Troubleshoot sales or tip reporting errors

If the sales figures in your Square Dashboard reporting do not always seem to match your actual sales, this may be caused by your Square for Restaurants service settings. This article covers how your tipping and check closure settings can affect your sales reporting, and how to get the most up to date figures for your restaurant.

Before you begin

There are two primary service settings that can affect your sales reporting:

Reopen checks: when you reopen checks, you have the option whether to “reopen and keep” the existing payment method, or “reopen and remove” the existing payment method. Learn more about check settings in Reopen a check.
Tipping: in your service settings, you have a few options for choosing how customers can tip–on the point of sale or via paper receipts. Learn more about using sign and tip on printed receipts.

With “reopen and keep” and tipping on paper receipts enabled, checks are pending until you settle them manually, or they are settled automatically 36 hours later. This lag in check settlement can create discrepancies in your reports, depending on how you view them.

Use Live Sales to view real-time reporting for your checks

You can use the Live Sales report to get an accurate picture of the performance of your business, including checks with unsettled tips.

The Live Sales report considers open checks and closed checks. Because transactions with unsettled tips are considered open checks, you will be able to see the total value of sales for the day from the Live Sales Report on your POS.

Learn how to view your Live Sales report in Get real-time sales data on Square Restaurants POS.

Settle tips on Square Restaurants POS

Once tips are settled, you will see the true sales values reflected in your reports on the Square for Restaurants Point of Sale app and in Dashboard. If you do not settle tips manually, tips will automatically settle within 36 hours.

You can settle tips in the two ways in the Square Restaurants POS.

Square Restaurants POS Transactions

In your Square Restaurants POS app, tap Account > Transactions.
Tap the card icon with the notification symbol and select the payment you want to settle.

Run Close of Day

In your Square Restaurants POS app, tap Account > Run Close of Day.
Settle tips as part of your Close of Day procedures.

Next steps

Learn more about sales reporting with Square for Restaurants from one of these Support Articles: