# Item Categories

Group: Inventory

[Open in the interactive reference](https://docs.api.lensing.ai/lensing/v1/groups/inventoryItemCategories)

An item category is a group of similar items. Categories can contain other categories.

Item categories are used for reporting, replenishment, and analytics.

Every item belongs to exactly one item category.

parentId places a category under its parent. Moving a category with PATCH inventory/item-categories/:id can't make the tree deeper than 6 levels. Filtering items by a category with POST inventory/items/search includes every category beneath it. Moving a category to a new parent also moves every category beneath it, and no item changes.

No endpoint searches categories by free text.

## Endpoints

- [List item categories](https://docs.api.lensing.ai/reference/lensing/v1/endpoints/itemCategories.html): `GET /inventory/item-categories`
- [Create an item category](https://docs.api.lensing.ai/reference/lensing/v1/endpoints/createItemCategory.html): `POST /inventory/item-categories`
- [Bulk create item categories](https://docs.api.lensing.ai/reference/lensing/v1/endpoints/bulkCreateItemCategories.html): `POST /inventory/item-categories/bulk`
- [Bulk delete item categories](https://docs.api.lensing.ai/reference/lensing/v1/endpoints/bulkDeleteItemCategories.html): `POST /inventory/item-categories/bulk-delete`
- [Search item categories](https://docs.api.lensing.ai/reference/lensing/v1/endpoints/searchItemCategories.html): `POST /inventory/item-categories/search`
- [Retrieve the item category tree](https://docs.api.lensing.ai/reference/lensing/v1/endpoints/readItemCategoryTree.html): `GET /inventory/item-categories/tree`
- [Retrieve an item category](https://docs.api.lensing.ai/reference/lensing/v1/endpoints/getItemCategory.html): `GET /inventory/item-categories/{id}`
- [Update an item category](https://docs.api.lensing.ai/reference/lensing/v1/endpoints/updateItemCategory.html): `PATCH /inventory/item-categories/{id}`
- [Delete an item category](https://docs.api.lensing.ai/reference/lensing/v1/endpoints/deleteItemCategory.html): `DELETE /inventory/item-categories/{id}`