At a glance
The total amount that successfully flowed through Square in the period across all channels (in-person POS, Square Online, Invoices, Virtual Terminal, Tap to Pay, eCommerce APIs), gross of refunds, gross of Square processing fees, gross of disputes. This is the omnichannel “money the Square stack touched”, not “money that landed in your linked bank account”.
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your Square 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 US small bookshop (“Ravenwing Books”) runs a single brick-and-mortar location in Austin, Texas, plus a Square Online site. The 30-day window covers 03 Apr 26 to 02 May 26.- Cash sales count. Ravenwing’s owner sees “USD 129,020 total volume” and may expect that to be card-only, but Square’s
/v2/paymentsledger includes any tender Square recorded, including cash drawer transactions where the till was opened and the cashier marked “Cash”. For a card-only view, filtersource_type IN (CARD, CASH_APP, WALLET, EXTERNAL). - POS and online appear in one feed. On Stripe + a separate retail POS this would require two API integrations and manual reconciliation. Square’s defining product feature is the unified
/v2/paymentsledger, the Austin store’s chip-tap volume and the mail-order book sales sit in the same number. - Cash App Pay attaches at the buyer side. USD 2,940 of online volume came through Cash App Pay (peer-to-peer-style checkout). Block’s strategy fuses the seller-side (Square) and buyer-side (Cash App) into one ecosystem; merchants on Square get Cash App Pay essentially for free as a checkout option, and US conversion is materially better than non-Cash App stores for Gen-Z + millennial buyers.
- Tap to Pay on iPhone is a hidden volume channel. USD 2,180 came in at a Saturday pop-up market with no Reader hardware, just the owner’s iPhone. This is a significant Square moat versus traditional POS; a sole proprietor can take card payments anywhere with no upfront hardware cost.
- Square fees are simpler than Stripe. One blended rate per channel (2.6% + 10c card-present US, 2.9% + 30c keyed/online), no per-issuer pricing matrix, no interchange-plus complexity. SMBs prefer this even though it can be a fraction more expensive on Visa debit; the simplicity is the product.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in the Square Dashboard: Sign in at squareup.com/dashboard and the closest comparable view is:Reports → Sales → Sales Summary (filter by date range; “Gross sales”)The headline tile on the Reports → Overview also shows period gross sales. For the omnichannel breakdown, use Reports → Sales by Source which separates POS, Square Online, Square Invoices, and external API channels. Other Square views that look similar but answer different questions:
- Transactions list (Reports → Transactions). Per-transaction detail; this is the underlying ledger this card sums.
- Sales Summary “Net Sales” tile. Net sales = gross sales minus refunds and discounts. Lower than this card. Use
squ_refund_volumeto bridge. - Deposits / Balance (Balance → All deposits). This is the post-fee, post-refund, settled-to-bank figure, NOT gross volume. Always materially lower. Square holds typically 0, 1 business day before next-day deposit.
- Square for Retail “Sales” report (separate sub-product). If the merchant uses Square for Retail (the retail-vertical add-on), it has its own per-SKU sales report. It’s a subset of this card filtered to retail-vertical locations.
- Square Online “Orders” tab. Online-only subset. A subset of this card filtered to
source_type = EXTERNAL.
Cross-connector reconciliation, what should match what:
Quick rule for support tickets: if a merchant says “Square Dashboard shows USD 100k, Vortex IQ shows USD 110k” in the same period, the most common cause for retail merchants is the cash-vs-card distinction (Dashboard tile set to “Card Sales”, Vortex IQ summing all tender). For online-only merchants, time-zone is the most common cause for “today” complaints.
