Meet the Order Manager product team: Which workflows are most critical to managing orders? 📨🧾

[Tom]

Hi Seller Community,

Have questions about the Orders section on your Point of Sale or online Square Dashboard? Our product team wants to hear from you!

I'm thrilled to introduce you to @chada and @Aaron_Product, whose teams focus on order management. Whether you're set up with Square Point of Sale, Square for Retail, Square for Restaurants, or Square Online, this is an opportunity for you to ask questions and share feedback on the order manager’s role in managing your business, notifying you of new or updated orders, printing order tickets, or providing settings for configuring your order-specific workflows. 

Post your questions to this thread ahead of time and check back with us on Wednesday, June 29, at 11 a.m. PDT/2 p.m. EDT when their team responds. 

A few example questions:

• What are the latest feature improvements that will help me better manage orders with Square Online?

• If Square Order Manager could support "_______," the day-to-day operations at my restaurant would run so much smoother.

• I keep running into "_______" every time an order comes through at my retail store. What's the best practice for addressing this?

• What plans do you have for allowing me to configure Order Manager to suit the specific workflows of my business?

• Do you have any plans to improve the onboarding experience to Order Manager for new sellers or employees?
  
  

Note: We are not able to share specific details on our product roadmaps, though this information will be helpful as we continue to make improvements.

Click Reply below to post a question ahead of time, and we’ll address as many posts as we can on Wednesday, June 29.👇

[#2]

Hello everyone!

The time for receiving new questions has closed for this event. Thank you to everyone who asked questions and shared their experiences — we received a lot of helpful feedback!

The Order Manager team will continue to address your posts as they are able. Due to the high volume of interest across all of our forums, it may take a few days to follow up on remaining inquires. We appreciate your patience and please keep watch for updates throughout the end of the week and early next week. 🙏🏻

[fushipoke]

I believe the biggest POS issue that should be addressed is the difficulty of marking items out of stock and adjusting inventory. Its no secret the square website is slow to load (we have a gigabit fiberoptic plan I promise it isn't us) so when we need to mark items "out of stock or adjust inventory on the fly for items only sold online it is a very long process.

For example we sell bowls and charge customers based on their choice of protein, we have four items that use "fresh tuna", one for in-person sales (so it doesn't force modifier selection) and three for online sales that have different modifier sets. There is no way for us to add a set inventory in as the "fresh tuna" gets used across multiple items and when we run out we have to go to

squareup.com > online > items > site items > show only visible items > search tuna > select an item > scroll to stock > select update > turn on track stock > select reason for update > type in 0 > click update stock > save item > and do it all over again. 

Keep in mind we gotta watch the square loading circle between each step.

There has got to be a simpler way to manage stocked items or bulk manage inventory through the site.

We also don't want to just make items "not visible" as we get a ton of phone calls complaining they our site isn't working or asking if we stopped selling a specific item.

Adding inventory on other items like drinks is cumbersome too. 

squareup.com > items > search or narrow items by category > select item > scroll to variations > select stock count > select reason for update > type in # > click done > save item > do it again for each item

So when we get a drink delivery adding new inventory in takes forever. There's also no way to track wine by the glass and bottle together (I know this is a little more complicated but other pos offer it).

My solution would be for Square to offer bulk inventory editing (without uploading an excel sheet) through the site. It would be pretty simple under the items section of square there could be a bulk inventory tab the just showed a list of the items picture, name, tracking on/off switch, and adjustment number box. At the top it would give the usual "item search" and "category selection" but add an extra drop down for "reason for update" and a save all button.

When will we be able to set a prep time for large orders?
We do not want to restrict large orders like you currently offer but instead want to set a longer default prep times for orders over a certain item amount. We get single item orders that are ready in 5 minutes but also get orders of 10-15 items that take closer to 20 minutes to prepare.

[Aaron_Product]

Hey @fushipoke, thank you for taking the time to bring this up and show why it matters for your business.

We're actively exploring ways to improve the calculation of prep times, including potentially longer prep times for large orders. We'll reach out to you directly to get some more feedback about your needs.

[dorsisbakery]

Chada & Aaron,

Great to see there is a place where we can discuss the orders section of the software. This area seems to be the most lacking in functionality.

Setting the scenario of our setup.  We are a one store location bakery with a website (Weebly) for our online orders.  We have two (2) registers, each with a Receipt printer (thermal paper).  One of the registers has an attached scale for the products we sell by weight. Additionally, we have a kitchen printer (two part/two color paper).  Additionally, we have a couple of mini iPads with attached card readers.

In-Store To-Go Orders

For the majority of our sales, the customer comes into the store and purchases pre-made pastries, breads, cakes, etc. from our showcases and takes the items with them.  In this case, the order is entered, a receipt is printed (if asked for) and the customer leaves with the items.  This scenario works as expected.

