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”.
| What it counts | Every payment on /v2/payments where status = COMPLETED, summed by amount_money.amount, in each transaction’s currency. Includes Square POS card-present captures (chip + PIN, contactless, magstripe), Square Online checkouts, Square Invoices, Virtual Terminal phone orders, and Tap to Pay on iPhone / Android. Crucially, both retail and ecommerce flow through the same /v2/payments resource; they are not separate APIs. |
| API endpoint | GET /v2/payments on the Payments API. OAuth 2.0 with PAYMENTS_READ permission scope. Square’s API treats POS, Square Online, and external ecommerce as a single payment ledger, this is the defining Square integration pattern. |
| VAT / tax treatment | Inclusive. The figure is whatever the customer was charged at the till or at checkout. Square’s order-level breakdown (where Square POS / Square Online provided the order context) carries tax_money separately, but this card sums amount_money.amount which is gross of tax. |
| Currency | Single-currency per location. Square locations are pegged to one settlement currency (USD, CAD, GBP, EUR, JPY, AUD, IE EUR), set when the location was created and immutable. A multi-location merchant operating in two countries will see two currencies arithmetically stacked, no FX conversion. |
| Fees / processing cost | Gross. Square processing fees (typically 2.6% + 10c card-present in US, 2.9% + 30c keyed-in / online, 1.75% UK contactless, 1.4% + 25p UK chip-and-PIN) are NOT deducted. See Net Revenue (after refunds) for the post-refund figure; for fee-net figures use the Square Dashboard Reports → Sales Summary export. |
| Refunds | NOT deducted. Refunds live on the /v2/refunds resource and are tracked by squ_refund_volume. A fully refunded 100 here. |
| Disputes / chargebacks | NOT deducted. Square Disputes (/v2/disputes) are tracked separately in squ_dispute_rate and squ_chargeback_rate. |
| Failed / declined payments | Excluded. Only status = COMPLETED rows are summed. status IN (APPROVED, PENDING, FAILED, CANCELED) are excluded; declines are tracked in squ_decline_rate. |
| POS-vs-online split | Unified. Square’s defining feature is one platform across retail + ecom. The source_type field separates EXTERNAL (Square Online / external API), CARD (POS card-present), CASH (POS cash drawer), CASH_APP (Cash App Pay buyer), and WALLET (Apple Pay / Google Pay POS). For online-only, filter source_type = EXTERNAL upstream. |
| Tap to Pay on iPhone / Android | Counted. Tap to Pay (Square’s contactless-on-phone product) flows as source_type = CARD with no terminal hardware. Distinguishable via card_details.entry_method = CONTACTLESS and the device_details block being absent. |
| Cash App Pay | Counted. Block (Square’s parent) operates Cash App; Cash App Pay buyers checking out at Square merchants flow as source_type = CASH_APP. Common in US Square Online stores, ~5, 12% of online tender mix. |
| Square Invoices | Counted. Customer-paid invoices flow through /v2/payments as source_type = EXTERNAL with the invoice ID linked. |
| Time window | 30D vsP (default 30D vs the prior 30D). |
| Alert trigger | drop >15% vsP, driven by sentiment_key: revenue_trend. |
| Roles | owner, finance, operations |
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.| Channel | Payments | Amount | source_type | status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front-counter Square Stand POS (chip + tap) | 3,420 | USD 78,400 | CARD | COMPLETED | Card-present, ~80% contactless |
| Cash drawer | 1,180 | USD 14,200 | CASH | COMPLETED | Tracked in Square but excluded from card-revenue P&L |
| Square Online checkout | 612 | USD 21,300 | EXTERNAL | COMPLETED | Local Texas customers + national mail-order |
| Cash App Pay (Square Online) | 88 | USD 2,940 | CASH_APP | COMPLETED | Block buyer-side product, ~12% of online tender |
| Apple Pay / Google Pay (POS) | 240 | USD 5,200 | WALLET | COMPLETED | Express tap on Square Reader |
| Square Invoices (author-event book signings) | 14 | USD 4,800 | EXTERNAL | COMPLETED | One-off author-collective trade orders |
