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? 

[Joe]

Hi there, @LakeHoustonSign! Welcome to the Seller Community! We are so happy to have you. 

I've gone ahead and merged your post with a thread of Sellers who are asking for this same feature. At this time, we have no plans to enable the ability to backdate a check or transaction. For further details, I would take a look into Chad's Best Answer. 

Let me know if you have any questions! We are here to help. 

[Nick327]

@Joe  We really need the ability to change Manually Recorded payment info. For instance, an invoice was paid by cash in 2019, but not recorded in square until January os 2020...now Square thinks that revenue/service should be part of 2020 reporting.

[BigMountain]

Agreed.  I didn't put any invoices that were done through quickbooks and paid through checks in 2020 into Square.  I want to put it in the system under 2020 so that the reports are correct, but I can't.  Which means I wont be putting them in at all, because I will not be reporting it myself in 2020 and then have square re-reporting it in 2021.  

If I am just showing it as payment occurred, but not taking the payment through Square then it has nothing at all to do with scammers and fraudsters bs line.  It comes down to that not all of us are able to record cash and check transactions the day it happens and we need to record it after the fact, but correctly your system is not at all user friendly for this.

[rootstudio]

Uncategorized Items Issue

I agree with some of the comments - when we created a sale - we added an item on the fly, and now it is in a mystery category and I cannot find the item. To make matters worse, I cannot locate the uncategorized item to at least put it under the correct category.

[todaywer1]

I entered a payment manually, however it was the wrong about. how do i correct it

[isabelle]

Hey @todaywer1-

Thanks for posting in the Seller Community.

You would need to refund the payment to your customer, and run the charge again. We don't have a way of editing or correcting transaction amounts after the payment has been processed. You can learn a bit more about why here. 

[checktherime]

Hi @isabelle  and thanks for your help. Your answer to my query was exactly what you responded below:

You would need to refund the payment to your customer, and run the charge again. We don't have a way of editing or correcting transaction amounts after the payment has been processed. You can learn a bit more about why here. 

My dilemna is that the remaining balance on an invoice was $4,700.00 and the payment I wanted to apply was $4,000.00, leaving a balance of $700.00. When I went to the Add Payment function and then Record Payment by check, the the entire pending balance ($4,700.00) of the invoice was automatically entered, which is a default Square setting. I added the payment without double checking (My bad) and have thus refunded the client $4,700.00 and would now like to apply the actual $4,000.00 payment. However, Square is showing the invoice as closed, in effect blocking me from applying any payment at all!

Does it usually take time for me to be able to reprocess the correct payment after a refund has been issued? 

I appreciate your help in this matter as it is important for our record keeping. Thank you!

[isabelle]

Hey @checktherime-

 I just replied to your private message with the following:

Thanks for reaching out. I see what's going on here. 

I should've mentioned this regarding invoices. With invoices, once you've refunded the payment, the only option is to create a brand new invoice. You cannot re-charge the customer within the same invoice. I am so sorry about that. It's considered a refunded transaction, in which case you cannot reverse it and/or charge again. 

If you have any questions about this, please reply to my message, or reach out to our Support Team to discuss other options.

Have a wonderful weekend 🌠

Thanks for your time and let me know if you have any questions about this. 

[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.