Applies to: Inventory API
Learn how to reconcile the inventory count calculated by Square with the results of a physical count.
Sometimes a seller's Square inventory count might not match their actual physical count. When this happens, your application can manually update the system to match reality by:
- Using the
BatchChangeInventoryendpoint in the Inventory API. - Entering the actual physical count a seller has taken.
The system automatically adjusts the difference. For example, a seller's account shows 98 Medium Blue Shirts, but they actually only have 95 shirts. You can update the system with the physical count (95) using an InventoryPhysicalCount object in the request.
The system:
- Reduces the inventory by 3 shirts.
- Marks these 3 shirts as "WASTE".
- Updates the status from "IN_STOCK" to "WASTE".
If the physical count finds more items than expected (like 101 instead of 98), the system:
- Adds the extra items.
- Marks them as new stock ("NONE" to "IN_STOCK").
The following example shows how to reset the quantity of an item variation (6F4K33KPNUVDWKZ43KUIFH6K) with a specified change in physical_count:
Batch change inventory
Notice that each changes list entry in the request body consists of an InventoryChange object for InventoryPhysicalCount and an InventoryChangeType of PHYSICAL_COUNT.