Square Orders and Payments Not Syncing Correctly on Website

Questions
1

Hi everyone, I’ve been working on integrating Square into my website for Texas Roadhouse menu orders, and I’ve run into a fairly complex issue that I haven’t been able to figure out. My website is set up to handle online orders for pickup, and I’m using Square APIs to process payments. The problem is that the checkout flow isn’t behaving consistently, and it seems like there’s a disconnect between the order creation and payment confirmation steps. Sometimes the order gets logged in the Square dashboard, but the payment isn’t attached properly, which causes my system to mark the order as unpaid even though the customer gets charged.

I’ve structured the flow so that the backend first creates an order with line items that match the Texas Roadhouse family meals and other menu items. Then, I’m generating a payment request that links back to that order. The strange thing is that when I test in the sandbox environment, everything works perfectly, but in production, about 1 out of 10 orders fails to link the payment correctly. This results in customer support tickets and manual intervention, which is obviously not sustainable.

Another issue I’m noticing is with the webhook notifications. I have webhooks set up for both payment.updated and order.updated, but the timing of these events seems inconsistent. Sometimes the payment webhook arrives before the order webhook, and other times it’s reversed. This wouldn’t normally be a big deal, but my logic depends on receiving the order confirmation first and then updating the payment status. Because of this inconsistency, some orders remain stuck in a “pending” state even though they’ve already been paid.

I’ve tried debugging this by logging request IDs and event payloads, and I can confirm that the issue doesn’t appear to be on my server side. All webhook events are being received, but the linking logic sometimes fails because the order object in the payload doesn’t have the payment info attached yet. It feels like there’s a race condition happening between the order update and payment update events, but I can’t find a clear best practice in the documentation for handling this.

I also want to point out that I’m using the latest Square SDK for Node.js, and I’ve followed the recommended order creation and payment flow from the docs. I even tried implementing a retry mechanism where I re-check the order status after a short delay, but that only partially fixes the issue and adds unnecessary complexity. What I really need is a more reliable way to ensure that the payment and order are synced up before I finalize the order on my side.

Has anyone else run into a similar issue when integrating Square for food ordering systems? Is there a recommended approach for handling the webhook timing problem, or maybe a specific API pattern I should be using to ensure that the payment and order objects are always properly linked? I’d really appreciate any insights or best practices from other developers who’ve worked on Square-powered ordering websites. SOrry for the long post

2

:waving_hand: 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

Payment API: Process Online and In-Person Payments
Orders API
Develop for Japan

If this documentation helped you find a solution, please check the box indicating that this reply solves the problem.
Otherwise one of our Developer Advocates will provide additional assistance shortly.

3

It sounds like you’re encountering a common challenge with asynchronous systems where the timing of events can lead to inconsistencies in processing. Here are a few strategies that might help you address the issues you’re facing:

  1. Atomic Operations: Ensure that your order creation and payment processing are as atomic as possible. This means minimizing the time between creating an order and processing the payment. Use the order_id in your CreatePayment request to directly link the payment to the order.

  2. Webhook Handling: Since webhooks can arrive in any order, your system should be designed to handle events idempotently. This means that processing an event multiple times should not change the outcome. For example, when you receive a payment.updated event, check the current status of the order and update it accordingly, regardless of whether the order.updated event has been processed.

  3. Polling as a Backup: While webhooks are great for real-time updates, consider implementing a polling mechanism as a backup. After a payment is processed, periodically check the status of the order and payment using the Orders and Payments APIs to ensure they are in sync.

  4. Retry Logic: Implement a retry mechanism with exponential backoff for processing webhooks. If a webhook event doesn’t have all the necessary information, wait a short period and then re-fetch the order and payment details from Square’s APIs.

  5. Logging and Monitoring: Continue logging request IDs and event payloads, but also consider setting up alerts for when discrepancies occur. This can help you quickly identify and address issues as they arise.

  6. Order and Payment Reconciliation: Periodically reconcile your orders and payments to ensure that all orders marked as paid have corresponding payments in Square. This can be done as a batch process during off-peak hours.

  7. Square Support: If the issue persists, consider reaching out to Square’s support team with detailed logs and request IDs. They might be able to provide insights specific to your account or identify any underlying issues with the API.

By implementing these strategies, you should be able to improve the reliability of your integration and reduce the number of manual interventions required.

This answer was reviewed by @Bryan-Square.

4

For the few 1 out of 10 orders that fail to link to the payment is the order_id correctly being passed into the CreatePayment request? :slight_smile:

5

Thank you so much for the thorough explanation and strategies! That really helps me frame this issue better as an asynchronous/timing challenge rather than just something wrong with my flow. I’ll start by tightening up the atomic operations in my backend so the order creation and payment linking happen closer together, and I’ll make sure I’m always passing the order_id in the CreatePayment call.

Your point about idempotent webhook handling makes a lot of sense—I realize now that my current logic assumes the order webhook will always arrive first, which isn’t safe. I’ll refactor so that either event can trigger a status update by re-checking the latest order/payment state through the APIs. Adding a lightweight polling fallback after payment confirmation also sounds like a practical safety net.

I already have retry logic, but I’ll update it with exponential backoff as you suggested to avoid unnecessary strain. I’ll also look into adding better reconciliation reporting during off-peak hours so I can spot and resolve mismatches before they affect customers.

If these changes still leave gaps, I’ll definitely gather my request IDs and logs to share with Square Support for deeper investigation. Thanks again for the detailed guidance—it gives me a clear path forward!