Can I backdate, edit, or delete a transaction?

[AC]

The title of this post has been edited from the original:  Can you delete a transaction?

How do you delete a completed "Cash" transaction? I ran it just as a test.

[AC]

The title of this post has been edited from the original:  Can you delete a transaction?

[#3]

Hi @TheGlencafe,

Right now we have no plans to add the ability to backdate, delete or manipulate transaction information after a sale is complete. 

For context, the ability to manipulate transactions can cause issues for reporting and chargebacks. Also, it would make it easier for fraudsters and scammers to commit crimes using Square Point of Sale. 

If you have test cash transactions in your transaction history, you can always refund these payments to balance your books. See our help article on how to refund a payment.

Hopefully this has provided some transparency on this request, and why it's not available. 

[#4]

Hello @alexaiezza, welcome to the Seller Community! 

Currently adding the ability to delete a transaction is not on our road map. The reasoning behind this is we use this information to submit 1099-K's to the IRS. I'm not saying you would do this, but it would be easy to cook your books if this ability was available. 

Another request on this thread is to be able to void transactions so they don't show on reports. Currently we are in the process of collecting feedback for this request. I don't have a timeline on when it might be available. 

If you have any other questions please let me know! 

[#5]

@TomTr

I appreciate your feedback in regards to this. I know you've probably read this multiple times within the Seller Community, but we really do send customer feedback over to our Product Teams, and advocate for changes for you.

I absolutely agree that a void feature would help with training and testing, and also make reporting look a lot cleaner as well. You make a great point that with test payments, or payments made by mistake, nothing is ever actually sold, so your gross sales report shouldn't reflect a sale (which is what results when issuing a refund).

As you've alluded to in your previous post, there are two different requests within this thread. Some folks are looking for the ability to completely remove or delete a transaction, which isn't possible at this time. We don’t have any new information around whether or not this will ever become available.

The other option that folks are looking for, having an option to mark payments that have been completed as voided/cancelled rather than refunded, would help sellers a ton and we’ll continue to reiterate that to the team on your behalf.

We know this request is important to you, so as soon as there are updates that we’re able to share publicly, we will.

I hope this provides more clarity, and thank you all, again, for your feedback!

[#6]

Maybe the Square team can find a way to mark the transactions as Void, so that they do not affect sales totals, but neither are the transactions erased.

From an accounting standpoint, I can see why they would not let a transaction just be deleted. There has to be a documentation trail.

When I have to make test transactions, when I refund the transaction I make note that it was a test transaction and that is why it was refunded. There is also the "Accidental Charge" notation available.

Then when I download my sales reports, I sort the test transactions out and make a note in my saved spreadsheet.

[Tamaracg3]

I thought this was a test purchase, but it seems like it was taken as real transaction. I was wanted to test it out.

[PopLash]

I have talked to square about this in the past. The easy answer is No. They do have an option to run a test purchase though. 

[VanKalkerFarms]

@Tamaracg3, you cannot delete a transaction but you can refund it to balance out the books.

[Tom_NewClay]

I agree SmartyPants Jane.  I just  started with Square.  As long as it was a straightforward sale, it works great. Learned how to build the item list.  But as I was doing that, it was building a sale (I now know how to do that) but I ended up with  a 600.00 bill and didn't know how to zero it out.  It really seems like a "Training" Mode as had been suggested, with a sign in code, would help for training and learning the system.  Or an easy online "Instruction Book" for common operations.

[Tom]

Hey @Tom_NewClay, thanks for taking the time to share your experience with this and for your insights. We do not have an available timeline for this request, but I will be surfacing your points about instruction guide improvements and a sign-in code based training mode. In the meantime, I wanted to raise our current setup guide in case you haven't had a chance to review it yet: Square Get Started Guide. Hope this helps for now—please let me know if you have any further questions and thank you for your patience.

[Tom_NewClay]

I did finally get into the start up guide and it was a great help. I think I end up with 1st. Lead me to product and site set up (taxes, etc.) customer list input, then into the suggested login practice session where practice exercises are deleted after the session. 

Thank you also for the attentive reply. 

[drtracy]

Hi! Why is it that the ability to delete or void a transaction hasn't been created yet? 
When can we expect this to be fixed?

When I make a change to the transaction that should automatically reflect in the sales report.

Thanks!

[Helen]

@drtracy I don't have a timeline for when this might be available. I will share your request with the Payments team here thank you for letting us know what you're looking for! We'll update this thread as soon as we have any updates.

[emilysarmoire]

It is absolutely ridiculous that a transaction can not be voided. I was sold Square under the premise that it did everything a retail POS can do. FALSE! Every other POS systems allows you to void transactions. In fact, Square for restaurants deso. There is no good reason it doesn't for retail. My new employees have been making mistakes all over the place and my books are a mess. I will be pursuing legal action. 

[VanKalkerFarms]

you can void a transaction. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5814-comp-and-void & https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6144-use-comp-and-void-on-your-square-point-of-sale