How Square Sync Works
What syncs in each direction, on what schedule, and how Square fees, refunds and stock are handled
Sync runs on a schedule — you rarely need to touch it
Once your Square account is connected and its locations are mapped, Ardent Seller checks Square for completed sales and new fees about every 15 minutes, refreshes your items every 6 hours and, for listings set to auto push, sends stock counts back to each mapped Square location whenever your inventory changes. A daily reconciliation double-checks that both sides agree. Sync is scheduled, not instant: a sale you ring up now appears in Ardent Seller on the next run. The schedules apply after your first sync finishes, and pause while a connection is paused or disconnected.
What syncs, and in which direction
| Data | Direction | When |
|---|---|---|
| Completed sales | Square to Ardent Seller | About every 15 minutes — register and Square Online sales from every Square location, each becoming a sale transaction at the mapped location |
| Refunds | Square to Ardent Seller | With the sales sync — a full refund marks the sale returned, a partial refund is booked by amount |
| Payment processing fees | Square to Ardent Seller | About every 15 minutes, once Square reports each fee — booked as an expense on the Ledger tab |
| Items and variations | Square to Ardent Seller | Automatically every 6 hours |
| Square locations | Square to Ardent Seller | With the first sync, or on demand from the Locations tab |
| Stock count, per location | Ardent Seller to Square | For auto push listings, when a linked item’s stock changes at a mapped location — production, other channels’ sales, transfers, stocktakes |
A completed Square sale, whether rung up on the register or placed through Square Online, becomes a regular sale transaction named after its Square receipt number ("Square sale #…"), with each line matched to the linked inventory item and discounts and tax recorded. Tips and service charges come in as lines of their own, so the lines add up to what the customer paid. A gift card sold is left out of the sale, since it is money owed to the buyer until they spend it, and an order that only sold gift cards does not import; a purchase paid with a gift card imports as a normal sale. So when an order included a gift card, the imported sale total can be lower than Square's receipt total. The customer is matched or created when the sale carries a Square customer; otherwise, including a sale that carries only a payment email, it goes to the connection's walk-in customer. The sale is recorded at the Ardent Seller location mapped to the Square location where it was rung up, so it moves stock and feeds your reports like any other sale (see How Stock Moves). Lines with no linked item, such as custom amounts, keep their revenue but deduct no stock; find them with the Sales tab's Needs attention filter. Once you link an unlinked item to an existing product on the Listings tab with syncing on, its earlier sales deduct stock straight away (if there are a great many, the rest link overnight); with syncing off, they are relinked when you turn it back on. If you already adjusted stock by hand for those sales, reverse that adjustment first, or they are deducted twice. An item you turn into a new product with Create product relinks nothing: the new product starts from the stock Square reports, which already reflects those sales. Custom amounts have no item to link, so adjust their stock by hand.
What does not sync
- Open orders. Only completed sales import. An online order that is paid but still open in Square arrives once it is completed.
- Payouts. Square's processing fees are imported (see below), but your deposits and payout statements are not.
- Items, prices, descriptions and photos. Items flow one way, from Square into Ardent Seller, without their images. Ardent Seller only ever writes stock counts to Square; it never creates or edits an item in your Square catalog.
- Listing views. Square does not report how often an item is viewed, so there are no view analytics for a Square connection.
- Sales tax collected through Square is recorded on the sale, but Ardent Seller does not file or remit it.
Square fees and Schedule C
Square charges a payment processing fee on card payments, and reports it a little while after the payment, usually within minutes. Ardent Seller picks each fee up on the next sync once Square reports it and lists it on the connection's Ledger tab. Each fee is booked as an expense named "Square payment processing fee", dated the day of the payment, filed under the IRS Schedule C Commissions and Fees category (line 10), and linked to its sale once that sale is in Ardent Seller; a fee that arrives first is linked when its sale is imported. A fee linked to a sale is booked at the same location as that sale. Cash sales carry no fee, so they have no ledger entry.
When a refund changes a fee, Square reports an adjustment, which arrives the same way as its own ledger entry ("Square payment processing fee credit" when it is money back to you). A fee that has not appeared yet is not lost: Ardent Seller keeps looking back over recent payments for fees Square settles late. To check now rather than wait, run Sync Ledger from the connection's Sync Options. The fees then show up in your Schedule C and profit reports (see the Measure guide) like any other expense.
Refunds
Refunds you give in Square come through on the next sales sync. A full refund marks the imported sale as returned. A partial refund is booked as a refund adjustment for exactly the amount Square refunded, and a second partial refund on the same sale adds only the new amount. If the rest of the sale is refunded later, the sale is marked returned and its earlier partial refund adjustments are canceled, since the returned sale already covers them; the audit trail notes why. Ardent Seller never issues a refund itself; refunds always start in Square.
