Open Orders for the selected period.
At a glance
A live count of Square orders whose state is OPEN, the orders that have been placed but not yet completed, fulfilled, or cancelled. This is your unfinished-work queue. A small, steady number is healthy throughput; a sudden pile-up means orders are coming in faster than they are being cleared, usually a fulfilment, staffing, or stock problem. Because Square unifies web, POS, and invoices on one Orders API, this card shows the whole open queue across every channel in one number.
| What it counts | COUNT(orders WHERE state = OPEN) across every channel and location, sourced from the Square Orders API. An order is OPEN once placed and stays open until it moves to COMPLETED or CANCELED. |
| The Square Order state enum | Square Orders carry a state of OPEN, COMPLETED, CANCELED, or DRAFT. This card counts only OPEN. Drafts (carts not yet submitted) and completed or cancelled orders are excluded. |
| Channel / source treatment | All channels combined. Open orders can originate from Square Online web, Square POS, or Square Invoices. POS sales usually close instantly at the register, so most genuine open orders are web fulfilment or unpaid invoices. Filter by source.name to see which channel is backing up. |
| Currency / unit | Count of open orders (whole number). The value tied up in those orders is captured on Revenue at Risk (live). |
| Time window | RT (real-time, polled from the Square Orders API every few minutes) |
| Alert trigger | Fires when the open count exceeds twice the trailing 30-day average. A doubling against your own baseline means orders are accumulating faster than they clear. |
| Roles | owner, operations |
| What a pile-up signals | A fulfilment backlog, a stock-out blocking dispatch, a staffing gap in the pack-and-ship team, or a payment-capture issue holding invoices open. |
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your Square Online data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A UK homeware merchant on Square. Two shops where POS sales close at the till, plus a Square Online storefront that ships nationwide, plus Square Invoices for trade customers. The card is checked at 09:00 on 14 Mar 26, and the trailing 30-day average open count is around 18.| Channel | source.name | Open orders now | Typical baseline | Likely reason |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Square Online Store (web) | Square Online Store | 41 | 14 | Pack-and-ship backlog |
| Square Invoices (trade) | Square Invoices | 9 | 3 | Awaiting payment |
| Square POS (in store) | Square POS | 2 | 1 | Open tabs at the till |
| Open Orders (this card) | 52 | ~18 |
- The alert fires because 52 is nearly 3x the baseline of 18. The trigger is more than twice the 30-day average, so this clears it comfortably. The doubling against the merchant’s own history matters more than the raw number; 52 open orders is calm for a large operation and alarming for this one.
- The channel split points straight at the bottleneck. Most of the excess is the 41 web orders against a baseline of 14, a clear pack-and-ship backlog rather than an invoice or POS issue. The action is to open Orders by Status and Order Completion Rate to confirm the orders are stuck in fulfilment, not failing.
- POS open orders are usually near zero by design. In-store sales close instantly when paid, so a healthy POS open count hovers around the number of tabs left running. A rising POS open count is unusual and worth a separate look. The real signal here is almost always the web queue.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
| Card | Why pair it with Open Orders |
|---|---|
| Orders by Status | The full state breakdown, open, completed, cancelled. Open Orders is the live slice; this card shows it in the context of every other state. |
| Order Completion Rate | The flow side. A rising open count and a falling completion rate together confirm a fulfilment backlog rather than a one-off. |
| Revenue at Risk (live) | The money tied up in the open queue. Fifty open orders matter far more if they carry high-value baskets. |
| Canceled Orders (24h) | Orders that fail out of the open queue. A backlog that turns into cancellations is the worst case; watch both to catch it early. |
| Total Orders | Context for whether the open count is alarming relative to overall volume. A high open count on high volume is throughput; on low volume it is a stall. |
| Out-of-Stock Products | A common upstream cause. Orders for an out-of-stock item sit open because they cannot be fulfilled. |
Reconciling against Square
Where to look in the Square Dashboard: Square Dashboard, Items & Orders, Orders. Filter the order list to an open or in-progress status. The count should match this card closely. Open individual orders to read the channel (source.name) and fulfilment state, which tells you why each one is still open.
Other Square Dashboard views that look like the same number but aren’t:
- Orders, filtered to open / in progress: this DOES match closely. It is the direct comparison.
- Orders, filtered to all statuses: includes completed and cancelled orders, far higher than this card.
- Reports, Sales summary: counts completed sales, not the open queue. An open order has not been counted as a sale yet.
- Transactions / Payments: counts payment events. An unpaid open invoice has no payment to show, so it is missing here.
| Reason | Direction of divergence |
|---|---|
State definition. We count orders whose state is OPEN. The dashboard may group several in-progress fulfilment states under one filter, which can read slightly differently. | Minor differences around fulfilment sub-states |
| Channel filtering. If you filter the dashboard to one location or channel, it will be lower than this all-channel card. | Dashboard lower when filtered |
Draft handling. Square DRAFT orders (carts not yet submitted) are excluded here. If a dashboard view includes drafts, it will read higher. | Dashboard higher if drafts are included |
| Sync lag. The most recent orders may take a short cycle to reach our index, slightly changing the live count. | Self-resolves within minutes |
| Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue at Risk (live) | Open orders back much of the at-risk value | Revenue at risk also includes other exposure (oversell, payment holds), so it is not a pure function of open count. |
google_analytics.conversion-rate | No direct relationship | GA4 records the web purchase event at checkout, regardless of whether the order is later fulfilled. An order open in Square still counts as a GA4 conversion. Treat Square as the source of truth for order state. |
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
What does open actually mean for a Square order? An order isOPEN once it has been placed but has not yet moved to COMPLETED or CANCELED. For a web order that usually means placed and paid but not yet fulfilled. For an invoice it can mean issued but not yet paid. The card counts every order in that in-between state across all channels.
Why are most of my open orders on the web channel?
Because POS sales close at the till the moment they are paid, so they rarely linger in an open state. Web orders, by contrast, stay open through the pack-and-ship cycle, and invoices stay open until paid. A healthy open queue is therefore mostly web fulfilment plus any unpaid invoices.
My open count doubled and the alert fired. Where do I start?
Check the channel split first. A spike concentrated in web orders is a fulfilment backlog, open Order Completion Rate and Out-of-Stock Products to find the bottleneck. A spike in invoices usually means a run of unpaid trade orders rather than an operational fault.
Does a high open count mean I am losing money?
Not directly, an open order is still a live sale. But a backlog risks turning into cancellations and refunds if orders cannot be fulfilled, and it ties up stock and cash. Pair this card with Revenue at Risk (live) to see the value exposed.
Why is the alert based on my own average rather than a fixed number?
Because a healthy open count depends entirely on your volume. Twenty open orders is nothing for a high-volume merchant and a serious backlog for a small one. Triggering on more than twice your trailing 30-day average means the card flags an unusual move for you, not an arbitrary threshold.
Do draft or abandoned carts count here?
No. Square DRAFT orders are carts that were never submitted, and they are excluded. This card counts only submitted orders that are genuinely open and awaiting completion.
Can I change the threshold?
The default is more than twice your 30-day average. A merchant with naturally spiky volume may want a higher multiple so seasonal peaks do not alert, and a steady-state merchant may want a tighter one. The per-merchant threshold can be set in your Vortex IQ workspace.