How online orders reach your Square POS

A second tablet for online orders usually means someone retyping tickets into the register in the middle of a rush. A point-of-sale integration removes that step. This is how the Square connection in Kitchn works, in the order things happen.

Connecting the account

You connect Square once, from the Kitchn dashboard. Square shows its own sign-in and permission screen, you approve, and you are returned to the dashboard. Kitchn never sees your Square password. Square issues an access token for your account instead, and you can revoke it from Square whenever you like.

After the connection, Kitchn reads your business name and location from Square so that orders are sent to the right place.

What is sent when a guest orders

When a guest pays on your ordering page, Kitchn creates an order in Square. It carries each item as its own line, any discount, the tax and fees, and whether the order is for pickup or delivery.

Items are sent by the name and price on your Kitchn menu. They are not matched against your Square item library, so there is no mapping table to maintain when you change a menu. The trade-off is that Square treats them as custom items.

Why the order shows as paid

The guest’s card was charged through Stripe, not through Square. If Kitchn sent the order alone, it would sit in Square as unpaid. So Kitchn also records a payment on the order, using what Square calls an external payment.

Square’s developer documentation defines external payments as payments processed by someone other than Square, and states that the proceeds are not credited to the seller’s Square account. In practice the order shows as paid on your POS, your Square sales reports include it, and no card is charged twice. The money itself arrives through your Stripe payout.

Status changes, cancellations and refunds

As your team moves an order along in Kitchn, the status of the Square order follows, so finished orders do not pile up as open in Square.

When an order is cancelled or refunded in Kitchn, a matching refund is recorded on the Square order. No money moves in Square, because Stripe handled the actual refund. The point is that your Square reports stay accurate.

What to check on day one

• Place a small test order and confirm it appears in Square as paid, at the right location
• Refund that order in Kitchn and confirm the refund shows in Square
• Reconcile online sales against your Stripe payouts, not your Square deposits
• If you count stock in Square, remember that online orders arrive as custom items, so mark sold-out dishes unavailable in Kitchn as well

Square is the POS integration that is live in Kitchn today. Clover is next.