I am currently working with the csv downloads for transactions. I am trying to give users the ability to upload transactions from the csv to our site if they choose. I have run into a problem in that it seems there is no real way to get the items sold from each transaction, which is very important. I see that the description contains the transactions sold, but it also includes the description for those items. This makes it virtually impossible to parse the items from the description.
I also don’t see anything like a list of the item id’s. Is there no reliable way to programatically get the the items from the transaction csv?
This is a great question, I’m tagging along for the ride. Sorry I don’t have any input for you. I am trying to do something similar, I’m trying to track real time sales to facilitate an inventory tracking dashboard.
The most ideal way to retrieve items sold would be to use the Orders API. The transaction id in the CSV should correspond to the order_id, so you can retrieve the order and see the items sold, as far as I know. Most reports that are downloaded from the dashboard are not in a great shape to be worked with programmatically due to the layout, so we typically recommend using the APIs instead.
I get that the API should be used for this, but I am facing a bit of an issue here. We are trying to bootstrap a small website. We have not been approved for production use of the API because Square wants us to have more users before they approve us for production API use. So for the time being we are resigned to users downloading their transactions from Square and uploading them to our website.
So I am kind of stuck in a vicious circle here. We need items from each transaction in order to be useful to our users and get more users. But we need users in order to use the API.
Basically, I can get the transaction ID from the transactions csv, but I can’t use it to get the data that I need because we have not yet been approved for production API. Is there any solution here, or am I just kind of f’ed?
I’m not sure what you mean by this - anyone can make production API calls, you do not need Square’s approval. If you’re talking about being on the app marketplace, you should still be able to make production API calls before being listed. Feel free to DM me (click my name → Message) if you prefer discussing privately, if I’m misunderstanding.
In the case of a client project mod apks, the POS square application does not alert us when an item has been sold out. This could lead to us selling something we are not able to provide, which would upset the client. Our store is open for only one day seven days and 60% of our sales are done online, so we need to watch out for overselling to walk-in clients during our one day sale.
With our Inventory API and webhooks your application can be notified when inventory starts to run low. They you will be able to make it unavailable for purchase.
