WooCommerce Square: Sync Settings

WooCommerce Square can be used for managing inventories and also as a payment gateway. You can configure the plugin to use either one of them or both!

This documentation section is dedicated to guiding you through the inventory sync settings. Before we delve into the specifics of configuring these settings, please make sure that your site meets these requirements and that you have connected your Square account to your site.

Requirements for the WooCommerce Square Sync

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To ensure a smooth integration and operation of WooCommerce Square, please take note of the following requirements:

1. Ensure Connection: Before proceeding, make sure that your WooCommerce store is already connected to your Square account.
2. Background Processing: Ensure that your website supports background processing. This is essential for syncing product data between Square and WooCommerce.

WooCommerce Square Sync General Settings

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Diving into the General Settings of WooCommerce Square, here’s what you need to know:

1. Business Location: Choose the Square location you wish to link with your WooCommerce store. Only active locations with credit card processing enabled will be listed.
2. Sync Settings: Decide where you will update data for synced products. You can choose to have changes in WooCommerce overwrite Square data, or vice versa.
3. Sync Inventory: Enable this to keep your inventory counts in sync between WooCommerce and Square. Remember, inventory editing should be done in the platform you’ve chosen as your Sync setting.
4. Handle Missing Products: Decide how to handle products that are in WooCommerce but not found in Square. You can choose to hide these products in WooCommerce.
5. Sync Interval: Determines how frequently WooCommerce will sync products with Square, ensuring your product catalog is always current.
6. Connection: You can connect or disconnect your WooCommerce store from Square.
7. Import Products: Use this feature to import new products or product changes from Square into WooCommerce. Products must have unique SKUs in Square to be imported.
8. Detailed Decline Messages: This feature shows customers detailed explanations for declined transactions, instead of just a general error message, whenever possible.
9. Debug Mode: This setting helps troubleshoot transaction issues by tracking detailed information. Use this feature to better understand and solve payment problems.
10. Enable Logging: Turn this on if you’re experiencing issues with the plugin. It helps in diagnosing problems by saving debug messages under WooCommerce > Status > Logs. Log files start with square.

Enabling Inventory Sync for Products

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To share product information and inventory between Square and WooCommerce, you must enable syncing for each product at the product-level. Please make sure that the product has a SKU, this is how products are matched between Square and WooCommerce.

Inventory Sync for Products can be done individually by enabling ‘Sync with Square’ for each product or in bulk for multiple products at once. See the steps below for guidance on either method.

Product Level

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1. Navigate to Products > All Products.
2. Edit the product.
3. Enable the Sync with Square checkbox.
4. Click Update.

Bulk Editing

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1. Navigate to Products > All Products.
2. Select the products you want to update.
3. From the Bulk Actions menu, select “Edit” and click ‘Apply’
4. Update the Sync with Square? field to “Yes”.
5. Click Update.

Sync Product data from WooCommerce to Square

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Settings

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Integrating WooCommerce with Square allows for seamless synchronization of your product data, ensuring your inventory is up-to-date across both platforms.

If you’ve chosen WooCommerce as your Sync Setting (known as System of Record in versions before 3.4.0), you’ll find several configurable options mentioned below on the settings screen along with general settings:

1. Sync Inventory: When Sync Inventory is enabled, inventory updates are pushed from WooCommerce to Square.

Product Data Synchronization

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When you select WooCommerce as your Sync Setting (known as System of Record in versions before 3.4.0), the extension will automatically update product data in Square to match the product data in WooCommerce. Please make sure that the “Sync with Square” is enabled at the product level.

This synchronization covers the following product data:

• Product Name: The name of your product
• Product Price: The selling price of your product.
• Product Description: Detailed information about your product.
• Inventory Count: Updated based on WooCommerce inventory, if inventory sync is enabled at the product level in WooCommerce.
• Product Image: Updated to match WooCommerce product image.

• Product Category: The category under which your product is classified.

Please note that only the product data specified above will be synchronized. This means that any product information not mentioned, such as the titles and images for variation products, will not be included in the sync.

Stock Update Process

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The synchronization between WooCommerce and Square operates based on a set interval configured in the “Sync Interval”.