Stock per location
Square holds a count for every item variation at every location, and Ardent Seller pushes to each mapped location separately. When a production run finishes at your workshop, the workshop's Square location goes up; when you move stock to a market location, that location's count follows. The push sends the on-hand quantity at the mapped Ardent Seller location minus your Safety Buffer, a per-connection reserve that protects you from overselling. Locations you have not mapped, or switched off on the Locations tab, are never written to.
Automatic pushes only reach listings set to Auto push. Newly linked listings start on Manual only, which leaves your Square counts alone until you push by hand. Change the default for the connection, and optionally every listing already linked, in the connection's Settings, or switch one listing in its details. The same product sold through Square and listed on Etsy or Shopify shares one inventory item: a sale imported from one channel is passed on to the others' auto push listings within about 15 minutes, and the safety buffer covers anything that sells in between.
Manual sync controls
You don't need to run syncs by hand, but you can. Open your connection from Settings → Integrations (open Integrations) to find:
- "Sync All" — runs every sync type now (available while the connection is active).
- "Sync Options" — a dropdown to run one type: "Sync Listings", "Sync Sales", "Sync Ledger", or "Push Inventory".
- "Backfill History" — imports older sales beyond your first sync's import window.
- "Refresh from store" on the Locations tab — pulls the location list again after you add or rename locations in Square.
- "Pause Sync" and "Resume Sync" — stop and restart all scheduled syncing without disconnecting.
Manual syncs run in the background and may take a few minutes; the last-sync cards on the connection page show when each type last ran.
When you reach your transaction limit
Imported sales count toward your plan's monthly transaction limit. If a sales sync would exceed it, the extra sales are queued, not lost; they import automatically when capacity is available, or sooner if you upgrade. Historical backfills cap themselves at 75% of your monthly limit to leave room for manual transactions. See Billing & Plans for how limits work on each plan.
Daily reconciliation
Every day at 02:00 UTC, Ardent Seller compares the count it expects for each linked variation at each mapped location against the count Square actually holds, and records any difference in the sync log with a reason. Reconciliation also recovers sales the regular sync missed by queueing them automatically.
Small gaps caused by sync timing clear on their own within a day and never need action. A difference that persists usually means a count was changed directly in Square; the sync log entry names the item and location so you can decide which side is right.
Troubleshooting
| What you see | What to check |
|---|---|
| A sale I just rang up is not in Ardent Seller yet | Sales arrive on the next run, about every 15 minutes, and only once the order is completed in Square. Run Sync Sales from Sync Options to check now. |
| A sale imported but no stock came off | The line was a custom amount, or its Square item is not linked yet. Filter the Sales tab to Needs attention, then link the item on the Listings tab (or adjust stock by hand for a custom amount). |
| A sale total is lower than Square’s, or a Square sale is missing | Check whether the order included a gift card. A gift card sold is left out of the sale, since it is owed to the buyer until spent, and an order that only sold gift cards does not import. A purchase paid with a gift card imports as a normal sale. |
| A card sale has no fee on the Ledger tab | Square reports the fee a little after the payment. Wait for the next sync or run Sync Ledger. Cash sales never carry a fee. |
| A sale landed at the wrong location | Check the Locations tab: the Square location it was rung up at may be unmapped or switched off, in which case it goes to the fallback mapping or the connection’s default location. |
| Square counts are not changing when my stock changes | The listing may be on Manual only (switch it to Auto push in its details or the connection’s Settings), the item may not be linked, or its Square location may be unmapped or switched off. |
| Register sales are all under one customer | That is the walk-in customer, used for sales with no customer attached. Pick a different one, or None, under Walk-in customer in the connection’s Settings. |
| The connection says its authorization has expired | Click Reconnect and approve again on Square, signed in as the same Square account. Your links, mappings and settings are kept. |
The connection's Sync Log tab records each sync that found new data or hit an error, with a status of Success, Partial, Failed or Skipped. Repeated failures pause syncing for a while on their own; a connection whose Square access has ended shows a Reconnect button.
The term “Square” is a trademark of Block, Inc. This application uses the Square API but is not endorsed or certified by Block, Inc.
Related articles
Connect Your Square Account
Connect a Square account to Ardent Seller — approving access on Square, running the first sync, mapping Square locations to your locations, linking items to inventory, the walk-in customer and custom-amount sales, and how disconnect and reconnect work.
How Shopify Sync Works
What the Shopify integration syncs and when — paid orders every 15 minutes, products every 6 hours, stock pushed per location when inventory changes, what does not sync, manual sync controls, and daily reconciliation in Ardent Seller.
Billing & Plans
Every Ardent Seller plan compared — prices, transaction limits, users, locations, and storage — plus how Pay As You Go credits, annual billing, signup bonuses, and plan changes work.