Troubleshoot printing duplicate online orders
Before you begin
To troubleshoot this issue, you will need access to your Square Dashboard, Square Point of Sale devices and printers. You will need access to create and edit printer profiles within your Square account.
Troubleshoot online order duplicates
If you are receiving duplicates of your online order tickets from one or more printers, there may be an issue with your printer profile settings. Printer profiles are shared across all devices that are assigned to the profile.
This can cause multiple copies to be printed if:
Multiple point of sale devices have the same printer profile (with online order tickets enabled) assigned to a printer.
More than one printer profile has order tickets enabled.
Step 1: Identify the cause of duplicate tickets
If you have already identified the exact cause of your duplicate tickets, skip this section and proceed to the next section.
You must first identify the cause of the issue before proceeding with the appropriate troubleshooting steps. This step requires you to log into your Square account and check how many printer profiles have online order tickets enabled and how many POS devices are sharing printer profiles that have online order tickets enabled.
This step can be done on your Square Dashboard or your Square Point of Sale device.
- Go to Settings > Device Management > Profiles > Printer profiles.
- Click the name of the printer profile to view the printer job types.
- If online order tickets are enabled, take note of the profile’s name and the linked printers it is connected to (if any).
Repeat this step for the other profiles.
- Tap More > Settings > Hardware > Printers > Profiles.
- Starting at the top of the list, tap the printer profile’s name.
- Under Profile details, tap Edit.
- Under printer defaults, check to see if online order tickets are enabled.
- If they are not enabled, move on to check the next profile. If they are enabled, take note of the profile name and repeat these steps to check the other profiles.
Once you have checked all printer profiles and the POS devices they are connected to, you can identify one of two causes:
Multiple point of sale devices have the same printer profile (with online order tickets enabled) assigned to a printer.
More than one printer profile has order tickets enabled.
Find your specific issue below and click to expand the troubleshooting steps. Be sure to follow the exact order of the steps as they are written.
Issue: Multiple POS devices share a single printer profile
All point of sale (POS) devices that are connected to the internet will process online order tickets at the same time. When a printer profile is active on multiple POS devices (enabled and linked to a printer) each device will send a copy of the online order to the printer – resulting in multiple copies of the same ticket.
To resolve this issue, you will need to create a printer profile that is dedicated to online order tickets only, and assign it to only one point of sale device. That point of sale device will be responsible for routing all online order tickets. Therefore, it should have a reliable internet connection and remain powered on so it can continuously check for new orders.
Note: You can have multiple profiles for online order tickets if they are printing different item categories.
First, you will remove the online order tickets option from your current printer profile.
- On your Square Point of Sale device, tap More > Settings > Hardware > Printers > Profiles.
- Select the printer profile’s name, tap Edit and turn online order tickets off.
- Ensure this profile has a name that describes its role, such as “in person hot prep”.
- Tap Save.
You have successfully removed online order tickets from the printer profile.
Next, you will create a new printer profile that will only print online order tickets.
On your Square Point of Sale device, under Printers:
- Tap Create profile.
- Give the profile a descriptive name such as “online hot prep”.
- Select Online order tickets and turn it on.
- Select the appropriate categories to print under Categories to print.
- Tap Save.
Assign the “online hot prep” profile to the appropriate printer. Ensure that the “online hot prep” profile is assigned to that printer from one point of sale only. Do not assign the printer profile to any other point of sale.
First, you will remove the online order tickets option from your current printer profile.
- On your Square Dashboard, click Settings > Devices > Printer profiles.
- Select the printer profile, click Edit and turn online order tickets off.
- Click Save.
Next, you will create a new printer profile that will only print online order tickets.
- On your Square Dashboard, under Printer profiles, click Create profile.
- Give the profile a descriptive name such as “online orders only”.
- Select Online order tickets and turn it on.
- Customize the ticket options and click Save.
You cannot assign printers from Dashboard, so you will need to assign this profile from a point of sale device.
Ensure that the “online orders only” profile is assigned to a printer from only one point of sale. Do not assign that profile to any other point of sale.
Issue: Multiple printer profiles have order tickets enabled
Duplicate copies can occur when two (or more) printer profiles – both with enabled online order tickets and configured to print the same item categories – are set to the same or different printers from a single point-of-sale device. Each printer profile will produce its own copy of an online order, even if they are assigned to a single printer.
You can resolve this issue in two ways: Remove online order tickets from all printer profiles except for one and assign that single profile to only one printer from one POS device. Or you can remove online order tickets from all printer profiles and create a brand new profile that will be dedicated to online order tickets. You can do this from either your Square Point of Sale app or from your online Square Dashboard.
How to resolve from your Square Point of Sale app:
Tap More > Settings > Hardware > Printers > Profiles.
Select the printer profile’s name, tap Edit and turn online order tickets off.
Tap Save.
How to resolve from your online Square Dashboard:
Click Settings > Devices > Printer profiles.
Select the printer profile’s name, tap Edit and turn online order tickets off.
Tap Save.
Alternatively, you can also disable profiles, within each POS device, to temporarily pause printing with those settings. This can also resolve the issue, although is not recommended as a long-term solution.