Square POS

About Square

Square is a POS provider that offers a complete business system, including employee management, forecasting, and multiple-location options for its payments system and software. It has also developed a card reader, Square Reader, which facilitates payments from multiple cards and devices without a wired connection.

Features

Square has focused its services on location and employee management, marketing themselves as offering a full business management system that goes beyond taking and recording payments. For example:

• Create employee access levels and report on individual sales and records.
• Clock-in and clock-out system for time management.
• Set different prices for different locations for the same product.
• Set up new locations in under five minutes.
• Square Analytics allows for detailed reporting on every aspect of sales and employee performance.
• Card reader is portable and wireless, with Bluetooth connection to terminal or smartphone/tablet.

Hardware

The Square reader uses BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) to connect to Apple or Android smartphones and tablets, however, the Square store offers an iPad add-on to its stand and advertises compatibility with all old and new Apple devices first and foremost. The Square Stand comes with three USB connections for the charging dock, tablet, and receipt printer.

Accepted cards

Square accepts Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Maestro, Visa Electron, or Vpay but it doesn’t support Discover, JCB, or Union Pay.

Data security

Square is PCI-DSS level 1 compliant and uses SSL encryption for data transfer. No card numbers are stored in the application and security updates are installed automatically.

Support

Square has a large list of articles that are intuitively organised on the website. They also have FAQs and regular updates on industry security issues. For full support, customers are required to create an account to receive personalised assistance as Square do not advertise email and phone details.

Costs and fees

Square tries to keep pricing simple. There are no long-term commitments or hidden fees as you pay for what you need and you never pay when you’re not using it. They also provide additional tools and added extras for free such as real-time analytics and PCI compliance.

Square Reader will cost you £29 + VAT. Chip and PIN or contactless payments are charged at 1.75% and they accept every major card for the same rate. You can also take card payments from customers over the phone using Virtual Terminal or you can use invoicing or eCommerce payments.

Videos

Social media

Square have tweeted over 12,000 times since setting up their social media. You can follow them on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Conclusion

Square is a widely used POS provider that offers one of the market’s smallest card readers and standard POS hardware (stand, dock, receipt printer, and tablet/smartphone compatibility). Its focus on multiple employees, monitoring sales, and being able to differentiate prices between stores have made it popular among vendors with multiple locations to manage.

Top Image: Monkey Business Images | Shutterstock