USB Cash Drawer opens after slight delay

[sammyg]

The title of this thread has been edited by a Square Moderator from the original: "USB Cash Drawer opens with a 4-5 second delay all of a sudden??"

As of yesterday, for some reason, there is a delay opening the drawer by 4-5 seconds after cash transactions. There must have been a new update that pushed this new behavior through (there's also a new alert that says "transaction recorded.").

4-5 seconds doesn't sound like a lot, but this is majorly slowing us down. We crush through cash orders in a rush. Can we please go back to the old behavior where you hit the cash button and BAM the drawer opens right up?

Hitting "open drawer" still happens immediately. It's only when you input a cash transaction that there's a 4-5 second delay.

[#2]

Hello,

I finally do have an update for you guys. Our team is issuing a fix, 6.31 and that should be available on 12/15/23. If for some reason anything changes with the release date we will make sure to let you guys know. I know this is not ideal with the holiday season coming up and apologize for the huge inconvenience.  I cannot thank you guys enough for your tenacity and continued patience while we address this. 🙏

[Hideawaysc]

I wish I could say that this was good news but it’s not. 

Thank you for clarifying.  

[Hideawaysc]

I wish that I could say that this is good news, but it’s not.

Thank you for clarifying.

[sammyg]

Thanks so much for looping back around on this Violet, but I have to say this explanation leaves me extremely puzzled and I'd really really implore you to ask around the company a bit more on this behavior. Your engineer's explanation makes absolutely no sense and this is an extremely annoying delay that no other POS system on the market has. You're crippling your own system for apparently no reason. Why?

Look, I get that the reason there is a delay is because you're waiting to send information to Square's servers and back, but WHY are you doing that? Why did you add this "feature?" Just open the drawer immediately and send the info to Square's server after opening the drawer. This was how it worked before and there's no reason why it can't work that way again.

Why in the world "must you wait" for the payment to be recorded by the server to simply open the cash drawer? These two things are not related in anyway. If the payment doesn't reach the server you can still open the drawer. There's nothing critically wrong with that.

Also, this delay is really long, like much longer than the transition from a credit card payment tap to a tip screen. It really doesn't make a ton of sense.

The previous behavior was working fine or years upon years (the last 4+ years for us) ... what is the necessary change here? I'm deeply confused. Please I'm begging you to ask around the company on this - there's no way you actually want this delay - it honestly makes your POS feel like broken old equipment. Not a good look for Square.

[Hideawaysc]

That is a good point, there shouldn’t be a reason to record a cash transaction before opening the drawer. Even if the transaction is recorded and “approved” by the server, it doesn’t have any impact on the cash going in and out of the drawer, but slows down that process

[mainscoop4321]

I'm sorry but WHY do we need to WAIT for the payment to be recorded if we are literally taking the money out of their hand to put into our register?? This makes no sense. I could see this being an issue when we are taking a card payment of a delay, but that is almost instant... but our drawer takes 4 seconds to open?! This does NOT make sense. 

[Donuts]

I don't come onto this community much anymore because, for the most part, our systems have been working fairly well with only minor glitches.  But this DELAY is the most awful "update" in all the years we've been with Square.  Who approved this?!  It's absolutely ridiculous and annoying and it slows down our throughput.  THIS along with the new cash drawer report glitch that loses cash drawer data!  UGH.

[sammyg]

Hi Violet!

Wanted to chime in and say that it looks like as of yesterday morning this has been fixed for us! Woo hoo!

No more delay and it is glorious.

Thanks,

Sam

[_Violet]

Awesome! Great to hear, @sammyg 👏

This was the last update I received from our engineering team, just a couple of hours ago: "We have brought this up with the product team. To confirm, this is a behavior that’s specific to the new Orders flow and not Bills. We’ll be addressing this to reduce Checkout completion times."

Not sure if something was changed on the backend or if this is something they are currently still working through...either way, good news for you!

[sammyg]

Hi Violet!

I wanted to check back in. As of this weekend, the slow drawer opening is back! Ack!!

Can you check in with Engineering to see what happened? This really really slows us down.

Sam

[JasonApp]

Mine is slow too! It's very frustrating.. especially with a cash transaction.

[sammyg]

Hi Violet!

Is there anyway you can check back on this with Engineering? Obviously, this is an issue that's causing a lot of heart ache for a lot of sellers right now.

[Pump]

Please help us get this fixed - I have leave my cash drawer open during busier hours

I refused to use a computer based POS in the late 90's early 00's because they all had this kind of lag 

[llij96]

Why would cash payments all of a sudden need to be validated by Square's servers? The human being at the register is the one validating that they have the right amount of cash! This is common sense. Slowing the system down is not something we need at any time, but especially not as we go into the holiday season. Please reconsider this inefficient process.

[Citrusdonuts]

If this is a new update is there a way to reboot and erase this update. It’s god awful, and our customers will not stop complaining in the morning due to how slow we are to get them in and out of the door! 

any resolutions ? 

[MikesCountry]

Are they going to fix it because this is such a pain?

[Bubbatriad]

I have been experiencing this problem at 2 locations over the last few weeks.   I spoke to Square Help Desk and they actually said they have no records of anyone having this issue!!!  Obviously, this is an issue.

There is NO way this is a new method to process cash - makes absolutely no sense.   Can someone address this from a higher level?

[DinisIceCream]

This recently changed on our Square Registers as well.  Why do you need to approve CASH?  Credit transactions are quick  CASH now takes 8-10 seconds just to open the drawer.  This is horrible.  You keep adding fees and charges to features that used to be free.  Then you make these types of changes that kill our workflow.  Sadly we will need to start shopping around for new options.

[DinisIceCream]

Why on earth would you ever NOT approve a cash transaction?????  Why must you wait to open the drawer after it's approved?  What exactly are you approving???  This makes zero sense.  Only the human being at the register can verify that the sale is complete and the cash has been received.  This delay makes zero sense and is a huge nuisance.

[Citrusdonuts]

Hi Violet,

Have the engineers fixed anything with this issue ? Rebooting or doing a system reset does not help anymore. We’ve had multiple customers walk out each day during rush hour because of this issue, so now our POS is making us lose money instead of helping us make money. I’d really like to get this resolved moving into the busiest season of the year, I’ll have to change companies in two weeks if this is not resolved. I refuse to lose more money over this

[blacksbodega]

NOT ACCEPTABLE!!!!! Square just keeps getting worse and worse... Will be switching in Spring to a different service. 

[Mattsplace]

If that’s your final answer, then I guess I’m switching to another POS system. I have used you guys for over 10 years now and you can’t fix this well goodbye