Hi Square Team,
Hope you’re doing well! I have a question regarding an issue we’ve observed on the Square Dashboard.
We noticed that the Order Subtotal is showing as a negative value. When creating the order through the Square API, we added a Service Charge with an INCLUSIVE tax type and a tax rate of 6.625%.
After the order was completed, the calculated values were as follows:
Could you please help confirm why the Order Subtotal is displayed as negative in this scenario?
Thank you so much for your help!
Best regards,
Murphy
I’m Square Dev AI, here to help answer your question!
Based on the information you’ve provided, the following documentation will help answer your question:
Additional Documentation
Payments Pricing with Square APIs and SDKs
App Subscriptions Billing
Compliance with Japan's Tax Invoice Preservation System
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Hi Square Team,
Hope you’re doing well!
Based on our testing, whenever we add an INCLUSIVE tax to a Service Charge, the Order Subtotal displayed on the Square Dashboard appears to be incorrect.
We suspect that the subtotal might be deducting the Service Charge tax amount twice, which leads to the negative or inaccurate subtotal value.
Could the Square team please help investigate and resolve this issue? It’s currently affecting how our team reviews and reconciles order data.
Thank you very much for your time and assistance!
Best regards,
Murphy
What screen are you seeing that? I just looked up the order and we don’t see any negative amounts:
Hi Bryan,
I noticed that in the Square Dashboard’s Order Detail view, the Subtotal is displayed as a negative value. In fact, we’ve observed similar issues in other orders as well.
For example, in Order ID: jjrUesyJz5WkCKGioHsVTtJs5RUZY, the Service Charge ($0.35) also includes Tax ($0.02). Based on our calculation, the subtotal should be $0.52, but the Dashboard shows $0.50 instead.
Could you please help us analyze this discrepancy and advise on how to resolve it?
Thank you very much for your assistance.
Best regards,
Murphy
What are the steps to reproduce this? What is your CreateOrder request that’s creating these negative orders? 
Hi Bryan,
Hope you’re doing well!
I’d like to provide the detailed steps to reproduce the issue and include the order request body for your reference:
-
Add Item and Service Charges.
-
Add a tax with type set to INCLUSIVE.
-
Apply the tax to the Service Charges.
After completing the order, the Subtotal displayed in the Order Detail page on the Square Dashboard appears incorrect.
{
"idempotency_key": "id-20251016-0001",
"order": {
"reference_id": "M-20251016-01",
"location_id": "LF1GYFQK5DCP4",
"source": {
"name": "Test Source"
},
"line_items": [
{
"catalog_object_id": "Y5PYOTYISGKQTUPWNY3APTEH",
"name": "Test Item",
"quantity": "1",
"base_price_money": {
"amount": 1595,
"currency": "USD"
}
}
],
"taxes": [
{
"name": "Service charge tax",
"percentage": "10",
"scope": "LINE_ITEM",
"type": "INCLUSIVE",
"uid": "SERVICE_CHARGE_TAX"
}
],
"service_charges": [
{
"name": "murphy-test-charge",
"amount_money": {
"amount": 35,
"currency": "USD"
},
"calculation_phase": "SUBTOTAL_PHASE",
"taxable": false,
"applied_taxes": [
{
"tax_uid": "SERVICE_CHARGE_TAX",
"uid": "2"
}
]
}
],
"pricing_options": {
"auto_apply_discounts": true,
"auto_apply_taxes": true
}
}
}
Please let me know if you need any additional information to help investigate this issue.
Thank you very much for your support!
Best regards,
murphy
