the greater-than symbol (‘>’).
For example, you may add an item called Baseball Cap to a women’s accessories subcategory called Hats & Beanies by writing Women’s > Accessories > Hats & Beanies.
| Item name | Categories |
|---|---|
| Baseball cap | Women’s > Accessories > Hats & Beanies |
You can add items to multiple categories, even if one or more of the categories is a subcategory.
For example, you may add an item called Baseball Cap to two categories, (1) ‘New Arrivals’ and (2) a women’s accessories subcategory called ‘Hats & Beanies’ by writing New Arrivals, Women’s > Accessories > Hats & Beanies.
| Item name | Categories |
|---|---|
| Baseball cap | New Arrivals, Women’s > Accessories > Hats & Beanies |
To add the Baseball Cap item to both a parent and a subcategory, you could write Women’s > Accessories, Women’s > Accessories > Hats & Beanies.
| Item name | Categories |
|---|---|
| Baseball cap | Women’s > Accessories, Women’s > Accessories > Hats & Beanies |
If your category includes a comma or greater-than symbol in the category name, use the backslash (‘\’) directly in front of the comma or greater-than symbol as an escape key so that the import tool knows that the symbol is part of the category name.
Understanding the reporting category
Sales of your item will be attributed to its Reporting Category in the Category Sales report. An item can only have one Reporting Category.
If you import an item in the Categories column and leave the Reporting Category field blank, Square automatically sets that category as the item’s Reporting Category. That category will be included in both the Categories field and the Reporting Category field for that item in future Item Library exports.
Similarly, if you import an item with the Reporting Category set and leave the Categories field blank, the Categories field will also include the item’s reporting category in future item library exports.
For example, if you import the following item into your item library, the item’s reporting category will automatically be set to ‘Jumpers’.
| Item name | Categories | Reporting category |
|---|---|---|
| Logo Jumper | Jumper |
: Future exports of the Item Library will show that the item’s reporting category is ‘Jumpers’.
| Item name | Categories | Reporting category |
|---|---|---|
| Logo Jumper | Jumper | Jumper |
If you import an item with two or more categories and leave the Reporting Category field blank, the item will not have a reporting category after it is imported – Square does not automatically select a reporting category for items that belong to two or more categories.
Make sure you specify which of the categories in the Categories column should be used as the item’s reporting category in the import template’s Reporting Category column if you would like for sales of the item to be attributed to a category in the Category Sales report.
| Item name | Categories | Reporting category |
|---|---|---|
| Logo Jumper | New Arrivals, Jumpers |
: Future exports of the Item Library will show that the item does not have a reporting category set.
| Item name | Categories | Reporting category |
|---|---|---|
| Logo Jumper | New Arrivals, Jumpers |
Step 4. Upload your updated item library
Once you finish updating your file, you can import the spreadsheet into your Square Dashboard to update your Item library. Before you upload your updated file:
Make sure the following required columns are in your Excel (.xlsx) or CSV: Item Name, Variation Name, Description, and SKU. If you have more than one location, the Enabled [Location Name] column is also required.
Make sure the Tax column has the required heading format, which includes the tax percentage value in parentheses within the header. For example, “Tax - Sales (7%)”.
To upload your updated item library:
Sign in to your Square Dashboard and go to Items.
Click the Actions drop-down menu > click Import library.
Drag and drop the updated file into the upload box area or click Browse file to select your spreadsheet. Click Next.
You will be prompted to match document columns for item attributes. Note: If you did not change the column names in the file downloaded from Square, the product attributes should be automatically matched. Confirm each item attribute is matched to the correct column, then click Next.
The importing process may take a few minutes to complete. If you do not receive an error message, your item library successfully imported.
If your import is not successful, your file may have errors that need to be resolved before you can finish uploading. If your file has errors, you can choose to accept automatic updates to fix the file, or opt to make manual corrections to your file and re-upload.