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Create and edit open tickets

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Who is this article for?
Sellers with the checkout permission to view all open tickets for individual team members. Set permissions in Square Dashboard.

About open tickets

Turn on and use Open Tickets to create, edit and save an order before completing the sale at a later time on your mobile device or Square hardware. You can also print a bill before closing a ticket. Open tickets are helpful for restaurants and other businesses that want to create and add to a ticket then process payment later.

Before you begin

Before you can create open tickets, you need to enable Open Tickets. You have two options for enabling Open Tickets: 

  • Turn on Open Tickets from your Square Dashboard. You enable these through device profiles, which apply settings across a group of devices. Learn how to create and assign device profiles. 

  • Turn on Open Tickets from the Square POS apps.

Once you enable open tickets, you have two options for creating open tickets from the Square POS apps:

  • Create a new ticket before a sale

  • Create a new ticket during a sale

Once an open ticket is created, you can edit the ticket name and optional note from the Square POS apps.

Tickets open longer than 180 days will be removed from your account.

Open Tickets have a limit of 500 items and will be marked as full when the limit is met. If an open ticket reaches the item limit, you can save the ticket and create a new one. You can still delete, split, void, comp, or edit the name or notes of the ticket once it reaches the item limit. You will not be able to save or merge open tickets if doing so would result in the ticket having more than 500 items. Learn how to comp and void open tickets.

Step 1: Turn on Open Tickets

Square Dashboard

  1. Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Settings > Device Management.
  2. Click Profiles > Device profiles.
  3. Select an existing profile and click Manage under Settings.
  4. Click the Open Tickets Add-on. Click + and click Add for Free next to Open Tickets to add the Add-on.
  5. Toggle ON Use on this profile.
  6. Adjust your open ticket preferences and click Save.

Square POS apps

  1. Open your Square POS app.
  2. Tap ≡ More > Add-ons > Open Tickets.
  3. Tap Add for free.

If you use multiple devices with a single Square account, you can access any open ticket from any logged-in device.

Step 2: Create an open ticket

Create a new ticket before a sale from the Square POS apps

  1. Open your Square POS app.
  2. Tap Checkout > Tickets.
  3. Tap New Ticket or tap, dip, or swipe the customer’s payment card.
  4. Enter a ticket name and an optional note, then tap Save.
  5. Add items or custom amounts to the ticket.
  6. Tap Save ticket.
  7. If an open ticket reaches the item limit, select Save ticket and create a new one.

Create a new ticket during a sale from the Square POS apps

  1. Open your Square POS app.
  2. Tap Checkout and add items or enter a custom amount.
  3. Tap Save ticket > New Ticket or tap, dip, or swipe the customer’s payment card.
  4. Enter a ticket name and an optional note, then tap Save.
If you use a customer’s credit card to create a new open ticket, the card will not be charged at that time and their payment information will not be stored within the Square POS apps. If it’s available, only the cardholder’s name will be associated with the new open ticket. You can override the cardholder name at any time by updating the ticket name.

Step 3: Edit an open ticket (optional)

  1. Open your Square POS app.

  2. Tap Checkout > Tickets.

  3. Select an open ticket.

  4. Tap Review sale > ••• > Edit ticket.

  5. Make changes to the ticket name and notes.

  6. Tap Save.

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