Why in the world are newly created Orders not visible in the Square UI? I need to generate Orders in Square based on an external system, and before those Orders are paid, allow Square users to create Invoices to send to the customer for payment. But this seems impossible if Square users can’t even see Orders before they are paid.
I have seen others refer to how strange this is, but I have not been able to find any reason for it, which leads me to believe I’m missing something. Isn’t it a basic requirement of most businesses to see their Orders before they are paid, so they can create Invoices to send to the customer?
At this time orders with fulfillment details that have been fully paid will be pushed to the Square Dashboard Orders section, so that sellers can manage fulfillments within their seller Dashboard.
We’re constantly working to improve our features based on feedback like this, so I’ll be sure to share your request to the API product team. 
Hi Bryan, but why aren’t the Orders visible before they are paid? How can users generate Invoices to get the Orders paid, if they can’t see the Orders in the first place?
You can still retrieve unpaid order with the Orders API. You just can’t see the order in the Seller Dashboard till the order is paid for.
Yes, and apologies because I’m fairly new to the Square user interface, but how can users create an Invoice from an Order in the user interface, if they cannot see the Order? Or does Square require all Order creation and invoicing to happen programmatically? I am able to create Invoices manually in the UI, so I’m confused as to why users cannot see Orders manually, when Orders are required to create Invoices programmatically. I’m sure there is some kind of logic behind this I’m missing.
Hi @numberforty1, Great news we are looking for early adopters for this. Feel free to apply in this post.
Thanks for that, but the reason I’m asking the question is to understand how we can use Square now. Perhaps it will help if I rephrase - what is the intended purpose of the Invoice API? What is the purpose of creating an Invoice for a customer to pay, if it requires a paid Order, which means that the customer has already paid? I know Square didn’t build a whole system that only allows invoicing for things that were already paid for - could you explain the intended functionality here I am missing? The docs here explain a whole workflow, but never explain this elephant in the room: https://developer.squareup.com/docs/invoices-api/overview
An invoice order needs to be an unpaid order. If the order is paid for you won’t be able to create and send an invoice.
At this time you are right. If you create an order with the Orders API that order isn’t visible in the UI to the seller. It is available with the API but not in the Dashboard. The intention of invoicing with the APIs is that you can build an itemized order then draft an invoice to then send it to your customer.