Scheduled Orders

The other side of our business has customers ordering ahead and coming into the store to pick up, or have us deliver it with our own driver. This is where our issues arise. The customer calls, or is in the store making the scheduled order. The order is entered into the register/iPad, a customer name is associated with the order and the day/time is chosen. A customer receipt is printed (if requested), but in this case we need to create an Order Docket that gives all the details on the items ordered (with Modifiers, variants, etc). This docket needs to printed on the kitchen printer (two part printer) to be placed into the schedule for a future date (We have a shelving system with each day of the week where the dockets are placed).

If we turn on the option to have orders printed immediately from the register, it prints every order regardless of status (Pickup/To Go). We have that turned off and the staff now manually print the scheduled orders to the printer. Also, when an order is placed on the website, we would like that to print immediately as well. The only setting we found was one that says print when it becomes needed, but that doesn’t work for us.

It would be great if the printer configuration had the ability to, as it does now allowing only certain categories to go to a given printer, to also specify a filter of “only print scheduled orders” and “online orders”. In both cases, immediately, upon placement of scheduled order.

As an addendum, when we print today, I have it configured that two (2) copies are printed to the kitchen printer. The first docket printed is the complete order, the second docket printed is optional and only prints if a specific category of products is ordered. Only that category of products is printed on that docket as it goes to different set of employees that make those products only.

Notes field for items

Our customers buying custom cakes request writing on the cakes. At present through the online store, we have a modifier where they can enter their custom text. The custom text option however has no ability to have a charge placed against it even though we charge a fee for that service. To resolve this, through the online store we have a modifier that has the charge and a note stating that this modifier must be selected if they wish to enter customized text. All our customers enter text, but never choose the chargeable modifier as it’s optional. As such, we lose out on that service fee. For in-store scheduled orders, our staff select the chargeable item so in store is not an issue. But items sold in-store, we don’t have the capability of having a notation modifier. Our staff are writing the requested text into a general notes field. We’d like a text modifier to be available for items across the platforms (Weebly & Square).

Ability to quickly add multiple variants of an item to the Order

If we want to add e.g. bagels to the order, we must select "Everything Qty 2", then choose bagels again and select "Blueberry Qty 3", is there a possibility of on the item page, have an "add" button and an "add but stay on the item" button?

Delivery option for in-store Scheduled Orders

On occasion a customer will request that we deliver the items. We have a fee that we add for delivery that is based on distance from our bakery. It is applied as an added fee to the order, but there is nowhere that we can state the scheduled order is a delivery. It would be great if this was an option for the scheduled date/time to also at that point, ask if it’s a pickup or a delivery. If it’s a delivery, the customer's name and address should be printed on the dockets so we can give that to our drivers. We don’t allow for online sales via the website to request delivery as its’ not a fixed price fee, so our online sales are pickup only.

Changing Scheduled Orders

Online orders have the capability of having the order date/time being changed once they have been placed through the register/iPad. However, scheduled Orders made through the Register/iPads cannot be changed. Having this functionality would be helpful. We have to currently print the docket and then cross out the date/time and write the new date/time in manually, which means the registers/iPads still show the incorrect date/time.

To change the status of multiple scheduled orders from the initial status to “Mark In Progress”, “Ready”, or “Picked up”, we have to do each, one at a time. An option to select multiple orders and change the status would be helpful.

On occasion we’d like to be able to edit/add items for a scheduled order. We can cancel single item(s) to date, but not add or edit the quantity. I presume that is to do with how the payments work, so I do understand the complex logistics of this particular request.

Printing / Reporting of Scheduled Orders

The only methods to date to print/view the scheduled orders is via the register/iPad/Dashboard. Through the register/iPad there is no capability to select multiple dockets to be printed. Each order must be clicked on, scroll to bottom, choose More Actions, Print…

Additionally, there is no real reporting function to report on what’s on the schedule. Even if I use the Dashboard, the page logic loads a logical page at a time, so if I print using the browser, only what is visible at that time is printed.  I can reduce the page to 30% to get more on the page and only then can I print all the orders (or even select the table so that I can paste it into Excel). A couple of ideas for future custom reports would be

1. Report on a summary of all the scheduled orders showing order date, fulfillment date, customer name, total amount of order, number of items, etc
2. Print a detail report by day of what items need to be fulfilled on that day
   e.g. on Thurs June 23rd, you will need
   1. 20 x Item X  – including any variation or modifier text
   2. 15 x Item Y

Orders API

To get around some of the reporting functionality, we have developed in-house software to extract the data using the Orders API. There were a few challenges with that as we were unable to locate logic documentation. By this, I mean after the call is made to retrieve the orders, specifying the filtering and sorting logic additional logic needs to be coded to “clean-up” the resulting data.  E.g. On occasion multiple versions of a given order was created (not sure why).  As such we needed to add logic that ignores those orders that do not have a fulfillment or tenders node. That cleaned-up the “duplicate” orders that would be returned using the API. It would be great to have a filter option that says only return final sales much like the option to return_entries.

