Can I backdate or edit a transaction?

[Community-Team]

Hello Seller Community! 

Am I able to backdate or edit a transaction after the sale is complete? What if the sale occured earlier and I recived payment at a later date? 

[vgiordano]

This isn't ideal in the following situation: 

We had a customer who wanted to buy a $20 product. They had a Visa gift card with a $16 balance. They wanted to use that and then $4 cash to pay for the product. In Square we had to add a custom uncategorized purchase for the $16 and then were unable to change the category later or even add a description/note.

[kkautodetailing]

@Chad 

I have read many questions appropriated to this thread and I too need to back date a transaction. There are no fraudulent circumstances surrounding the transaction as it occurred yesterday and needs to be reflected in March's paperwork, not April's. Due to the coronavirus epidemic, our way of doing things has been drastically changed. I would like to request that this flaw in the system be fixed on the basis that scammers can infiltrate anything if they have the will to do so. Honest business owners need to have a way to correct paperwork for accurate reporting. Why should we be punished for something someone could potentially do?  

[Joe]

Hi there, @kkautodetailing. Thanks for adding your voice here. We have no plans to update this feature at this time. Should any change come down the pipeline for backdating transactions within Square, we will vocalize those changes heavily here. We do appreciate your feedback! 

[BigMountain]

Gee thanks for your lack of help with your automated response.  Its good to see that Square is really out there to help the small business that have been struggling.

[Mrtechnology]

I finally had some time to go in and update invoices that were paid via check.  I found out today that those checks will not be updated for 2022 but I collected the checks in 2021. Huge problem!

[frances_a]

Hello @Mrtechnology! 

We understand this is a big problem in some situations, but as the best answer above explains, the ability to manipulate a transaction after the fact creates a new set of problems, which is why this feature hasn't been added. 

If in the future we add this feature, while making sure we keep everyone's security in mind, we will be updating this thread. 

Thank you. 

[kkautodetailing]

Here we are in 2022 and Square has yet to resolve an important issue for small business owners. I would like to point out that QuickBooks even allows for backdating transactions and QBs has access to every account we use, EVERY SINGLE ONE! This makes it a bit difficult to believe that "fraud" is the reason for not assisting us. Credit Card transactions, ok, that is rational but you could, at the very least, make an allowance for cash and check transactions. Just a suggestion, maybe whoever is in charge of resolving this issue needs to confer with with QuickBooks and find out how they are able to allow it and Square isn't then get back with us on either resolving this or giving a better excuse.

[TailsPets]

Hi Chad, I see your response about reporting issues potentially being fraudulent if you change a transaction, the problem is that if an employee or (even owner) incorrectly issues a transaction in the wrong way, it’s impossible to change which means that the reporting will be incorrect. For example I had to quickly perform a transaction with an impatient customer and I got flustered. I needed to credit her an amount and instead wrote it down as tax owed. Now I will have to pay more taxes than I need to because I can’t go in and change the transaction. 

Just wanted to offer another reason to be able to edit existing transactions. 

Thanks,

Amanda

[Joe]

Thanks for adding your voice and giving your specific circumstances some light here, @TailsPets. We realize that this workaround is not ideal for everyone, and there are opportunities for error here. We will continue to work to improve transaction editing and seek to find a healthy balance of keeping payments secure while giving our Sellers the tools they need to keep their records true.

Passing your post along to our Product Teams for visibility!

[BigMountain]

"We realize that this workaround is not ideal for ANYONE"

Fixed that for you.

[cashoyt]

@Chad @Community-Team 

I want to track my sales and inventory in Square, but my staff person didn't enter a cash transaction that occurred on 7/12. I just noticed this when doing an inventory audit.

If I cannot add the transaction, I can't use Square to track my sales and inventory.

I have to do that separately, and that sucks. 😞

[Attoman]

I would like to be able to future-date invoices using Square Invoices. If I am scheduled to go to an institutional customer to do some work, say 2 weeks from now, the invoice should have that future date. However, it can be helpful to send it now, in order to get their paperwork process moving so I can be paid more quickly--maybe even the day I am there.

