We currently only have 1 location, so I cant speak to multiple location menu management, but we do integrate with Doordash so I can speak to the channel one. There are a lot of hiccups/pain points on the Square integration that I honestly didn't realize until we had Toast (unsuccessfully) try to pitch us last fall:
- Square does not automatically send the item pictures to the Doordash menu, but other systems like Toast does. This results in a lot of extra work every time you modify your menu items. Sometimes Doordash doesn't even accept the menu pictures you upload and they just stay blank, it's a general frustration point.
- Square allows you to 86 modifiers, but that doesn't transmit to Doordash. The only workaround I've found it to manually delete the modifier on the Square side. As an example, we have a single item called "Soda/Pop" and then a modifier to pick whether you want Coke, Pepsi, etc. Sometimes we run out of one, and the lack of modifier 86'ing talking to Doordash means that we could theoretically sell an item that's already 86'd.
- 86'ing has been broken for over a year at the POS level, without giving full item permissions (i.e. the ability to change prices, item names, etc.). That's not something we're comfortable with. We found a workaround to 86 items on the KDS but you can't 86 modifiers that way, so I have to pull up the dashboard and try to do it on my phone which is crazy. I had a call a few weeks ago that said that 86'ing should be fixed soon, though, so I'm not sure if that actually got pushed.
- The ways to time-limit items/categories are rough, I wish we could date/time limit menu categories or specific items on the POS only. For instance, we run lunch specials from 11-2 on weekdays but I can't keep team members from ringing those up outside of those dates. That is most impactful really with our beer sales, since we can't serve on Sundays per our liquor license, but I can't restrict beer sales to Monday-Saturday. I can do it online because you can date/time restrict categories, but not on the POS as far as I've been able to figure out. Other POS systems allow you to set menus based on dates/times. For the channel integration, we had to completely remove items we sell at certain times (i.e. Tuesday BOGO pizzas) because there was no way to restrict them to only being sold on Tuesdays on Doordash with the integration, unless I went and made special menus there which defeated the point of the integration. Same thing with discounts, we use automatic discounts online and somehow there's no way to prevent people from ordering in advance and using our Tuesday BOGO coupon for orders to be picked up/delivered on Thursday or other busier days.
- Categories between the Square dashboard menu/item management and Square Online don't sync. Every time I make a new item, I make it in the "Items" area and then I assign it a category, but I then have to go into Square Online and assign it to another category which is ONLY on Square Online, or else it's at the bottom of my site as uncategorized. The Doordash integration uses the Dashboard categories, which is super confusing. These need to be synched up honestly.
- You can't duplicate a modifier group from anywhere the Dashboard, but you CAN do it online. This was a pain point when we first set up our menu, since the toppings are the same and I just needed to update the prices and not retype everything from scratch 100's of times. Duplicating a modifier set is really needed functionality.
- The ACSII ordering for menu structuring needs to be replaced by a version you can manually set the order for. For instance, I have to add weird characters to my modifier titles to sort them on the POS and on printed receipts, so they print in the order the kitchen needs. This flows through to Doordash and is just really clunky compared to other POS providers. As an example, on pizzas I have to add "(" and "{" to modifier names, which would really throw off someone who didn't understand ACSII was the basis for how those are sorted):
These are more general menu-management or integration issues I've encountered, in case your team can address any of them:
- I don't love that when you duplicate an item that it resets the online site visibility selection. For instance, if I have an item set to not display online like a Beer product, and I duplicate it to add another Beer, it'll default to being visible online because that's what my default setting is for a new item. But that defeats the point of duplicating an item.
- I'll 2nd the order flow issues identified above. The main issue for us is that there is no way to assign a time to a check/non-online order, which for us is pizza call-in orders. Not being able to assign a time means that it doesn't get reflected in the Square order flow and it doesn't work well with the KDS or order-timing limitations.
- The Doordash integration is really bad for delivery charge accounting. For instance, if a customer places a Square Online delivery order through our Doordash Drive integration, we pay a delivery fee. If they later call in and cancel that order and we refund it, we are still charged the delivery fee. I've searched for a long time for that money coming back (it's supposed to show up periodically on our transfers), and it's just never there. Other POS providers have Doordash send you a monthly bill where you get better visibility, instead of hoping the numbers are right. We've had to stop refunding Square Online orders altogether.
- If an order is cancelled on the normal Doordash integration, that never flows through to Square to generate a void ticket. We just end up having to look on the Doordash tablet order history and trying to dig into it, after someone doesn't come to pick it up in a reasonable time. This causes headaches around closing time most often.
- This may not be specific to the question you're asking, but Square modifier layout is rough to look out for long lists. For instance, we have 15+ toppings and modifier sets for Whole Pizza Toppings, 1st Half Pizza Toppings, and 2nd Half Pizza Toppings. In Square Online and the Doordash integration, these default to full lists that you have to scroll all the way through. A lot of other POS systems have these nested in a way, and you click into the modifier header and then only those modifiers are shown. See examples from our Doordash listing and a different listing from another pizza place:
It was a huge relief, thanks! I hadn't ever tried incognito, so I tried it this morning and it doesn't make a difference.
I use my Razer Blade 15 laptop with Chrome browser Version 124.0.6367.79 (Official Build) (64-bit)
