Square Up POS app

I have previously written about mobile payment options for merchants provided by the major banks and PayPal. In this edition I am going to discuss another point of sale solution which provides a lot of functionality for a shopfront.

Square Up is an online provider for payments and point of sale. They started with an Apple only app but have now expanded that to Android devices. The square app can accept payments through these devices using a card reader which you can purchase from them ($59 for the contactless card reader or $19 for the chip reader). Credit card payments processed through Square attract a flat rate 1.9% fee. The benefit of square though is not just in the card processing. In fact, you don't even need to use the payment gateway to access the extensive features of the point of sale app.

The app provides extensive ability for creating shop items and can track insights on purchases and repeat customers (if the details are added). Customer feedback is incorporated into the receipts provided via sms or email. If you already have a payment gateway then you can record the transaction as a paid item and this is tracked against your sales.

Logging into the Square Up web portal provides details on sales history and sales items. This is a very useful resource for small businesses as it provide insight into the top sales items and sales times as well as a number of other metrics. It is also possible to expand the solution to multiple locations (if you have a number of shopfronts).

Square Up also provide an employee management function for $3 per month per employee. Employees can log their time into the app and it also allows restriction of access to certain functions per employee. This may be useful for more complex businesses that have multiple employees.

So for a free app it provides a lot of functionality and can either be used as your payment gateway provider or with an existing provider if you have one. For more information go to the Square Up site at squareup.com.