Offline Payments: Enable or Opt-Out?

[TCSlaguna]

Hey Everyone, 

So we currently have offline payments disabled. We have internet backups available in case of an emergency. 

We received an email stating: 

"On April 11, 2026, offline payments will be automatically allowed across all compatible Square devices¹. Review and acknowledge your preferences below, and easily opt out at any time."

I know people have been burned in the past from offline payments. But I also know that systems and policies have been changed since then. 

Does anyone have recent experience with offline payments? 

What are the upsides and what are the downsides (what should we be careful of)? 

Thanks in advance! 

@JTPets @TheRealChipA @DinaLRosenberg @JessPoynter @Twpchair  @Donnie-M @rtfulk @MAXSDELI @SVLFever 

[homeprogreen]

Haven’t had any issues during the few times in the last year it’s kicked on. You have 72 hours to get reconnected to the internet so the payments can process. I would suggest that you don’t turn off whatever device you’re using for square until after the offline payments process 

[TheRealChipA]

What Steve said. The only time I lost anything was my own fault -- I force closed a POS app with offline transactions pending.  That's a definite no-no!  

That being said, I only rely on this feature for temporary glitches in Square payment processing.  If it's looking like a long-term thing, I fire up my Stripe app, process all card transactions as "Other" while processing them on Stripe, then reconcile the two the next day.  However, with the recent changes to offline mode that hopefully tightened things up, I just might give it a chance the next a big disruption happens.

[SVLFever]

I would opt-in.   I have noticed a concerted effort on Square's part to insure processing uptime.   They have even gone as far to say that they are willing to cover losses in case of extended outages.

With that being said, I originally did not have all of my devices set to offline mode, and quickly regretted it during an outage.   I then activated the offline mode on all of our devices and have even not noticed when the outage has occurred, as the payments all went through like normal when things came online.

Be aware though, it's not completely risk-free.   It is possible to run a card in offline mode that does not have enough funds to cover the purchase when the system comes back online.  I believe we (the business) is responsible if this occurs.

If I have said something wrong gang please correct me, but I would at least consider it if I were you @TCSlaguna .

[homeprogreen]

Yes it’s possible to have a card declined if you accept it in offline mode but it’s pretty rare. You’re able to set a transaction limit for offline mode though so you can limit your exposure 

[Donnie-M]

If the offline is temporary say an hour, as soon as you reconnect, those transactions get processed.  I don't think they sit around too long, you know if something didn't.

[MudFire_Dex]

We were curious about this as well - in previous outages I have just pulled out the business Venmo and Paypal QR codes and gone from there. If there is a loss of power as well as an outage - what happens then? I am thinking in terms of an outage paired with a storm or something? If sales are queued in the register and we lose power - when we reconnect are they gone or will they process? Right now we have that turned off.

[DinaLRosenberg]

When we're offline we use Venmo or Zelle LOLOL- so we never had an issue with it and "work around"

[JessPoynter]

Haven't had much experience with offline payments. Seems like useful feedback from the rest of the group.

[rtfulk]

We keep offline turned off, we always worry at fairs if some doesn't have a lot of funds and they buy something at several places, we might end up being one that doesn't get an authorization before others and get a declined card. We have people come up and buy something and when the card goes through, they say oh I got more money on there I'm going to buy something else. That worries us.  We have Venmo and Paypal to accept payments if Square goes down.

[TCSlaguna]

Thank you everybody for your insight. I greatly appreciate it. This is what the Community is all about!

[Twpchair]

I went in and toggled it off. Especially with the amount of new customers and sales 3x higher, I'm not going to be stressed over whether a card goes through days later. I didn't change my cash part as I have a small/medium safe. It doesn't take long in our small town for rumors to hit before you even close! 😆 Next thing you know, every bad card user would be lined up to get in! 

[VanKalkerFarms]

Great question, I just got that email last night.  I know there have been some posts about Square guaranteeing offline sales.  I have never taken offline payments before because I can see by running my business hands-on how many cards a day were declined, and in the past, it was near impossible to follow up on that, as they kept no data, and you had to hard copy customer contact info.  We are about a month from opening, so I have added this to my to-do list before opening.  Maybe it is worth a try for the tiny time they are down if that guarantee doesn't have ******** lots of asterisks.

[homeprogreen]

Square isn’t guaranteeing any payment if it’s taken In offline mode. The terms very clearly state that the seller is fully responsible for any payments that are declined if the payment was taken in offline mode. 

[VanKalkerFarms]

I'll tag you in a previous post I have about them guaranteeing offline transactions.  I can't find any current info so maybe the beta has come and gone.

https://community.squareup.com/t5/Square-Champions-Lounge/Offline-transactions-guarantee/td-p/811567

[Donnie-M]

@TCSlaguna I keep them turned on. We don't have huge ticket payments, and sometimes you will have internet go down, but not go all the way down and a failover won't catch that every time.  The second issue is speed, it never failovers instantaneously.  You can use a bonding protocol like something from pepwave that keeps connections simultaneously, but that isn't cheap.

The only change on square side I see is it is on now instead of off now by default.  This is probably because it is easier to have people complain they lost a payment when it works 99% of the time, versus, how often something does go offline.

[homeprogreen]

I have always had offline mode enabled. In the 12 years I’ve been open I’ve never had a payment declined that was taken during offline 

[schaefferjosh]

We did toggle this off, but I may toggle it on after seeing some of the responses here. We usually have some form of backup, though, if nothing else works. Venmo, Cash App, and even had someone do Facebook Pay once. That was an experience lol

[Twpchair]

Same here, going to wait a bit more. 

[alexandriak]

I'm going to leave it on for now. My girls will call me if there are any issues so I will know about it and can double check the following day.

[Getonthebus]

It makes me too nervous to leave it on. I have turned the option off for now.