Start with bookstore-friendly categories
Square categories work best for books when they line up with genres, BISAC-style groupings, or whatever structure your store already uses to organize inventory and reporting.
If you need to create or reorganize those categories first, Square's guide on creating and managing item categories covers the basics in Square.
What is BISAC? "Book Industry Standards and Communications" is the standard system used across the book industry to classify books into sections like Fiction / Mystery or Cooking / Regional & Ethnic.
The closer your Square categories are to real book categories, the easier it is to keep incoming books organized without constant cleanup.
Let book by book apply the best fit
When you import or add books, book by book uses the descriptions, subjects, and other book details gathered for each title to determine the most appropriate Square categories to apply.
That includes the reporting category that best fits the book, so the category setup in Square can do useful work instead of becoming a bucket for manual fixes.
You can still adjust categories yourself
The default category choice should save time, but it is not the end of the process.
Before you send new books to Square, you can manually adjust their categories whenever you need to. That gives you a chance to match local shelving, store-specific reporting habits, or any exceptions that matter to your team.
Aim for consistency, not perfection
The goal is not to create the most complicated category tree possible.
The goal is to make sure books land in categories that are consistent enough to support receiving, discovery, and reporting without forcing your staff to reclassify every title by hand.
Wrapping it up
The practical workflow is simple: keep your Square categories aligned with genres or BISAC-style groupings, let book by book apply the most appropriate category and reporting category for each title, and then make manual adjustments before sending new books to Square whenever needed.