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
Reconciliation questions (“why doesn’t this match the Square Dashboard / my bank?”) are answered in the Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard section above. Below are the questions that aren’t reconciliation.“Square is owned by Block, what does that mean for me as a merchant?” Block (formerly Square Inc., renamed 2021) is the parent company of Square (seller-side), Cash App (buyer-side), TIDAL (music), Spiral (Bitcoin), and several smaller bets. From a merchant perspective the practical implications are: (1) Cash App Pay as a checkout option for free, which lifts conversion meaningfully for Gen-Z and millennial US customers; (2) Bitcoin acceptance via Square is genuine (Block is a public Bitcoin holder); (3) Square’s product roadmap is unusually buyer-side-aware compared to Stripe / Adyen, which are pure seller-side. Day-to-day API behaviour is unchanged. “Why is Square cheaper than Stripe for my US retail store?” Two reasons. (1) Card-present pricing. Square charges 2.6% + 10c flat for card-present US transactions. Stripe charges 2.7% + 5c for in-person via Stripe Terminal, very close, but Square’s hardware ecosystem (Square Reader, Square Stand, Square Register, Square Terminal) is materially cheaper than Stripe’s BBPOS / Verifone offering and easier to set up. (2) Software bundling. Square POS, Square Online, Square Invoices, Square Marketing, Square Loyalty, Square Payroll, Square Banking, and Square Capital are all included or available as add-ons on one account. Stripe’s equivalent stack requires Stripe Connect + Stripe Terminal + Stripe Tax + Stripe Atlas + several third-party tools. SMB merchants prefer the simplicity even when the per-transaction rate is a fraction higher. “Square is US-first, can I use it in Europe / UK / Canada / Australia / Japan?” Yes, but with regional caveats. Supported markets (as of dd MMM yy): US, Canada, UK, Republic of Ireland, France, Spain, Australia, Japan. Not supported: most EU/EEA countries (Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Greece, etc), most of LATAM, most of APAC ex-Japan/Australia. UK Square has reduced product depth versus US Square (no Square Banking, limited Square Capital, limited POS hardware). Cash App Pay is US-only (and selected UK pilot). For pan-European retail-plus-ecom Mediterranean merchants, Viva Payments or Stripe + Adyen are typically a better fit. “What’s the difference between Square POS, Square Online, Square Stand, and Square Terminal?”
- Square POS is the iOS / Android app that turns any phone into a register. Free.
- Square Stand is a countertop iPad-based register dock (~USD 149) with a chip + tap reader. Most permanent retail merchants use this.
- Square Register is a fully-integrated all-in-one register (~USD 799). Premium retail.
- Square Terminal is a handheld portable terminal (~USD 299). Restaurants and pop-ups.
- Square Reader is the original USB / Bluetooth contactless reader (~USD 49). Mobile sole-proprietors.
- Square Online is the ecommerce site builder. Free tier; paid tiers for custom domain + advanced features.
- Tap to Pay on iPhone / Android turns the phone itself into the contactless terminal, no Reader needed. Newer (2023+).
/v2/payments API, so this card sums every device.
“Cash App Pay, will my non-US customers see it?”
No. Cash App is a US consumer app (with limited UK pilot). Non-US shoppers checking out at a Square Online store won’t see Cash App Pay as an option. Plan checkout-conversion expectations accordingly: a US-only DTC site can lean on Cash App Pay; an international one cannot.
“What about Square’s API rate limits?”
Production tier: typically 30 requests/sec, with bursts. The Payments API specifically returns up to 100 transactions per page; for very high-volume merchants (>10,000 transactions/day) the engine paginates and may show 5, 15-minute lag on the freshest data. Higher rate-limit tiers are available for marketplace / developer-platform partners on request.
“My online subscription rebills, do those count here?”
Yes. Square Subscriptions (the recurring-billing product) creates /v2/payments records on each rebill with source_type = EXTERNAL and a linked subscription_id. They’re indistinguishable from one-time payments in this card, both contribute. For subscription-specific MRR/ARR analysis, Chargebee or another billing layer above Square is the typical pattern.
“Why is the customer-paid total higher than what’s in my Square balance?”
Three deductions between this card and your Square balance: (1) Square’s processing fees (2.6, 2.9% blended), (2) refunds processed in the same window, (3) deposits to your linked bank (Square’s standard schedule is T+1 next-business-day, so the last 24 hours of activity sits in Square balance, not bank). Use the Balance → Deposits view to bridge, or squ_payouts_pending to see what’s in flight.