thread Re: Inconsistent Discount Rounding in Orders, Menu Items, Catalog & Fulfilment

Inconsistent Discount Rounding

JoyOne — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 10:26:53 GMT

I have a very serious and annoying error when it comes to discounts on Square for Retail.

For context, we use multiple Square Registers in a general merch store.

For example, I created a discount of 40% off of $19.99.

If you take $19.99 x 0.6 you get $11.994

Upon the first scan, I'll get $12.

Second scan, $12

Third scan, $12

Fourth scan, $12

Fifth scan, $11.99

We want it to be $11.99, not $12.00.

I have two questions:

1. Why is it rounding up to the next hundredth digit from 0.004?

2. Why is the rounding inconsistent upon multiple scans?

The result is that it reflects badly onto our business when our tags say $11.99 but our receipts show $12.00. Secondly, if I were to adjust the discount down to 40.01% it looks strange on our receipt where it shows the discount percentage as 40.01% and not 40% as advertised. And still, the rounding is applied inconsistently on different products and even on the same product.

We don't want to resort to using specific discount amounts because with near 12,000 SKUs, we do not want to deal with having to create a specific discount for each and every item. I want to be able to throw all the items that are getting 40% off into one bin and not worry about rounding errors.

Please look into this.

Best,

Dan

Re: Inconsistent Discount Rounding

TheRealChipA — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 03:23:50 GMT

*** deleted by me ***

Re: Inconsistent Discount Rounding

TheRealChipA — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 03:24:30 GMT

Hi @JoyOne.

ignore the previous reply here that you received in your email. My reply was wrong because I’m too tired and not thinking straight. I’ll reply again in the morning when I actually have brain cells!

my sincere apologies

Re: Inconsistent Discount Rounding

TheRealChipA — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 12:32:33 GMT

Hi, again, @JoyOne. Again, my apologies for that first reply last night. This should be a better attempt to help you find a resolution.

First, I just went into all three iPad POS apps — Standard, Restaurants and Retail. I added an item for $19,99 and discounted it 40%. In all three cases, the regulating item price before sales tax was $11.99. This leads me to believe that there is something in the Register version of Square Retail POS that is being inconsistent. I’m wondering if you could either do a few screen shots showing what is going on with you, or maybe even attach a video of it in action. Most likely, this is a bug and if so I’ll tag a Square moderator here to look into it.

As for the second part of your question, this is going to happen because of the way Square applies discounts. After a few discounted items are added, there is going to be a rounding up that is going to be triggered. This is because Square does not discount each item, but rather discounts the total of all items to which a discount applies. So in your case here’s what happens (on my iPad POS for reference.

1 Item: $19.99, discount $8 ($7.996 rounded up), price $11.99

2 Items: $39.98, discount $15,99 ($15.992 rounded down), price $23.99

Etc.

This works as designed since Square is applying the discount to the total and not to each individual item, which is actually more correct from an accounting point of view.

Anyway, if it is possible for you to attach a couple of screen shots or a video, that would be great. I’ll look at it to be sure there is nothing obvious that I’m missing and most likely we’ll get a moderator involved to investigate the weird rounding error you are seeing on your Register.

Regards,