Step-by-Step Troubleshooting and Fixes

1. Verify Firing Order is Manual or Based on Course Timing

Go to Square Dashboard > Restaurants > Service Settings > Coursing.
Make sure you’ve enabled course control and are not allowing Square to auto-fire courses based on item prep time (this is often what causes course printing to appear “out of order”).

2. Set All Courses to 'Hold Until Fired'

In your Coursing settings, verify that all courses are set to be held until manually fired, not automatically sent.
This ensures your staff controls when each course prints.

3. Train/Check Firing Procedure

Confirm that your staff is not firing Course 2 before Course 1 from the POS.
On the Square Register or Tablet POS, the “Fire” button next to each course allows the user to manually trigger printing. If they tap Course 2 first, it will print first.

4. Printer Queue Settings

Make sure your kitchen printer is not batching or reordering tickets based on job size or type. Some printers with custom firmware can unintentionally re-sort lines when overwhelmed.

5. Test with a Mock Order

Create a 3-course order and manually fire in the correct order.
Watch for print order and note if Course 2 still prints on top.

This is a known pain point. Square is still working on refining how KDS tickets and printer tickets display coursed items. If you continue seeing misordered tickets even when courses are fired properly after verifying all of the troubelshooting steps, please let me know!

I hope this helps!

thread On restaurants, my coursing order keeps printing backwards or out of order in Orders, Menu Items, Catalog & Fulfilment

On restaurants, my coursing order keeps printing backwards or out of order

Re: On restaurants, my coursing order keeps printing backwards or out of order