On September 7th, payment processor Square experienced a service outage impacting tens of thousands of sellers worldwide who found themselves unable to accept credit cards or access vital business records.

Just before noon Pacific Time on the 7th, Square identified a service disruption at a data center. According to Web watchdog Down Detector, users started experiencing problems around 2:30 that afternoon, eventually peaking around 4:30 the next day.

Although Square posted updates on its status page and on the X platform (formerly Twitter), users couldn’t access live help and weren’t informed via email until almost 7:30 p.m. on the 8th. Many expressed frustrations over being left in the dark. “Square gave zero communication…which I understand may have been part of the crash but even on social media nothing was said until eight hours into the crash,” said the president of the Elm Grove, W.V., Business Association.

In that first email to users, Square simply acknowledged the situation, saying, “Since around noon [Pacific Time] on Thursday, sellers have been unable to access accounts or process payments due to a systems outage within Square. We know you trust us with your business, and these situations add challenges to running your operations. For that, we are truly sorry.”

On its status page, Square indicated the outage particularly impacted Square Stands and readers connected via USB on point-of-sale systems, inordinately affecting small stores, local cafes, and on-farm markets that use Square as their cash register. Square’s team tried to deploy fixes and posted on X about workarounds like using offline payments. However, many discovered that “Offline Mode” wouldn’t even function. One retailer had his employees resort to writing down credit card numbers to enter later. Many discovered offline transactions weren’t credited, meaning merchandise potentially left their stores unpaid.

Given Square’s 2-million-plus user base, and the number of shoppers – even in rural communities – who pay by credit card, the outage had profound financial implications. In an NBC News interview, Pennsylvania restauranteur Adam Blackbill said he’d lost $8,000-$10,000.

Some retailers, like Hinton’s Orchard and Farm Market in Hodgenville, Ky., tried to operate on a cash and check basis. They informed customers, “Due to what appears to be a widespread outage with the Square register system that we use for processing credit cards we will only be able to accept cash and checks until the system is restored.” Others who weren’t prepared for cash-only operations were forced to close early.

Businesses with nearby ATMs had an advantage as did those comfortable using peer-to-peer alternatives like Venmo. Unfortunately, one of the more popular ones, Cash App, is owned by Square’s parent company and was also impacted by the outage. That left customers frustrated. One Michigan show attendee said, “What a pain trying to pay and nothing works.”

No less important, problems extended beyond credit card processing. Many small businesses utilize Square’s back end for their businesses and reported that everything from invoicing to shipping functions was inaccessible. The Square status page confirmed disruptions to billing, balance checking and transfers. A store owner in Tillamook, Ore., said, “I can’t even access my inventory to look up prices.”

While the outage was regarded as nationwide, the effects were global. Vendors as distant as Australia were impacted. The Junee Licorice & Chocolate Factory in New South Wales had to resort to all cash payments. “Eighty percent of our customers pay with a card and that isn’t happening today because of technical issues with Square.”

By late Friday, the 8th, Square had things resolved. Still, vendors at shows like a farmers market in Marietta, Ohio, came prepared for cash-only transactions in case problems recurred. Even local officials took preemptive measures to inform visitors coming to their area’s events. At the Ohio Honey Festival in Lithopolis officials posted on Facebook, “Please be prepared if you plan to come to the Honeyfest or Farmers Market this weekend. We do have one ATM onsite but would like to encourage our visitors to come prepared [with cash], as we anticipate a large crowd and we may not be able to accommodate overwhelming ATM usage.”

Unfortunately, at events that began on the 7th or early the next day, vendors had to wade through the challenge. Maxwell’s Pumpkin Farm in Amarillo Texas, had to extend their “Flash Sale” two extra days to make up for lost sales.

On Monday around 8:30 a.m., Square finally emailed users with an explanation.

“While making several standard changes to our internal network software, the combination of updates prevented our systems from properly communicating with each other and ultimately caused the disruption. The issue also affected many of our internal tools for troubleshooting and support, making them temporarily unavailable. There is no evidence that this was a cybersecurity event or that any seller or buyer data was compromised by the outage.”