For online orders, the order # generated by Weebly doesn’t carry through to the returned JSON through the API. I believe I read in one of the articles that that may be coming in a future API release and is currently in beta.

Happy to assist in any further discussions.

Thanks

[Aaron_Product]

Thank you for your thoughtful feedback! There’s a lot of great ideas here and I really appreciate the time you took to articulate them all. We are exploring the following areas for future enhancements which I see in your requests: advanced printer configurations, editing orders to change fulfillment info or item info, a calendar view of upcoming orders to help with planning your purchases and staffing, the ability to export orders to a CSV file for viewing or reporting in Excel, bulk actions on order such as printing or progressing/completing orders. Of these enhancements, which one(s) do you think would have the most beneficial impact to your business?

[dorsisbakery]

Thanks Aaron. happy to have a side conversation anytime.

[TBS3909]

How do I add a link to my website for on demand delivery?

[Aaron_Product]

Do you want to offer On Demand Delivery for orders placed through your Square Online store?

[Aaron_Product]

Hi @TBS3909, I'm following up with some more details! You can set up on-demand delivery by going to this link: http://square.online/app/square-sync/deeplink/weebly/setup/delivery. If you have any questions, email us at deliveryhelp@squareup.com.

[Larissalcc]

When I pull up orders on my MacBook, I am only allowed to see maybe 4 lines and not the entire screen so I have to scroll through the list. This makes it very hard to get organized for the day. I do custom work so it’s not a matter of just pulling a premade item. I need to see all of the details of the order to see what I am doing and just getting into those details is time consuming. The way they are listed as far as options and modifiers isn’t easy on the eyes by each means. I would love to be able to read my orders in a list or clear spreadsheet by item with details. 

If I send a customer a checkout link I write notes on their order but they disappear when they pay so I don’t have to them look at while I’m filling the order, I have to go back to our conversation to find the details. 

[Aaron_Product]

Can you please provide more details around how your are viewing the orders on your macbook? Are you using Order Manager within Square's Dashboard? Which details of the order are important to you. What would your ideal solution for viewing these details be?

[Larissalcc]

Yes, I am signed in to SquareUp.com and on the orders tab inside my dashboard. There is a small box about 3/4 of the screen wide and only about 4 lines long that has scroll arrows. I cannot open it or expand it to a full view I am confined to the narrow area of viewing. Ideally, I could expand that and see an entire screen size of incomplete orders with details, ie. notes, modifiers, options so that I am able to quickly see what it is I need to be making without scrolling down, losing my place, opening each order one at a time in the customer profile and having to backtrack to the small list again to get information on the next order. 

[Aaron_Product]

Thanks for your reply @Larissalcc — I would love to better understand the issue you're encountering on your MacBook. Would it be possible to provide a screenshot of what you're currently seeing? What aspects of the current view make it difficult to do your job, and how would you prefer things to be laid out? We are aware that a csv/spreadsheet export would be useful, but please let us know how else we can make your life easier!

[RuckusDonuts]

What would be awesome:

- The ability to set a specific date for item availability. This is HUGE. Right now we can't & its very frustrating. If I'm offering a special Item that's only available for one weekend let me set Order availability for just those two days, which then become the default Order dates for the entire order regardless of Item availability & won't allow customers to Order it for any days beside those.

- Terminology. Terms like Active, Upcoming, Urgent, etc really don't help. Tell me what week/calendar day they are due & allow me to print all my Friday Orders with one click.

- The ability to see (and print) all the Items from all the Orders for that day. This would save us a TON of time. How many Boston Cremes do I have pre-ordered for Friday, etc.

[Aaron_Product]

Re: printing all items and orders for the day.... how would you expect this to work? Would each order print out individually or would you be happy with a single report containing all orders. If the latter, how would you want the information presented to you?

[LLCafe]

@Aaron_Product For us we'd like all future orders for the next day to be printed the day before at a set time. That way we can organize our day for tomorrow. Right now we have to manually go through and print them the evening before.

[Aaron_Product]

Thanks for the feedback. Do you want all of the next day’s orders to print as individual orders, or would you like to see them grouped by item or some other way?

[LLCafe]

For us we'd like them printed as individual orders ordered by fulfillment time

[RuckusDonuts]

First, thank you for the reply! To be honest being able to do both would be awesome. We use the current individual Order tickets to identity what/whose order is what/whose & it works great. We also box orders off those as well.

Within that the ability to print a report of the day’s orders that is a cumulative of all the orders placed for the day that has a list of each item & how many would be INSANE. Example - of the 21 Orders I have for Saturday how many Boston Creme do I have total across all 22 orders, and so on.

[bheinz]

I have a few customers that are tax exempt. I have to manually make a note of this to insure I report sales tax correctly.  Is there a fix planned for this?

[Aaron_Product]

Can you please provide some more context around your situation? How are your orders being placed, via online or in person? How do you know that the customer is tax exempt, based on their address or something else?

[bheinz]

I have a customer that repeats the same lengthy order weekly. I need a way to save it and recall it