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Assign item categories with Square for Restaurants

Who is this article for?
  • Sellers with general items permissions. Set permissions in the Square Dashboard.
  • Square for Restaurant Free, Plus, and Premium subscribers
  • About assigning item categories 

    You can assign individual items to categories to track them in your Square for Restaurants reporting and inventory. Item categories also route items to your specific printer stations.

    Before you begin

    You can create item categories from your Square Dashboard and Square for Restaurants app. Learn how to create and edit item categories.
    You can assign item categories to a printer profile from your Square Dashboard and Square for Restaurants app. Learn how to set up printer profiles.

    New Square Sellers:
    If you created your Square account on August 14th 2024 or later, your account has been enrolled in our new Multi-Location Menu Management experience. This feature allows you to manage in-store menus across all locations from a single place in your Square Dashboard. To learn more about this new feature, view our Beta Multi-Location Menu Management guide. This feature will be made available to all Square Sellers soon.

    Before you begin

    You can assign individual items to categories to track them in your Square for Restaurants reporting and inventory. Item categories also route items to your specific printer stations.

    To create an item category, you need access to your Square Dashboard. To assign categories to a printer station, you need access to your Square Restaurants POS app. If you do not have a printer station, learn how to create a printer station.

    Assign categories to printers

    Once your item categories and printer profiles are created, you can assign item categories to specific printers.

    Square Dashboard

    1. Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Settings > Device management > Profiles > Printer profiles.
    2. Select an existing printer profile and click Edit next to Profile settings.
    3. Toggle on In-person order tickets.
    4. Click Categories to Print and tick the relevant item categories.
    5. Click Save.

    Square Restaurant POS app

    1. Open your Square Restaurant POS app and tap More > Settings > Hardware.
    2. Tap Printers below Connect and manage.
    3. Tap Profiles, then tap the > arrow icon next to Assign.
    4. Tap Edit next to Profile details.
    5. Tap In-person orders and toggle on Use this printer for in-person order tickets.
    6. Tap Categories to print and tick the relevant item categories.
    7. Tap the < arrow icon twice, and tap Save.

    Next steps

    Learn more about menus and items from one of these Support Center articles: