thread Stock not tracking in Payments Troubleshooting

Stock not tracking

David1927 — Sun, 21 Sep 2025 12:57:43 GMT

Hi All,

Apologies, I have searched to see if there was already a thread relevant but couldn't find one.

I sell in-store and online using square

Using the Square POS I've today noticed that sales on items in store are not tracking against the item's inventory today.

I have checked that tracking is enabled on items

I have also checked and no deduction is recorded in "View stock History" on the items pages

Also, I can see the receipt for the item being sold on transactions on my square dashboard.

I can make a manual adjustment to inventory of each item and this is reflected immediately on items on my website - but that defies the whole point of using Square POS.

This was not an issue previously. Items sold yesterday have tracked with no issue.

Is there an issue today only or does square POS only update inventory daily and not in real time?

thanks in advance

Re: Stock not tracking

David1927 — Wed, 11 May 2022 16:07:31 GMT

Just to update:

I tested myself and sales made through virtual terminal also not tracking against item stock,

yet refunding the item back is tracking stock

my concern is with low stock items still appearing available on my website when in fact they are actually out of stock due to sales in store.

Re: Stock not tracking

k_atie — Thu, 12 May 2022 09:27:39 GMT

Hi @David1927, wishing you a warm welcome to Square’s Seller Community! Congratulations on your first post!

First of all, thank you for trying to troubleshoot this issue, this definitely doesn't sound like expected behaviour.

There are a few ways to troubleshoot the item sync feature in Square Online to make sure information between Square Item Library and Square Online stays updated and consistent.

If items in your Square Item Library aren’t appearing on your Square Online Overview page, trigger a resync of your items with these steps:

From your Square Item Library, check your item variations and be sure there aren’t two or more items with the same name.
If there are (even if these items have different prices or SKUs), you’ll need to differentiate them by adding a ‘.’ (period), ‘-’ (dash) or ‘/’ (forward slash) at the end of one name. This will cause items to resync.

Additionally, you can trigger a resync of individual item sync settings with these steps:

From your Square Online Overview page, go to Items > Item Sync or Shared Settings > Item Sync.
Toggle off the ‘Custom sync settings’ option that needs troubleshooting and toggle it back on.

Doing this is a good option if, for example, you aren’t seeing your item descriptions sync properly.

Note: If you use this method to troubleshoot the Sync item descriptions option, be aware that if your item descriptions were first created in Square Online and the Square Item Library descriptions are blank, the empty descriptions in Square Item Library will replace what’s in Square Online. This causes Square Online item descriptions to be blank as well, effectively deleting all of your item information. Use caution when using this troubleshooting method for item descriptions as they can’t be recovered.

Please let me know if the above troubleshooting steps worked. If not, I'd be happy to look into an alternative solution for you.

Re: Stock not tracking

David1927 — Thu, 12 May 2022 10:04:54 GMT

Thank you for the reply @k_atie

I don't think it is so much a sync issue as I could manually make stock changes to items through dashboard>items and these stock changes would sync online.

It was more a stock tracking issue. Any items sold in store yesterday were not tracking quantity changes on square POS or though dashboard>items, example a book with 5 in stock, 2 sold at 12pm was still showing 5 in stock at 8pm

I checked all known settings

stock tracking on for individual items

Adjust inventory levels through invoices on

At around 9PM GMT it seemed to "catch up" and items sold yesterday did track changes in quantity, but i'm sure stock tracking was previously real time, so must have been some issues?

Re: Stock not tracking

k_atie — Fri, 13 May 2022 10:32:05 GMT

Hi @David1927, thank you for clarifying that for me. Just to confirm - the delay in stock tracking is occurring on the Dashboard? Or is it happening on the app?

If it is happening on the Dashboard, it may be our website encountering some issues when trying to connect to your browser. When you have a moment, please try the troubleshooting steps below:

Make sure your browser is up to date.
Clear the cache on your browser. Access the Help menu of your browser to locate step-by-step instructions.
Switch to a supported browser, such as Google Chrome.

If none of these troubleshooting tips work, contact us with the following information:

The exact version of your web browser. To find this, visit whatwebbrowser.com.
Confirm the device you’re using (PC, Mac, iPad, Android device, etc.)
Any error message you're seeing when trying to update stock

Let me know how you get on with the above and if you have any other questions.

Re: Stock not tracking

Twiggy — Fri, 13 May 2022 12:52:50 GMT

I have noticed a slight lag - it is good to clear the cache - I’ve found it sometimes better to create in the browser directly on the weebly site.

We use retail, POS and online.

Re: Stock not tracking

Twiggy — Fri, 13 May 2022 14:08:17 GMT

does this help?

https://squareup.com/help/gb/en/article/7746-tracking-your-inventory-with-square-for-retail?utm_source=dashboard&utm_medium=web

Re: Stock not tracking

Twiggy — Fri, 13 May 2022 14:14:02 GMT

Does this help

Re: Stock not tracking

David1927 — Fri, 13 May 2022 14:19:12 GMT

Thanks again for the reply @k_atie @Twiggy

I think it was the lag you suggested.

The delay in stock tracking after a sale was occurring in both the POS app and dashboard. The rest of the dashboard was working correctly.

Refunding items or manually changing quantities was adding to stock instantly, reflected on POS app, dashboard and shop website, literally just any form of sale was not removing stock.

However this had all resolved itself by yesterday morning with sales removing stock instantly - so my assumption is it was a delay/error is the Square system.

Will keep an eye on it.

Thanks for the help

Re: Stock not tracking

k_atie — Fri, 13 May 2022 15:37:37 GMT

Hey @David1927, thank you for getting back to us with that update. I'm glad to hear that the issue has been resolved on your end! If the issue starts happening again please let us know and we would be happy to investigate it further.

Thank you so much for the response @Twiggy, these are helpful troubleshooting steps too!