Constant Issues with Square for Restaurants

[duffymahoney]

Am I alone thinking these updates are always half baked and buggy?  In the last couple days Square sometimes for no reason, runs a credit card for less then the ticket amount and somehow deletes off items.  I just lost $15.90! 2nd time in two days.  

I tried calling tech support, but that used to be helpful, but now it's just a person reading from a card that actually doesn't know anything.  Is there a way to contact a higher tier tech support directly? We have been using square for years.  So frustrated.

[marlo]

I was beginning to think it was our new staff in training making little mistakes, but we have had very similar issues sprinkled throughout the last month. Very frustrating for our sweet FOH team. I don't know about getting in contact with higher tier tech support, just letting you know you're not alone.

[JJ_]

Hello @marlo and @duffymahoney

I would recommend looking into a pattern and reporting this to our support team so they can look into it. This doesn't appear to be a widespread issue but we do not want to look away from something that is affecting your business.  Please reach out by phone when you have a moment by logging into your Square account and heading here.

P.S. Welcome to the Seller Community ✨

[duffymahoney]

I try and call and report.  We have a rep, but he doesn't help at all.  

[duffymahoney]

Your tech support for bugs is basically not helpful, they either don't know about known bugs or they can't tell us.  

[beardedladyroas]

We recently switched at our coffee shop to Square Restaurants and it was so buggy and slow that I had to switch back. There were some issues with the fact that the software just works better for table service than counter service, but there were also several problems unrelated to that. I made attempts to make the problems known and was typically met with a "we've been trying to figure that out" or sometimes was told that there just wasn't an answer. 

[_Violet]

Hi @beardedladyroas- Thanks for posting here on the Square Seller Community.

I'm sorry to hear that you've been experiencing some issues with Square for Restaurants. While our Support Team is most equipped for resolving technical issues with the Square for Restaurants software, I am tagging a few of our Square Sellers who also use Restaurants to see if they are able to offer any additional advice.  (@Donnie-M @LLCafe @GoGoGuest)

I hope this helps to get the conversation going! Please let me know if I may assist you with any additional questions.

[Donnie-M]

@duffymahoney Hey There,  You know, I have used both the POS app and the Square for restaurants app and they each have strengths and weaknesses.  They still both work basically the same, but they do call some things by different terminology which can be confusing.

So lets look more specifically into the transactions that you are looking at.  While no one can do account specific transactions, let's see what we can figure out for you.  Can you give a little more info on the type of business, what device you are using to ring up the sale, what item was removed (or not charged) when you are doing the transaction, and was it yourself or an employee that did the sale.

I have found there are a couple of times that square for restaurants will make you think you have something added to a check, when in fact it wasn't deleted, but was just never added.  Now if you get the item on a ticket in the kitchen, it should not come off the check when you run the card.

The second thing I have found is, depending on the type of business, the point of sale app is faster and more versatile than the restaurants app, but that is business dependent.  So lay it on us, and if you have any screen shots feel free to post them

[duffymahoney]

Last night 3 tickets disappeared.  All 3 didn't go to the kitchen or our KDS.  1 repopulated later in the night to a different table number.  Which caused us to remake that ticket.  This issue cost us a lot.  We had to comp a full meal and give gift cards.  We never lost internet, our Ipads are up to date, app is up to date.  Terrible. 

[drabbit]

We are having these same issues! We just swapped out our iPad KDS's for Androids. Serves are using iPads. What are you using for KDS?

Double items are being added to customer tickets, like for instance 2 beers instead of one.

2nd issue we are experience is a server cashing out a ticket just to end up having it show up again as an unpaid ticket?

3rd issue is food orders not showing up on our KDS, especially DoorDash orders. These tickets sometimes show up 20 or 30 minutes later.

[Sineaid]

Hi @drabbit,

Thanks for letting us know you’ve been experiencing issues. What you’re describing here doesn’t sound quite right. 

While I would recommend that you reach out to our Customer Success team, so they can investigate this on an account level with our engineers, there are a few troubleshooting steps outlined in this support guide that may help towards a resolution. 

If you’re still having trouble after running through the troubleshooting, then you can reach our team on 1-855-700-6000. They’re available from Monday to Friday, 6am to 6pm, PST.

[JayJzz]

I am a tech consultant and maintain these system for some restaurants.  It is extremely important that your network is solid and redundant, meaning, multiple Internet connections, commercial WiFi access points such as Ubiquiti UniFi and a firewall such as Sonicwall that will provide failover for the Internet, one goes down, the other takes over, automatically.  These systems are cloud based and pretty useless without an internet connection, the system will only be as reliable as your network. If you are using one internet circuit and using the WiFi that comes with the router, you will have problems.

[Tamyra_Paunchy]

Agreed. After that first incident I hurried out and bought a portable hot spot. Never again was I going to be outside at a busy market unable to accept payments because of an internet connection. Now I have a hot spot on my phone, we have a hot spot device we take with us to the market, and we have three different card readers. Get a backup first and then get a backup to the backup like Jay is saying. 

[JayJzz]

That's great for you, restaurants have remote printers in the kitchen and bar(s) that print the orders, these printers require Ethernet, that is on the same network as the WiFi.  Another reason for a solid network. Not just Square, but any cloud based system.  

[duffymahoney]

We dual kitchen printers (redundant) with a KDS display.  Early on with square for restaurants it would just lose tickets and never ever print.  Super fun. Glad they fixed that.  We use KDS as a backup.  Servers can check if the ticket was inputted correctly, ticket times etc..., and the KDS seems more reliable then the printers.  

[duffymahoney]

I have a background in networking.  Our current setup is about as good as it gets.  Ubiquiti Dream Machine Pro, with a 1 gig dedicated fiber, then a cable internet back up that uses a different fiber backbone, then a automatic LTE backup.  Multiple access points. 

Yesterdays outing couldn't have been fixed with networking.  

I think square and apple are too blame for our issues.  Apple always launches updates, sometimes with issues, square launches updates with issues.  Combo of both of those isn't my favorite.   

[JayJzz]

Perfect .. I am NO fan of Apple products and would never own any myself.  Most of the annoying issues we have are related to the iPads.  Sunday, busiest day, terminals are busy all evening.  one crashed, restarted and had to go through the device code BS, worst possible time to crash.  It would be great if Square Restaurant also supported Android tablets.  

[duffymahoney]

I love apple products, but android would be nice for things like the KDS and bigger displays.  

[JayJzz]

Android give a lot of choice in devices and terminals

[cbenson]

There is the Square Register.  It is a bit slower than the iPads, but it is a "purpose-built" system.  Might want to look into it.  Cheers.