Auto-assign ticket numbers doesn't always work

[RobertX]

Hi,

I'm having a similar issue.

I'm a new Square customer and am trying to setup the POS. Tickets numbers are only printed on tickets when the customer is charged. Tickets printed when they are saved don't have the number on them.

This seems illogical as it means saved tickets can't be referenced by number.

There is another failing in that saved tickets can't be edited, the only options are "comp" (complimentary?) and "void" (write off or delete).

[Seamus]

Hi @RobertX,

Thanks for getting in touch!

Open tickets work a little differently to order numbers - essentially we see them as two separate things that serve different purposes.

If you have an open ticket - ie a group of people sitting at a table adding to their order over time - the system is designed to allow you to add a custom title to that ticket, eg. "Table 4". Any subsequent orders that are placed on an open ticket are identified by whatever you've named the ticket as, so it's clear as to where that order needs to go. This way, if a group at a table place a number of orders to the table over an extended period of time, they all go out as "Table 4", rather than a series of different numbers that don't identify that the orders are going to the same group/open ticket.

Order numbers are intended to be used in a non-open ticket setting - for example, if you're a food truck taking once off orders and calling order numbers as they're ready.

Regarding editing tickets - what other sort of options would you find useful here? Can you give us some examples of situations where other ticket editing options would be useful to you? I'd be happy to pass any feedback you have here to our product development team for consideration 👍

[RobertX]

Hi Sheamus,

My shop is a dry cleaner where people drop off items, then pay and pick them up anything from 1 hour to 1 week later (or longer, but 2 to 5 days the typical period).

What I'd like to do is create a ticket when the customer drops off their items, save it with auto–numbering and print 2 copies of an itemised docket just like the current receipt (and with the same ticket number), before payment. I'd give one docket to the customer and keep a copy for the store.

When the customer comes back, I'd like to search for the ticket by number and collect payment. Of course sometimes customers pay up front, but that's already covered by the existing functionality.

It would be really good to also be able to print tag lables with the ticket number on them, one for each piece in the order (where some items are more than one piece, like two and three piece suits, coats with a belt, etc.).

There is full function dry cleaner and laundry software like Enlite or Geelus, however they are also much more complex with very dated interfaces and (in the case of Geelus in particular) use outdated technology.

[Seamus]

Hey again @RobertX,

Thanks for such detailed feedback! I'm going to pass it on for consideration - it's always great to see examples as specific as this.

At the moment it doesn't sound like Square's POS has the exact solution you're looking for. Open Tickets would not be the best way to track your dry cleaning - we don't recommend leaving tickets open over multiple days as they can use up a lot of the app's system resources over time and make app functionality a little unstable. Similarly, Order Number tickets alone aren't quite the right thing either - they go back to "01" after reaching "99" are and more designed to be used in a hospitality setting.

In the interest of trying to get you the most workable solution with our current POS features though, you may want to try utilising our Customer Directory to tie customers to transactions. This way you'd be searching for the customer's name when they returned, rather than a number. You can bring up a history of the customer's purchases from the POS app and find the applicable transaction. 

If the customer was not paying when dropping off items, you could create an item for $0 and call it something like "Dry Cleaning Drop Off" then tie the customer's details to to the transaction. If you wanted to get more specific and itemise the receipt you could make multiple $0 items, eg "Jacket Drop Off", "Shirt Drop Off" etc. You can also add a note to transactions if you needed to record any further detail as well as print out a an order number ticket to attach to the pieces of clothing. If you want to print multiple of these order number tickets you can go back to the transaction once done and reprint. 

It's a bit of a round about way of doing things, but hopefully this helps!

[Finesse]

Hi Sheamus

I'm with Robert on this one. I have the same issue. The solution you proposed is unfortunately not workable. There are two major issues for us at the moment. The receipt numbers not being sequentially numbered, and the fact that the format of the tickets cannot be edited.

We would love to see the option to include more detail in the ticket printed. In the restaurant business it is not required, but for us it is essential. The tickets are meaningless for example without the prices shown.