For effective sync, ensure that the SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) matches between WooCommerce and Square products, that the Business Location is set correctly within the WooCommerce > Settings > Square, and that you have enabled the “Sync with Square” setting at the product level.

Here’s how the process works:

• Automatic Sync: The plugin will send updated information from WooCommerce to Square whenever you make a change to a synced product via manual edit in WooCommerce, import, or API.
• Manual Sync: You can manually trigger a sync to immediately reflect changes made in your WooCommerce store to Square.
• Manual Fetching Stock at Product Level: You can manually fetch stock for a particular product by clicking on the “Fetch stock from Square” under Product Data > Inventory tab.

Sync Product data from Square to WooCommerce

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Settings

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If you’ve chosen Square as your Sync Setting (known as System of Record in versions before 3.4.0), you’ll find several configurable options mentioned below on the settings screen along with general settings:

1. Sync Inventory: This setting allows you to fetch inventory changes from Square automatically.
2. Override Product Images: When product images are updated in Square, enabling this option will also update those images within your WooCommerce store during a sync. By default, Product images will be imported from Square if no featured image is set in WooCommerce.
3. Handle Missing Products: Products not found in Square will be hidden in the WooCommerce product catalog. If this setting is disabled, no action will be taken against missing products beyond a notification in the Sync records section.

Product Data Synchronization

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When you select Square as your Sync Setting (known as System of Record in versions before 3.4.0), the extension will automatically update product data in WooCommerce to match the product data in Square. Please make sure that the “Sync with Square” is enabled at the product level.

This synchronization covers the following product data:

• Product Name: The name of your product
• Product Price: The selling price of your product.
• Product Description: Detailed information about your product.
• Inventory Count: Updated based on Square’s inventory if inventory sync is enabled at the product level in WooCommerce.
• Product Image: Updated to match Square’s product image if the “Override Product Images” setting is enabled. If not, by default, Product images will be imported from Square if no featured image is set in WooCommerce.

• Product Category: The category under which your product is classified.

Please note that only the product data specified above will be synchronized. This means that any product information not mentioned, such as the titles and images for variation products, will not be included in the sync.

Stock Update Process

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The synchronization between Square and WooCommerce operates based on a set interval configured in the “Sync Interval”.

For effective sync, ensure that the SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) matches between Square and WooCommerce products, that the Business Location is set correctly within the WooCommerce > Settings > Square, and have enabled the “Sync with Square” setting at the product level.

Here’s how the process works:

• Automatic Sync: Square will sync information with WooCommerce at regular intervals based on the “Sync Interval” setting. This includes updates to product names, prices, descriptions, categories, inventory counts, and images (if enabled).
• Manual Sync: You can manually trigger a sync to immediately reflect changes made in Square on your WooCommerce store.
• Manual Fetching Stock at Product Level: You can manually fetch stock for a particular product by clicking on the “Fetch stock from Square” under Product Data > Inventory tab.

Manually Sync Products Between WooCommerce and Square

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To facilitate the synchronization of product data between WooCommerce and Square, merchants have the option to manually initiate a sync at any time. This ensures that your product records in both systems are consistent and up-to-date. Before you can manually sync products, ensure that the product you wish to sync is set up to Sync with Square.

Follow the below steps to manually sync your products:

1. In your WordPress dashboard, go to WooCommerce > Settings.
2. Click on the Square section to access Square settings.
3. Within the Square settings, click on the Update tab.
4. Click the Sync Now button to start the manual synchronization process.

Once the synchronization process begins, you can track its progress and results in the Sync Records section. Here, you’ll find a brief overview of the sync details.

If you have opted in for the “Square sync completed” email notification, designated recipients will receive an email about the sync results once the process is complete.

Receive Sync Progress Emails

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If you have a large inventory, synchronizing your products between WooCommerce and Square may take a while. To keep you informed when a manual sync is completed, you can opt to receive a notification email.

You can set up the Square sync completion notification by following the below steps:

1. Navigate to WooCommerce > Settings > Emails in your WordPress dashboard.
2. Click on Square Sync Completed
3. Tick the Enable checkbox to activate notifications for when Square sync is complete.
4. Specify the email addresses that should receive this notification in the provided field. If you wish to add multiple recipients, separate each email address with a comma.
5. Once you’ve made your adjustments, click Save Changes to apply your settings.

