Use Square to Enhance Your Business
How Square can lead to increased efficiency and save you time
Anybody who has been to the cool new coffee shop or the husband and wife owned clothing store in town has probably seen the sleek white tablet POS system that they use to take payments. To customers, this does not mean much aside from that it looks like a nice modern way to pay, but for a business, switching their POS to Square can enhance their business dramatically. Square is more than just a POS system, and it can be tailored to almost any type of business. It can be fully customized to meet staff and customer needs, be used to update inventory, and so much more. With Square, business owners truly can have a one-stop shop for all of their business’s administrative needs.
How can Square improve your business?
Square offers a number of features that will help your business succeed. Own a bar or food truck? Square can take orders, print tickets, and manage your revenue in real-time. Want to manage your staffs’ timesheets electronically and save time on payroll? Square can fully automate this for you. Need help managing your in-store and online sales? Square can track your inventory all in one place. No business has the same needs, and that is why Square can customize its services to fit yours.
What are Square’s key features?
Square has a number of different features depending on what your business does and what your needs are. You can always add or remove features as necessary, and there is no right way to setup your system. Square originated as a mobile payment system that allowed businesses to accept credit cards anywhere. From there, the company has grown its business model to offer solutions for most of your other business needs.
POS: Square’s POS system can run on nearly any tablet by downloading a free app. The app is easy to use and can be customized for almost any business type (some more on that later). Businesses can use the app to affordably take credit card payments and use the POS system to take orders, check out customers, and fulfill orders.
Business Needs: Square can also fully automate your business’s human resource tools. Through Square, you can create your employees’ schedules, view their time sheets, and manage payroll. Gone are the days of using pen and paper or multiple apps, with Square you can manage your employees all in one place.
Online Store and Appointment Scheduling: With the Square Online Store, retail businesses can easily sell their products online while accepting mobile payment, tracking stock, and printing shipping labels. For restaurants, this function can be used for mobile ordering, takeout, and delivery. For other businesses like barbershops and nail salons, Square has a mobile scheduling feature that gives customers the option to schedule their appointments online.
Square Loyalty and CRM: With the Square loyalty program, you can reward your regular customers with points that link to their phone number. Depending on your business, you can give customers rewards like discounts or a free item. You can also use this feature to capture customer data and market to customers via text message or email. Through this feature, Square can be used as a simple CRM system so that you can easily market to your customers and stay connected.
Gift Cards: With Square gift cards, you can allow your customers to give their friends and family the gift of your business. Gift cards can be purchased in-person or at your online Square store making it easy for your customers to find and purchase. Additionally, you can track your gift card purchases and additional customer spends on gift card purchases in your Square sales dashboard.
Invoices: With Square invoices, businesses can save time and easily track their invoices and customer payments all in one place. Invoices can be sent from anywhere and can be paid online from a customer’s web browser. Through square, you can automate emails and reminders so that you don’t have to spend time chasing down your customers.
Square Loans: One of Square’s newer offerings is its loan program. Through this program, businesses that use Square can borrow money and pay it back with just a flat fee. Loans can be added to your account in as little as 24 hours after the request and are for Square businesses only. This feature is easy to use and has been a valuable offering for many struggling businesses.
How Square can help your industry
Square recognizes that every business is different. You do not sell food at a shoe store and you don’t make an appointment to order your cappuccino. Square’s tools are built with a number of different businesses types in mind.
Retail: Using Square as a retailer is easy and efficient. You can use the square POS system to complete sales by scanning barcodes or looking up items. Customers can then pay using the Square chip reader or contactless payment system. In addition, you can sync your in-store merchandise to an online store, which allows customers to purchase your items from home for in-store pickup or delivery. Additionally, you can add and remove inventory, change pricing, and much more at the touch of the button, wherever you are. If you want to take Square a step further at your retail location, you can use features like email marketing, payroll, and develop loyalty programs to better connect with your staff and customers.
Restaurants: Square’s restaurant POS system is an extremely powerful tool and can operate in a number of different ways depending on your business’s needs. For example, if you own a full service restaurant, Square can operate all facets of having servers take orders, the kitchen receiving the order, and cashing out customers. Additionally, Square can link to online ordering systems like DoorDash and Postmates to keep everything in one place.
For business like coffee shops where orders are generally taken at the counter, Square has a more limited POS system that simply takes orders, prints tickets and accepts payments by the cashier. This system can also accept online orders and operates similarly to the retail platform. As always, Square offers its marketing assistance, payroll, and loyalty programs to restaurants as well. It is also important to note that with prompts for tips when using the on-screen payment option, tipping is top of mind for your customers.
Professional Services : For businesses in the service industry, Square can bring a lot to the table. Square’s scheduling system let’s business owners and employees spend less time fielding phone calls or emails regarding scheduling and more time on the job. For salons and barbershops, Square scheduling can be used to book services with specific employees and be used after the service for payment. Similarly to restaurants, the prompts to tip also can mean more money in your employees’ pockets. If you own a business for home repair like plumbing or contract labor, Square is a great way to schedule appointments, bill customers, and receive payment on the go. Once again, Square always offers its marketing, loyalty, and employee scheduling systems as add-ons to cover all of your business needs.
Enterprise Use: There is no question that Square originated by marketing itself to small businesses, but as the company has grown, it has begun to lend itself to larger organizations to service their payment needs. Square’s system is extremely powerful, and can be used for larger entities like stadiums, concerts, and festivals to efficiently accept payments and manage employees. Depending on the business, many of the aforementioned features (POS, inventory, scheduling, etc.) are useful to ensure seamless customer transactions.
Why businesses choose square
Square offers an incredible value for any business, and its platform is easy to use while providing seemingly unlimited opportunities. For small business, Square makes accepting credit cards easy, as there are no minimums and credit card transactions are charged at a flat rate. Compared to competitors, Square’s fee structures, is appealing to many business owners since it is straightforward (2.75% per credit card transaction) and has no monthly service fees. Add-ons like loyalty programs do cost more, but Square is upfront with their pricing and there are no hidden fees.
In addition to the pricing method, Square’s hardware option surpasses most of its competitors as it is completely optional. While Square does offer high-quality POS hardware, businesses are welcome to use the free app on Apple or Android devices. Square offers add-ons to businesses who need them, but for many, a smartphone or tablet is enough to run their business.
Outside of Square’s POS system, its business operation functions like managing timecards, assisting with payroll, and even generating tax documents makes Square an even more powerful tool for business owners. Square can distribute tips automatically and direct deposit payroll checks right into your employees’ bank accounts. To use these features, Square has upfront pricing of $29 per month, plus an additional $5 per employee. Square also does not have yearly contracts and it can be canceled at any time.
In the end, Square offers a solution for almost all of your business needs, and the platform’s ability to adapt to different types of businesses makes it a powerful tool for a growing number of business owners. Square is sure to help you manage your employees, track revenue, and better interact with customers both in-person and online. The platform is easy to use and can be accessed from anywhere. With new updates and features coming regularly, there is no wonder so many businesses choose Square for its POS and business needs.
