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Square Hybrid Sync Overview

Square Hybrid Sync accounts let you manage your catalog in Square, sync inventory through Thrive, and automatically update your Shopify store.

Cynthia Rivera avatar
Written by Cynthia Rivera
Updated this week

Is Square Hybrid Sync right for your business?

Square Hybrid Sync accounts are best for merchants who:

  • manage their product catalog exclusively in Square

  • will start using Shopify for online sales

  • want Square to remain the primary source of product information

This is not ideal for merchants whose main catalog lives in Shopify, or those with more complex setups involving multiple locations or integrations.

This information is specific to Square Hybrid Sync Accounts. To view how Thrive usually syncs, click here.


How Hybrid Syncing Works

With Square Hybrid Sync, your catalog and inventory flow between Square, Thrive, and Shopify in specific ways. Here’s how it works:

Product Information

  • Square is the source of truth for your product information.

  • Thrive pulls catalog details from Square and pushes them to Shopify.

  • Items created directly in Shopify will not sync back—your products must originate in Square.

Inventory Counts

  • Inventory updates can be made in either Square or Thrive.

  • Thrive reconciles counts between the two and pushes the latest numbers to Shopify/Square.

  • Sales made in Shopify automatically reduce inventory in Thrive, which then syncs back to Square.

This setup ensures Square always controls your core product data, while Thrive manages syncing across all connected platforms.

Field Mapping

Square ➡️

Thrive ➡️

Shopify

Name

Product Name

Product Title

Categories

Categories

Tags

Description

Product Description

Description

SKU

SKU

SKU

GTIN

Barcode

Barcode

Variants

Variants

Variants

Price

Price

Price

Images

Product Images

Product Images

Modifiers

Modifiers

X


Managing Product Availability to Shopify

You can select which products from Square sync to Shopify. Once Thrive is connected, this option will appear under your Custom Attributes in Square:

You can toggle it per product or update multiple products at once.


Sync Trouble?

If you notice something isn’t syncing correctly, the first step is to double-check that the information is accurate in Square, since Square is the source of truth.

Changes made in Square should appear in Thrive within 2–3 minutes on average (up to 10 minutes in some cases), and then sync through to Shopify. The same timing applies to sales. Orders in Shopify or Square update inventory quantities in Thrive, which then sync back out.


Things to Note:

  • Cost does not sync from Square to Thrive

  • Shopify-specific fields, not listed in the table above, must be edited directly in Shopify.

  • Features such as Bulk Uploads for product details, SKU Generation, Barcode generation, etc. are not available on Square Hybrid Sync Accounts

  • Fields in Thrive that are not available on Square (such as Reorder Target, Reorder Point, Shelf Life) are not editable yet, but will be available in a future update!

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