What is the difference between a Transaction and an Order?

[HM4M]

I have purchases for digital items made through the website which are not recorded as an order but are recorded as a transaction. I also have purchases for the same digital item also made through the website which are not recorded as an order but are only recorded as a transaction. Why? What is going on? 

[HM4M]

As a follow up to this I have found that digital items purchased via a payment link are only showing in the Orders section of the Dashboard. (These purchases also do not have an order number or any form of unique Identifier that I can find or see an opportunity to add it). 

Digital items purchased after navigating into the website are only reported as a transaction (and have a unique system generated order number). 

The FAQ says these digital items should be recorded as both a transaction and an order (but nothing about an order number). 

So my question as to why I can not see all of my sales in one place on the Square Online dashboard still applies. But I have a second question which is how I can get an order number generated for every single sale? 

[Laurie_ · Accepted solution]

Hi @HM4M — I saw no one had chimed in yet, so I wanted to share a bit more context on this for you.

You're definitely not alone in noticing these differences. The key thing to know is that Square treats store purchases and payment link purchases differently:

Orders placed through your Square Online site will show up in both the Orders and Transactions sections, and they'll have a system-generated order number.

Sales made via payment links (Checkout Links) will only appear as transactions — they don’t generate full order records or order numbers, since they don’t go through the Square Online ordering system.

If you want every sale to generate an order number, the best approach is to direct customers to purchase through your Square Online site rather than using payment links.

Hope this helps clarify things!

[HM4M]

HI Laurie,

I guess I don't understand why sales made via a payment link don't go through the ordering system. I need all my orders in one place for accounting, stock control, processing and general sanity. To have a tool as powerful as a unique link to an individual product which can be shared online, via SM and more which is then processed totally differently from all other transactions effectively emasculates that tool. And I simply can not understand why that would be done or seen as a good thing.