Business Technology Square - Mobile POS terminal

Discussion in 'Starting & Running a Business' started by JetstreamVic, 20th Jan, 2022.

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  1. JetstreamVic

    JetstreamVic Well-Known Member

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    Hey all,

    Anyone used square as a in field pos terminal? Did you like it? Are there any alternatives?

    Cheap to setup at $59, then 1.9% of revenue.

    Thanks
     
  2. Westminster

    Westminster Tigress at Tiger Developments Business Member

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    I know a few that do from my dog wash lady to a local cafe who prefer it to a bank one. Another cafe nearby uses it as back up to their bank Eftpos machine because they need to be able to accept payment if their main internet, power, bank outage or terminal break.

    they all find it easy to use. Fiddliest thing is sending receipts via text but not everyone wants a receipt
     
  3. Simon Hampel

    Simon Hampel Founder Staff Member

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    We use one at our Little Athletics club for card payments in our canteen and for our BBQ - we stopped accepting cash because of COVID.

    We looked for an alternative to using the terminal provided by our bank because it was too expensive and not contactless.

    Our canteen officer finds the square really easy to use - has it linked to a tablet.

    Feedback from other people when using square devices has been good.
     
  4. inertia

    inertia Well-Known Member

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    Do you know how the payments actually work? Do you just set up an login with Square, and tell it where to deposit the money? How do you go with user access on the tablet? Do you know if there is any security risk having volunteers using it? Does it need to be supervised by a committee member?

    I'm trying to work out if we could implement this sort of thing for school canteen/fundraisers, and how much equipment we would need to obtain.
     
  5. Simon Hampel

    Simon Hampel Founder Staff Member

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    I wasn't involved in the setup or usage of the square - so I don't know any of these answers.

    Hopefully someone else has more insight?

    I did set up the payment system we use for the club's online uniform store (WooCommerce and Stripe) - but that's completely independent of the square we use for in-person / POS transactions.
     
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  6. SatayKing

    SatayKing Well-Known Member

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  7. Kubcat

    Kubcat Member

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    We have over 40 square terminals so the last thing we want is the money being transferred to someone elses account.

    There are different security levels so you can 'lock' the bank account. Different passwords for different levels.

    We found the setup quite straightforward. There are tutorials along the way to help.

    You need to reconcile daily because how do you know they haven't just purchased their own terminal. They all look the same.

    The money is deposited into your account next business day.
     
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  8. geoffw

    geoffw Moderator Staff Member

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    I've just talked with a tradie who accepted payment using a Square device. He absolutely loves it. It's much cheaper than the bank - once having bought the device, there are no ongoing fees apart from the 1.9%, unlike the bank. It reconciled daily, and payments are in the bank the next day. I've had my details recorded in Square before, so that my email and phone are available to be used by the tradie, though they're not shown to him - that means he could send a receipt via email or SMS immediately.