thread Re: Cash payments not working on register in Payments Troubleshooting

Cash payments not working on register

TheCookieStore — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 22:40:27 GMT

Suddenly today all 3 of my square registers will not take cash payments. The error “invalid payment request” comes up with a red screen. Restarting doesn’t help. Signing out and back in doesn’t help. I have 2 other stores operating just fine. It’s just this 1 account. No settings have been changed. We get all the way to the final screen to cash out and that error comes up. I can ring them up using my phone square app though.

Re: Cash payments not working on register

tranguyen — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 15:36:49 GMT

I'd like to look into this for you @TheCookieStore! To help me do this, can you let me know:

Check that Cash is enbled under Payment Methods
Check if there are any pending update on the Register. If there are not, can you also let me know the software version currently running on the Register?
A photo of the error message
Send a dreport from your Register by tapping ≡ More > Support > Troubleshooting > Upload Support Ledger and Upload Diagnostic Report

I'll keep an eye out for your reply!

Re: Cash payments not working on register

GoldenIsles — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 19:49:28 GMT

Did you get this figured out? This happened to us today and we are unable to resolve. Thanks for any insight

Re: Cash payments not working on register

TheCookieStore — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 21:04:30 GMT

I am not on site today but will be tomorrow. It’s giving a red screen with the error “invalid payment request”. We get all the way to the screen to input the cash amount and that screen comes up. These are version 1 registers so no updates available but as far as I understood they can still be used just won’t get new features? Also it happening to all 3 at once doesn’t point to a hardware issue.

Re: Cash payments not working on register

TheCookieStore — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 21:06:51 GMT

No. Square support won’t help because they are version 1 registers. They said I need to get the newer registers. This makes no sense to me because we are suppose to be able to continue using these registers just won’t get any new features. Also that it happened to all 3 registers at once seems to me to be very odd and not hardware related. My employee said they did get 1 cash transaction to randomly work today but that was it, no more worked since.

Re: Cash payments not working on register

GoldenIsles — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 12:39:37 GMT

We also are using version 1. I spent hours on the phone with support, and our last option is to do a factory reset which I haven't moved forward with. We only have one register in our shop, and this would take lots of time to bring back up. The support rep helping me yesterday acted as if he had never seen this error screen.

Re: Cash payments not working on register

TheCookieStore — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 14:32:16 GMT

I just tried a factory reset on one of mine and it didn’t fix it.

Re: Cash payments not working on register

TheCookieStore — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 14:37:44 GMT

So here’s an even crazier update. I signed into one of my registers using my other stores account and guess what. It let me ring up a cash sale. So it’s not a hardware issue it’s somehow tied to my account. What would be the cause though?

Re: Cash payments not working on register

TheCookieStore — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 15:12:19 GMT

another update. The only way support could fix this issue was to turn on the cash management feature. That did allow me to ring up a cash sale. We have never used that feature but I guess we have to now?

Re: Cash payments not working on register

tranguyen — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 17:22:54 GMT

Thank you for sharing that update @TheCookieStore! Let me try and get some clarification into this and see if there has been changes to how folks can record cash payments on the Square Register.

I'll also share your feedback on your support experience with the appropriate team @GoldenIsles

Re: Cash payments not working on register

TheCookieStore — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 18:23:28 GMT

Ok so it’s not working again 😑. There must be a deeper issue.

Re: Cash payments not working on register

TheCookieStore — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 19:32:30 GMT

Ok yet another update. It just gets crazier. We can only ring up whole dollar amount cash sales then it works. Been on the line with support for an hour and they can’t figure it out and just say get new registers. I just rang up a sale for $5.50 cash and it worked. $5.25 works. $5.10 works. $5.05 works. $5.03 does not. I did have the cash rounding feature enabled not realizing my registers couldn’t get the update. I think that is the issue here. So then they tell me the cash rounding feature can’t be taken off my account once it’s added. Seems like a way for them to force you to get new registers.

Re: Cash payments not working on register

TheCookieStore — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 16:13:08 GMT

*final update*

I decided to email the cash rounding people that I asked to sign me up for cash rounding myself to see if they could possibly take the cash rounding feature off my account to see if it is in fact causing this issue. They responded that they removed it and it did in fact fix this issue! If you have first version registers DO NOT ask for the cash rounding feature to be enabled or it will cause you this issue with accepting cash payments. Our registers can’t get the update to make the cash rounding feature work properly. Square should NOT allow those of us with the first version registers to even have this feature added.

Re: Cash payments not working on register

kinggrimwood — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:07:43 GMT

SOLUTION: this is caused by the new feature "cash rounding" and it's not compatible with the v1 register. Just turn off cash rounding.

Re: Cash payments not working on register

purpleneedlellc — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 03:58:03 GMT

Thanks for this thread. It is really helpful for me as I have been having the same issue with Square Stand. However, I just double-checked and I am not using a 1st gen device. I plan to uninstall the cash rounding feature at this time all the same.

Does Square have a fix for this? I would really like to have a fix on the register side so that my drawer is not up and down every day.

Re: Cash payments not working on register

TheCookieStore — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 13:56:10 GMT

At the time the option to turn off cash rounding wasn’t available for me to do on my own. Hopefully it is now for those who are having this issue.

Re: Cash payments not working on register

purpleneedlellc — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 14:03:42 GMT

Thankfully there is an "uninstall" button now.