ipad app for tabs
hey all,
its a new year & i'm ready to change up a few things at our shop starting with not giving credit card companies so much money.
i know a lot of shops are using square register and that is what we are moving to. the issue is prepaid accounts and tabs. i'm currently on coffee shop manager so i've been able to receive payments and set up accounts in lieu of gift cards. it's been great. we have over 500 customers set up this way.
i really don't want to go to a paper file system but i also don't want to lose the ability to serve our customers in this way. we also will hold open tabs on the rare occasion for regulars.
have any of you had this problem and how did you fix it?
patrick
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jason Shipley on
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A recent Square update added Gift Cards.
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Permalink Reply by Patrick Burns on
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thanks jason.
the gift card option is great but it's only for folks that have square on their smartphones. we have quite of bit of money that is in our system as a prepaid so the tab is needed for the transition.
patrick
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Can you export the existing data as an excel file and track it in Numbers? We have has a similar problem and just decided to keep the old system up until the existing gift cards are used up.
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Permalink Reply by Dan Gorder on
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Patrick,
This is the exact same setup that I have...I use coffeeshop manager for my POS but Square for my cc processing. The gift card option of CSM is huge for us, and we're used to it so it's not going to change for the foreseeable future.
I simply unhooked the reader from CSM (I might have turned off the reader in options, too, I don't recall off hand) and I keep an extra phone (or an Ipod) next to the register for running credit cards. When we pay the tab, I run the card on square and just enter it as a credit card payment on CSM. I then reconcile the charges at the end of the night to make sure everything matches up. It's one extra step, but it has worked great for us so far... and I saved almost $600 in CC fees last month alone. My effective rate ended up being just a tad under 1.5%.
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Permalink Reply by nick placakis on
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Hi all. i have been thinking about using square for my shop. you indicated your rate with square was 1.5%, what was your rate prior to square? Any drawbacks?
Thank you
nick
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Hey Dan,
Thats a great idea. I actually made the switch over to square fully on monday. we created a numbers document for our current prepaid accounts and are slowly using them up. for new gift certificate sales we are going old school with paper certificates and taking the balance down per transaction on the certificate itself.
in the two days alone our baristas have increased their tip share by 65% and with the flat $275 rate per month our shop should save $350-$500 a month.
Nick - after all of the swipe fees and percentages we averaged over 4% in merch fees per month. I would recommend square register for the start up costs alone. my coffee shop manger set up was over $5,000 not to mention a monthly service fee after the first year.
Hope that helps.
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Like Patrick our rate was well over 4% by the time all the fees and etc. were figured into the total cost, and some months well above 5%! With Square I pay the monthly fee of $275/month and take the $1.75 small coffee credit card payments with glee! I just don't think Square is robust enough for me at the moment to use it exclusively and not in conjunction with our POS.
I have had no issues other than two times when Square was down throughout the country for about half hour/hour... I survived.
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Permalink Reply by Rob Morrisey on
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I considered using Square at one point as we're trying to cut down costs at my shop. I quickly wrote it off as I didn't think it would look very professional to be using an iPhone to charge my customers. It appears there's other ways to do this? I had no idea such a large number of you were using Square! What exactly are you using to charge your customer?
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I'm using an extra Android phone I had laying around hooked up to a secured wifi connection. I also have it on my phone and I have taken payment during deliveries, at the drive-thru window, and tableside. Trust me, customers don't think it's unprofessional, they think it's cool, and most have seen ads for it anyway so they know how it works. Starbucks has added legitimacy to it, also. It's really no different than having a card reader sitting there anyway.
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we have a simple set up. it's an ipad and a cash register. works great!
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I found this link in PC Mag. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2380586,00.asp They gave it a great review. However, if you continue reading to the bottom of the page where they have the reader comments, it becomes quite negative! It seems they're holding back a majority of the charges for 30 days and in some cases not giving money back at all. No customer service and BBB getting many complaints. Any of this sound familiar to you guys?
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This is what I can tell you from my experience... I have been using Square for over a year, I've completed over 13,000 transactions, I have never had my money held. I would wager that the people complaining ran non-card present transactions (or keyed-in versus swiped) that totaled over $2000... in that case, Square holds the money for 30 days for consumer protection because the card either isn't present or it's keyed-in and that's a red flag. This is all spelled out in the Square agreement, additionally, you can ask for a business review to increase your non-swiped limit. I have run large swiped transactions with no problems. My money has always been in my bank the next day M-F, and weekend transactions are deposited on Monday. I find it hillarious when people b!t*h about something specifically laid out in the agreement they were required to sign to use the service!
I will agree that their customer service is lacking with no real rep to talk to and no direct customer service phone number. You have to be self-sufficient in figuring out issues and be prepared to use Twitter and e-mail to get issues resolved. The trade off is worth it to me for the money I save, but I haven't really had any issues, either.
Do you think Starbucks would have switched to Square if it was a bogus, unethical, and incompetent company?
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