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Manage cross-location orders with Square for Retail

Who is this article for?
  • Account owners or team members with checkout permissions and the orders permission to manage orders. Set permissions in Square Dashboard.
  • Square for Retail Free, Plus and Premium subscribers.
  • Sellers with retail mode enabled in the Square Point of Sale app.
  • About cross-location orders

    If you’re out of stock for an item at one location, you can easily fulfil it from another location to avoid losing out on a sale. While fulfilling the order for delivery or collection, you have full visibility into the inventory at your other locations to determine whether you can fulfil the order successfully.

    Before you start

    You can create cross-location orders from your Square Retail Point of Sale app. Once created, the order routes to the selected location for fulfilment and you can track the progress through the Orders section of your Square Dashboard or Square Retail Point of Sale app.

    • If you currently use a courier (or alternate fulfilment method):
      The only accepted fulfilment methods for cross-location orders are collection and delivery. Delivery through a third-party courier service is not available at this time.

    • If your customer wants to pay later:
      At this time, the ability to provide payment for an order at a later date is not available for single location and cross-location orders. Customers must pay for their items upfront in order to successfully complete the order and either fulfil it at the location they’ve ordered from or send it to another location for fulfilment.

    Create a cross-location order

    From the Square Point of Sale app with retail mode enabled or from the Square Retail Point of Sale app:

    1. Open your point of sale and tap Checkout.

    2. Select an item to Add to Basket.

    3. On the item details screen, select Collection or Delivery as the fulfilment method.

      • If you select Collection, you can add a new or existing customer to the order or directly enter collection information in the Details fields.

      • If you select Delivery, you can add a new or existing customer to the order or directly enter delivery information in the Delivery address fields.

    4. When adding items to the basket, you can choose another location:

      • Per item: Select a specific item from the basket and navigate to the item detail screen for it. Scroll down to the Location drop-down at the bottom of the fulfilment details screens and tap to select a new location.

      • Entire basket: Tap ••• next to the fulfilment method, then tap Change Fulfilment Location. Tap the existing location drop-down to select a new location.

    5. You can view inventory availability for the item(s) in your cart per location and filter by Distance, In stock and Name.

    6. Once the new fulfilment location has been chosen, tap Save to complete your changes. The new fulfilment location will now be reflected at the top of your basket.

    7. Tap Charge to complete the order.

    Once the order has been fulfilled at the appropriate location, the stock levels at the location where the item(s) were fulfilled will update accordingly. The location where the order was created will receive the sales data for the order and the customer’s payment will be included in that location’s next transfer. The order details can be viewed in the sales reporting associated with said location.

    Create a return for a cross-location order

    From the Square Point of Sale app with retail mode enabled or from the Square Retail Point of Sale app:

    1. Open your Point of Sale app and tap ≡ More > Transactions.

    2. Search for the transaction by typing in a receipt number, scanning the receipt or swiping the payment card.

    3. If the transaction is not found, tap Select Location.

    4. Select the specific location or All Locations. Once you have located the transaction, you will have the option to return or exchange the items purchased.

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