Square Glossary
Below, you’ll find definitions of terms that may be useful when using Square.
General Square Terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Account Adjustment | Funds debited or credited to your Square account. Account adjustments are displayed within Transactions of your online Square Dashboard and in your Transactions spreadsheet. |
| Chargeback Period | The number of calendar days during which the cardholder or issuer has the right to dispute the transaction with the acquirer. |
| Close of Day | The time your payments are grouped for transfer daily. Customize your close of day time to receive a single transfer for a full day’s business activity. |
| Deferred Funds | An amount of earned funds that will be payable at a later date. |
| Manually Entered transaction | The act of manually entering payment information for transactions in which the card isn’t present (phone or internet orders). When manually entering a payment, you need to enter the card number, expiration date and security code (CVV). All of this information is required to process a manually entered payment. |
| Refund by Amount | Refunding your customer a specific dollar amount instead of the full purchase amount. |
| Non-Transactional Bank Account | A bank account is considered non-transactional if Square can only credit, but not debit funds. Square requires a transactional bank account in the event of refunds or chargebacks. |
| Transactional Bank Account | A bank account where funds can be credited and debited. This allows Square to establish two-way communication with your account in the event of refunds or chargebacks. |
Analytics Terms and Definitions
Review the list of analytics terms below to help you better understand your sales reports with Square.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Gross Sales | Overall product sales in a period, including modifiers. This amount is not adjusted for refunds or discounts, and doesn’t include taxes and tips collected on a sale. Gross sales exclude the sale of a physical gift cards from Square, but include the sale of products tendered with your gift cards. |
| Refunds | Amount of product refunded in a give period. It excludes partial refunds, and refunds of gift cards sales. |
| Discounts | Deductions applied at the time of sale. Discounts are calculated before tax, and can be applied either as a percentage or dollar amount of the entire sale or to a specific item. Discounts applied to the sale of physical gift cards from Square are excluded. |
| Net Sales | Gross sales amount minus discounts and refunds. Net sales describe the overall product sales in a period, after the deduction of refunds and discounts. Net sales don’t reflect the sale of Gift Cards. |
| Gift Card Sales | Total amount collected from the sale of Square Gift Cards. This measure is adjusted for refunds and discounts applied to Gift Card sales. |
| Tax | Sales tax amounts applied at the time of sale. Tax is calculated on a per-transaction basis. See the specific tax applied for each sale in Transactions on your online dashboard. You may have multiple taxes for your business that you turn on/off depending on your needs. If you use multiple tax rates in a single sale, the “taxable sales” and “total” tax collected on your tax report may not add up. |
| Tips | Gratuity added to the transaction by your customers. This excludes cash tips because they’re not recorded in the Square app. See the specific tip applied for each card payment in the Transactions list. |
| Cash Rounding | Adjustments applied according to the Swedish Rounding System. Applies in countries where low denomination coins have been discontinued. Rounding is applied on the whole bill (not each individual item) after discounts, tax, and tip are applied. |
| Total Collected | Total amount collected from the customer. Total collected includes net product sales in a given period, tax, tip, gift cards from Square sales, and other cash rounding adjustments collected from the customer. |
| Fees | Total Square processing fees in a given time period. Fees will be deducted from your next deposit. |
| Net Total | Total collected amount minus fees. Net total reflects the amount collected from your operations after Square’s fees are deducted. |
Learn more about the reports available in your online Square Dashboard.