Use Menu > Categories & Items to add or edit categories and items, import items, download an item list, and change the sorting order in which they appear in Back Office and on the point-of-sale. You can also color code categories and view by category or by item.

Working with categories

Grouping your merchandise into categories allows you to put similar inventory items together. For example, if you sell sporting goods, you might define a category for each sport, such as golf, tennis, basketball, etc. If you own a book store, you can group items by type, such as hard cover, soft cover, large print, etc.

Grouping items into categories also makes items easier for your FOH staff to find in the POS. Additionally, the reports in Back Office use item categories to consolidate key sales information. For example, you can track profits by how well each category is selling.

If you have trouble deciding what categories to use, start by creating very broad categories. You can always change them or add more specific categories later.

Adding a category

When you set up your menu, you define the items for sale in your restaurant so that they appear on the POS app. Categories allow you to organize your items for quick navigation on the POS app. Create categories by which to group your items. For example, Salads, Soups, Sandwiches, Desserts, and Drinks.

If you are a multi-store customer, use Company View (All Stores) to add and edit your items and categories.

To add a category:

• Log in to Back Office using Company View (All Stores).
• Select Menu > Categories & Items.
  
• Select COLOR CODE MY CATEGORIES to have the system assign a color to new categories you create or assign a color later in the Add New Category screen.
• Click Add a Category to create a new item category.
  
• Enter a name, up to 20 characters, for the category.
• Select a color to appear on the button in the POS app, or select No Color, if you do not want categories and items color-coded in the POS app.
• (Optional) Click Assign Tag.
  
• Select the required tag(s) to assign to the category from the list.
• Click Done.
• Click Save.
• Repeat these steps for each type of merchandise you sell. Rearrange the order of your categories from the POS app.

Editing or removing a category

Removing a category is a "soft delete", meaning that while the category is removed from your view, all data and activity associated with that category still appears in reports, transactions, etc.

To edit or remove a category:

• Log in to Back Office using Company View (All Stores).
• Select Menu > Categories & Items.
• Scroll through the list of categories and click the pencil icon to edit the name and/or color of the category.
  
• If the category does not have any items in it, click Remove to delete the category. This button appears only when no items are in the category. An alert appears to confirm the removal of the category.
• Click Yes to remove the category. If the selected category has any sales activity, a notification appears allowing you to determine if you want to continue with the removal -OR- Click No to keep the category.

Working with items

After creating categories, create an item record for each item you sell. For each item, you must specify a category, item name, price, and tax category (the system pre-selects your default tax category, but you can change to another tax category, as needed).

You can search your items by bar code. You also need to indicate how you sell the item such as by unit or weight/measure. In addition, you can add the vendor who supplied you the specific item and your cost for the item. This feature makes reordering simpler and provides visibility into profitability when items are sold.

The POS app makes it very intuitive for you to track your inventory, by allowing you to define up to three variations for any item, you can track all the possible combinations of these characteristics under a single item. Variations are usually grouped together into the variation groups. In addition, you can also set up item modifiers to make it easy for employees to select options and extras when selling an item in the POS app. You will group modifiers into modifier groups.

For more information, refer to the following links:

• Creating items
• Editing multiple items
• Importing items

Controlling how categories and items appear in Back Office and on POS devices

Once you create your categories and items in Back Office, you may want to change the order in which they appear both in Back Office and on your POS device(s). Single site customers can do this from Back Office, as well as from the POS device. Multi-store customers can only edit the sort order in Back Office.

To sort the order in which categories and items appear in Back Office and on POS devices:

• Log in to Back Office using Company View (All Stores).
• Select Menu > Categories & Items.
• Click Sort Order to enter sort order mode. In this mode, you can sort the order of your categories and the items within the categories. You cannot add a new item, edit an item, or import items.
  
• Click the sort order up and down icons to dynamically change the order in which categories and items appear on the screen. You do not have to save between each move.
• When you have everything sorted to your liking, click Done Sorting to exit sort order mode. Your Back Office changes are pushed to the POS device(s).

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