The payment system has added features to improve customer service, help you get paid more quickly and more.
Square is best known for its card readers and payment systems, but that's not all the company offers. Square country manager Ben Pfisterer wants you to know about these seven features that can help improve your business.
1. Virtual Terminal
Square’s Virtual Terminal feature allows a business to enter a customer’s credit or debit card information without the need for a card reader or app. This web interface means you and your employees can take payments either over the phone or in person.
Note that such ‘card not present’ transactions attract the higher merchant fee of 2.2 percent rather than the 1.9 percent that applies when a card is tapped, inserted or swiped, but you still get paid as soon as the next business day.
2. E-invoicing
Square lets you send as many e-invoices as you need from the Square Point of Sale app or the web interface. There's a ‘pay now’ button to make it quick and easy for your customers to settle up, and your customers can then pay you quickly and securely online with the click of a button.
The only charge associated with e-invoicing is the 2.2 percent fee when customers pay online. E-invoicing features include card on file (so your customers don't have to keep entering the details) and recurring and scheduled Invoices (handy for subscription or membership style situations).
3. Digital receipts
Rather than messing with pieces of paper, Square can automatically email a digital receipt to your customers each time they make a payment. These receipts can be customised with your business name and logo, and they can be used as a way to collect customer feedback and as a channel for privately resolving any issues.
From a customer's point of view, a handy feature of Square's digital receipts is that they default to the last email address used with that particular card. For example, if you're in a city where a lot of cab drivers use Square, you don't have to enter the address each time.
4. Integrated accounting software
Integration between Square Point of Sale and QuickBooks Online and Xero means Square transactions can flow automatically into your accounts.
This automation improves accuracy and reduces the need for manual data entry.
5. Business intelligence and reporting insights
Square Analytics extracts business insights from your point of sale data, including comparative sales reports, the busiest times of day, customer frequency and feedback, and sales numbers by an employee.
These reports are available at no charge from the Square dashboard.
6. Square payments APIs
It's not something most small businesses would take advantage of directly, but Square lets developers connect their applications to their mutual customers' payments and point of sale data with less than 10 lines of code via its application programming interfaces (APIs).
As a result, Square offers a marketplace of several third-party apps, ranging from e-commerce to inventory, that integrate with the payments and point of sale system.
7. Customer lists
The Square customer directory provides an easy way to store vital business information, and integrates with Square invoices to make getting paid a little easier.
You can upload an existing customer list (in CSV format), or manually add a customer’s details at the point of sale. The information is accessible via the Square Point of Sale app and the Square dashboard.
