Square
Description Square is a cloud-based point of sale (POS) system that was developed with those in the retail sector in mind. It is an efficient software that comprises of tools for inventory, employee, and customer management at large. It is a tool that can be used by multiple businesses to follow up and manage a myriad of store inventories together with creating customer profiles. The software is highly efficient as it includes an integrated time clock that allows your employees to clock in and out at the cash register. The software is designed to run on smartphones and tablets. It operates on both Android and iOS devices, and you can download it free of charge from Google play drive or Apple Store. Review When it comes to efficiency in inventory management, you can rely on Square to fulfill all your requirements. The tool allows you to track, transfer, and attune your stock over a number of store locations. In case your inventory runs low, you will receive an alert so that you can know when to make purchases. The platform also allows users to create purchase orders, which they can send to their vendors. Through this platform, you can generate the costs of goods you have sold and come up with various reports. What’s more, you can use the app on your mobile. It is also one of the most affordable POS systems for small and mid-sized businesses. Square’s basic POS software comes with its payment processing service. Here, you only pay for the transactions that you have processed, and there are no monthly or annual fees involved. This POS system also supports a card reader, which allows you to accept both credit and debit cards as payment systems. Square users enjoy a flat rate for processing these payments at 2.75 percent. Square also has an advanced retail POS solution that goes for $60 per month. Other rates are 3.5 percent plus $0.15 for all keyed transactions and 2.9 percent plus $0.30 for online transactions. This is quite a good deal even for new vendors with a shorter processing history. Interestingly, Square POS also works online by providing you with a record of all the transactions regardless of your internet strength. It is able to provide such services because it stores data locally. All the data will be synchronized automatically when you connect to the internet. Square also has other numerous features that allow you to manage important business details. On the downside, Square can terminate accounts when the risk department concludes that a certain business is a huge liability. This happens because the POS system is a third-party processor.
- Payment processing
- POS app
- Virtual terminal
- E-commerce/online ordering
- Order pickup
- Webstore hosting
- Payment gateway for e-commerce sites
- E-invoicing
- It is an all-in-one payments system.
- There are no monthly fees.
- It has a ton of excellent features.
- It is suitable for a wide range of businesses, including low-volume businesses.
- It has free tools for selling online.
- Chip card readers are affordable.
- It is not an ideal tool for high-risk businesses.
- Accounts can be terminated abruptly.
- The waiting period for new products is too long for some users.
- Compared to the website, the phone app is somehow constrained.
I’ve had square since ... I’m pretty sure 2010.. low volume needs, So no annual fees or membership costs is ideal, just pray you don’t need ANY form of customer service, or encounter a dispute of any kind. Not only do they make zero attempt to cater to their own clients, they seem to relish the chance to be rude, abrupt, and completely unhelpful. The first instance I encountered a problem, $300 had vanished from my bank account, quickly traced to Square, my phone app cited “goods returned” by customer, refunded. The only thing I sell is tattoos, and returning one would require dismemberment, an unpleasant occurrence that I assure you I would remember. When I contacted Square and asked for an explanation, as this was clearly a mistake on their part, they insisted that I had initiated the refund by means of my phone application. I had not, and when I expressed this, they argued with me that the only way this was possible was by my doing. I again assured them I had not refunded anything to anyone, so either it was a pocket dial refund (to which they expressed that was impossible due to the number of precise steps it would take for that to process) or my account had been hacked ... I believe the employee chuckled at that, oddly I was not amused. They had no suggestions for me as to who I should contact to rectify the erroneous “return” that I DID NOT initiate. ...at any rate I was missing money that I had earned and wanted returned to me. Not only did they deny me any assistance whatsoever, they wouldn’t even give me my customers into so that I could contact them and redo the transaction. Eventually I was able to figure out who it was and although embarrassing, I had to reach out to the customer myself and request they pay me again, this time with cash. I stopped accepting credit cards for a year as a result of the poor customer service I experienced...I had been a client for 5 years and that clearly meant nothing to Square. Recently (last year) I slowly started accepting credit cards again and next thing you know, a $300 transaction complete with $15 tip was disputed and taken from my account. I wasn’t notified prior, there was no opportunity to question the action, by the time I saw it it had already happened. I contacted Square, they informed me that the client had disputed the transaction claiming they didn’t know what it was for, I had recently changed the bank account accepting Square payments, and hadn’t set up the account to display my logo or business name, it only appeared as my name. As soon as the client realized this, they cancelled the dispute. Even though the funds had immediately been taken from my account claiming I had no chip reader only mag swipe hardware so the dispute was automatically found in their favor, even though this was not what was contested or the reason for dispute...the client had not received the refund, and had, as far as they were concerned, successfully cancelled the dispute. I on the other hand, was passed back and forth between Square and the clients bank for literally weeks, ran around in circles, each passing the buck numerous times, leaving me sitting on hold 45 min, hour at a clip, often to be asked to hold for the right department, and then after another 20 min on hold, I was just hung up on. This happened more than twice. To wrap this up, Square told me I should just contact the client and run the card again. But they had not received a refund, so I would be asking them to pay twice.. I told Square this, they were of no help. After 2 1/2 months of mindblowing incompetence on both parties account, I was told I’d receive the refund but I’d have to be patient. That was September of 2018. I’m still fighting with Square even though I sent them proof that the bank sent my money back to them in October of 2018. It’s March 30th 2019 now. SQUARE IS A TERRIBLE COMPANY THAT DOES NOT GIVE ONE S$&T ABOUT YOU