| Tap to Pay on iPhone (pop-up market) | 95 | USD 2,180 | CARD | COMPLETED | Owner’s iPhone at a Saturday market, no Reader |
| Refunds (period) | 42 | USD 1,840 | - | - | Tracked separately |
| Disputes (period) | 1 | USD 78 | - | - | Tracked separately |
| Failed / cancelled | 28 | - | - | FAILED / CANCELED | Excluded |
- 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
| Card | Why merchants reach for it next to Total Volume |
|---|---|
squ_total_transactions | Transaction count over the same window. Volume ÷ transactions = average transaction. |
squ_avg_transaction | The per-transaction view. POS retail sits ~USD 25, USD 60; Square Online ~USD 40, USD 90. |
squ_volume_trend | This metric trended daily. Square retail merchants typically see strong day-of-week seasonality (Sat > Sun > weekday). |
squ_top_payment_methods | Tender mix (chip vs tap vs cash vs Cash App Pay vs Apple Pay). Tap-share is climbing 3, 5pp/year on US Square. |
squ_refund_volume | The amount to subtract for a net-of-refunds figure. |
squ_payouts_pending | What’s in flight from this volume but not yet settled to your bank. Square’s default schedule is T+1 next-business-day. |
squ_avg_settlement_days | The cash-flow-timing companion metric. |
Stripe stripe_total_revenue / PayPal pp_total_volume / Viva viva_total_revenue | Same archetype on competing PSPs. Multi-PSP merchants sum these for total payment volume. |
Shopify total_revenue / BC total_revenue | The upstream commerce view. Square should reconcile to (commerce_total minus non-Square-payment-method orders). |
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.
| Reason | Direction | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Time zone | Boundary days off | Square Dashboard uses each location’s configured timezone (e.g. America/Chicago for Austin). Vortex IQ uses UTC for period boundaries. For a 30-day window the gap averages out; for “today” or “yesterday” cards a Texas merchant sees a 5, 6 hour shift. |
| Cash inclusion | Ours often higher than card-volume views | Square Dashboard’s Sales Summary sometimes defaults to “Card Sales” not “Gross Sales”. This card sums all /v2/payments regardless of tender, including cash. Switch the Dashboard tile to “Gross Sales” to match. |
| Refunds same-day | Ours unchanged, theirs may net | Same-day refunds in some Square Dashboard tiles get netted into the gross figure intra-day. This card always reads gross until the next sync. |
| Fee inclusion | Ours gross, “Net” tile theirs net of fees | Square’s “Net Sales” subtracts refunds and discounts but does NOT subtract fees. The “Deposits” view subtracts fees. This card subtracts neither. |
| Refresh lag | Ours lower for “today” | Our index updates on a periodic sync; the most recent 5, 15 minutes of POS transactions may not be in yet. Yesterday and earlier are fully caught up. |
| API rate limits | Ours lower for very high-volume merchants | Square Payments API caps at typically 30 requests/sec; for high-volume restaurants or retailers doing >50,000 transactions/day, the engine paginates at 100 per page and may defer the freshest minute or two. |
| Comparison | Expected relationship | When divergence is legitimate |
|---|---|---|
squ_total_volume ↔ shopify.total_revenue | square ≤ shopify (online subset) | Shopify shops using Square as the gateway via Square’s Shopify integration; Square’s online figure should be a subset of Shopify gross. |
squ_total_volume ↔ bigcommerce.total_revenue | square_online ≤ bigcommerce | Same logic; only the EXTERNAL subset reconciles. |
squ_total_volume (POS subset) ↔ commerce platform | No relationship | POS retail volume has no upstream commerce platform. It’s pure Square. |
squ_total_volume + stripe.stripe_total_revenue + paypal.pp_total_volume | ≈ total payment volume | For multi-PSP merchants, summing these approaches the all-channels total. Square will dominate for retail-led businesses; Stripe for SaaS / digital-only. |
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.