Now you’ll be notified via email once the synchronization process between WooCommerce and Square is finished, helping you manage your product listings more efficiently.

Advanced Settings

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Detailed Decline Messages

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Enable this option to give your customers specific reasons why their payment didn’t go through at checkout, instead of just telling them their payment was declined.

Debug Mode

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Debug mode is like a detective tool for your website. It helps you find out what went wrong during the payment process. It’s turned off when you first set things up, but you can choose to turn it on if you need it. Here are the options:

• Show on Checkout Page: If a customer’s payment isn’t going through, and you want to see what’s wrong right there on the checkout page, turn this on. It lets you see detailed error messages right where the problem is happening.
• Save to Log: This option keeps a record of any issues in a special log inside your website (you can find it under WooCommerce > Status > Logs). It’s useful for checking what went wrong later on. Log files start with square_credit_card. 
• Both: You can choose both options if you want to see the errors on the checkout page and save them for later.

By using debug mode, you’re making a note of any hiccups in a log file, which can help you or a professional fix them later.

Frequently Asked Questions

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My variable products are not syncing from WooCommerce to Square.

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There are limitations on the Square side regarding attributes and variations. Check your attributes and variations and make sure they are under these limits:

• Maximum number of attributes per product: 6
• Maximum number of terms per attribute: 250
• Maximum character length of attribute name: 65
• Maximum number of variations per product: 250

For more information about these limits, refer to the Square documentation for CatalogItem and CatalogItemVariation objects.

When the Sync with Square option is enabled on the product, validation errors will display when saving the product settings if any of the attributes or variations exceed these limits.

Why is the business location in my Square settings greyed out?

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This is often caused by a communication issue between servers. First, check if communication is being blocked by any security or firewall plugins or settings. If that doesn’t resolve this:

• check to make sure that your server has cURL installed under WooCommerce > System Status
• check to ensure there are no issues with your site’s SSL certificate
• carry out a conflict test

Why is business location not showing in my Square settings?

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Check in your Square account to confirm that you are the owner of the location in question and have completed your Square onboarding process.

How are sale prices synced between WooCommerce and Square?

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When Square is set as the Sync setting, the base price in Square will always be imported as the regular price in WooCommerce. However, when WooCommerce is set as the Sync Setting, and there is a Sale Price set for a synced product in WooCommerce, that price will be set as the base price in Square for the matching product.

If Sync is enabled, will my sales/order data in Square be synced to WooCommerce?

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Sales orders are not synced with WooCommerce Square. Currently, sync only works for Product data.

Is there a product description character limit for products to be able to sync?

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Square has a character limit of 4095 characters for product descriptions. If you have products with long descriptions that aren’t syncing, check their character length.

Does WooCommerce Square integrate with Square Appointments?

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No, the Square Appointments feature is not available in the latest version of our WooCommerce Square plugin.

Will Automatic Sync trigger on days that my site has no traffic?

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The Square automatic sync works with Action Scheduler and Action Scheduler relies on WP-Cron unless your site is using a server-level Cron. This means that there is a possibility that the sync job will not trigger until there is some traffic on the site. That includes admins, so if you log in to your admin area, that’ll trigger the cron and thus the sync.

How does WooCommerce Square handle tax-inclusive pricing?

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WooCommerce Square does not support tax-inclusive pricing. Please ensure that your Square tax rates match your WooCommerce tax rates. If you have set your site to use tax-inclusive pricing under WooCommerce > Settings > Tax, you will see a notification when editing products to this effect.

My Square sync is stuck. How do I fix it?

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Sometimes the syncing process could get stuck. When this happens, automatic and manual sync won’t work. In cases like these, try the following troubleshooting steps:

• Use the Clear Square Sync tool: Clearing the current sync process often resolves this. You can do this by going to WooCommerce > Status > Tools and using the Clear Square Sync tool to stop your current sync. You can then try another sync.
• Delete the Square actions in the Pending and In Progress filters: Sometimes using the Clear Square Sync tool won’t resolve a sync that has frozen. In this case, go to WooCommerce > Status > Scheduled Actions, search for the Square actions in the Pending and In Progress filters, and delete them. New actions will be created immediately and the stuck actions will be gone.