Starting a few days ago, the date times pulled from the Square API for both Orders (under tenders) and Payments don’t match the Transactions page shown on the Square Dashboard.
Payment ID “tcVZwyZB5UOfHi6csXEAVBHNrlVZY”
in EST, I’m showing created at 12:09pm, but the transaction on the dashboard shows 11:47am
Some match, but most don’t. Please help.
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Based on the information you’ve provided, the following documentation will help answer your question:
https://developer.squareup.com/docs/pos-api/payments-integration
https://developer.squareup.com/docs/get-started/verify-transaction-in-seller-dashboard
https://developer.squareup.com/docs/build-basics/common-data-types/working-with-dates
https://developer.squareup.com/docs/payments-api/migrate-from-transactions-api
https://developer.squareup.com/docs/payments
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I took a look at the payment and this is a payment for an invoice. The top level created_at is the timestamp for when the order was created. The tenders created_at is when the invoice was paid for which is also the payment created_at timestamp. 
Correct. When I compared the tenders and the payments, the timestamps matched.
The issue however, is when I compare the transacrions page on the square dashboard with the payments in the API.
My assumption is that any refunds or payments will show in the transactions page.
For this particular payment, and many others, none of the datetimes in the payments API match the datetimes in the transaction dashboard.
I’m asking for clarity on where the 11:47am timestamp is coming from.
That’s the time the order was created according to your timezone. The timestamp that’s returned by the API is in UTC time.
So I did check, and you are correct, that the date is being pulled from the Order Created At,
However, this is quite troubling. The next transaction has a datetime of March 7th 11:49am. This time is being pulled from the Payment DateTime, not the Order Created At, which is on Feb. 26th.
Can you please explain to me the logic Square uses to pull the transactions onto the dashboard and how it sorts the dates?
Why are some datetimes using the order created at and others using the payment created at?
Look at this Payment ID and the order it’s linked to. It is what I’m referring to above. “VM1C6tvNqPWPHAnzFC9zhxoUWjIZY”
Yes, that’s correct. This is because the invoice was created and emailed to the customer on 2/26 which is when the order was created. It was paid for on 3/7 which is why you see the payment date different then the order created_at date.
For March 6th, the timestamps shown are mixed between payment at and order created at.
Please explain the logic square uses to determine when to use the payment at date or the created at date.
It would make sense to me to always use the payment at date, as this is technically when the transaction took place, but that’s not what Square does. Please help me understand.
Another one that is concerning… the order was created on March 7th, and the payment happened on March 11th. This transaction shows on March 7th, not March 11th.
Why are the transactions being placed by the Order Date, and others by the Payment Date? There is no consistency.
One example uses the Created At the other the Payment At to place the records in the transactions list. Please help me understand Square’s logic for where the transactions show up on their website.
Posted in Transactions list 3/7/24
Order ID “U2QaqjffsGPdhKH9eTJntRTdzsWZY”
Payment ID “zl8RppEm2B5xV534DHAFSVAYQDJZY”
Created: March 7th
Paid: March 11th
Posted in Transactions list 3/6/24
Order ID “wuvxJqV0qz0rKp48noNsvQQ7LEIZY”
Payment ID “7bF5RVAF9wMJjKVA4cTP2RIRKccZY”
Created: Feb 13th
Paid: March 6th
For wuvxJqV0qz0rKp48noNsvQQ7LEIZY the draft invoice was created on 2/13 and the invoice published and sent to the customer on 3/6 which is also the same day that the customer paid for the invoice.
Can someone please explain how square determines which dates to use in the sorting of the transactions list? Some use Payment Created At, others use Order Created At.
What types of payments are you having trouble sorting? Invoices are treated a bit different from other transactions.
Our accounting department is using the Square Transaction dashboard as a reference to compare to the transactions taken on our APP.
The issue is that they don’t match. I have the payment dates, the order dates, and the invoice dates, but they don’t ever match what is shown on the transactions list on Square.
I just need to know how Square sorts and orders their transactions list so that I can match is on our daily exports. See attached image. Square is using different values for the dates. It’s not consistent. There must be some function that Square is using to determine what field to use when sorting.
It looks like the date that is being used is the date in which the customer actually submitted their payment.
This datetime is found on the receipt preview section on square.
Where can I find this datetime in the Square API?
Right, the time the order is created can differ from when the invoice is published and the payment is made. These are all different events that will have there own unique timestamp.
For the timestamp that the payment is made you’ll use the Payments API to get the payment object.
For PaymentID “zl8RppEm2B5xV534DHAFSVAYQDJZY”
On Square, when viewing the receipt, it shows the date, March 7th at 6:34am (PST)
Where can I find this date in the API?
The timestamp for that is found in the order of the invoice. All the invoices that your reporting that have the same order created date time and payment created date time are created by our fist party product. This is expected since the order_id isn’t available till the invoice is paid for. Any invoice that’s created by the API will have an order created_at and payment created_at that are different.
I mapped all the updated and created at dates for the transactions on March 7th.
Highlighted in green are the dates that match with the one shown on the Square Transaction Dashboard.
Please explain to me the logic that Square uses to decide which datetime to use.
As you can see clearly, it isn’t always the same date. Also, the payments come in on different days, yet Square posts the transactions on previous dates.
Please explain to me the logic Square uses on how they decide to order transactions on the Square Transactions Dashboard.