This, at least, is basic functionality in other invoicing and accounting products that I have used before I went the self-employed route, and I am sure it would not be hard to implement. Come on, Square--I love ya'--but from some of your official responses in this thread, it seems you're hobbling your product in a somewhat miscalibrated effort to fight crime. A more powerful tool is more useful for crime, but some simple additional functionality would still not make Square Invoices as powerful as solutions from other well-known providers. Give us the functionality. I could use it *today*, as I type this. If someone misuses your product to make a mess, it's on them.

[40acresfresh]

I love Square but it is nearly impossible to do financial reporting within your system. Sometimes invoices and tickets get paid long after the transaction is complete. I need to be able to move the transaction into the correct month and year to have an accurate view of revenue. Because I cannot edit transaction dates I'm forced to manually go through hundreds of transactions each month to determine revenue. Please listen to your customers and give us the tools we need to effectively manage our businesses. 

[Kaelyv92]

The inability to edit is causing issues for reporting. And scammers will sure find their ways regardless. This option should be available. I went through my app yesterday to check any appointments I may have missed checking out in 2020, because they paid check or cash and I got busy and didn’t complete the transaction right then. Now I have 44 transactions showing on 1/6/2021 that took place/were paid on various dates in 2020. Creating an issue for 2020 taxes - $3800+ that I have to make a note to add to my reporting, and for 2021, I’ll have $3800+ showing as income that I did not receive in 2021. Ridiculous there’s no concession for this issue. 

[Unique91]

Maybe we could have the ability to make these changes if we can show proof of transactions. For example, I have accepted payments through my business cash app that I would like recorded in Square for many purposes.  Would it be possible to enter in these previous transactions with the correct dates and times if the transactions log from cash app was uploaded with correction request?

[ST-Swami]

I do not understand why you would believe it is your responsibility to regulate your system for law enforcement.  These people will commit the fraud without anyway.  Your goal should be to provide a better system to your loyal law abiding customers.  We just purchased a business that is using square and desire to capture sales in a different manner than before.  This requires us going back in time to enter sales to reflect against the proper day of sale.  Sales are made from a sister location and texed to us, and now we enter them as other payment type.  But we want to go back and get the history correct, to be able to perform proper analsys.  As it stands now w ehave to export transactions and then put them in the spreedsheet.

[GourmetOnWheels]

@Chad , what to do about invoicing. You invoice an order the product goes out, but the sale completes when the customer pays. That creates an issue when it is ordered just before the end of the year and the payment is made in the next year. We need to account for that sale in the year the order was processed, as the inventory was reduced. A payment would reduce the inventory again.

René

[OCGarageDoorLLC]

Notice this response is all about protecting Square. It's become apparent that Square is primarily for credit card processing, which is where they make their money, and the other functionally is just a "bonus" so that you tolerate their fees. And once you discover all the problems with their system you've already got too much history and data to make switching to another system easy, so you're stuck. Square is certainly not a true bookkeeping package. 

[PartyAnimal]

I had no choice last night to charge the wrong city for sales tax because on mobile or on my terminal I could find no way to add the right city!! This is an enormous pain for mobile sellers - we have a mobile bar - and I should not have to remember to bring my laptop with me just to do the most BASIC things I need to do as a seller who needs to change a drink to a different tax type (alcohol vs retail or a new city.) I just correct it at the accountant so i pay the right city taxes but my own dang records will be forever wrong because of mistakes or like last night, something I had to do rather than have no taxes set up at all. 

[Tarryall]

It would be very, very helpful to be able to edit the "notes" on a completed/saved transaction. I have read through this thread and still don't see why this would be dangerous to security. 

[SGwithJan]

Could it please be considered that a vendor could process an exchange on a transaction?  I entered the wrong flavour and can't fix it.