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Permalink Reply by Mike McGinness on August 9, 2012 at 3:43pm

Yup. And now another reason I'm glad I went with Salesvu instead of Square Register for our POS and cc clearing.

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Permalink Reply by Brady on August 9, 2012 at 5:10pm

Now when have they ever done THAT???

(Let's not forget that they also put good ol' uncle Howie on the board.)

;)

Keith Eckert said:

Just saw that Starbucks is going to start using Square and is investing $25 million in the company.  Hope they don't corrupt a good thing. 

http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/08/starbucks-square-idINL2E8J...

Keith

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Permalink Reply by Jay Caragay on August 10, 2012 at 6:29am

I'm not too concerned about Starbucks/Square. If they decide to go the proprietary route a la the clover, then I would have already recouped our investment and still have a merchant account with our legacy provider.

We now use Square with our CSM setup a la Jack.  Took us awhile to implement but now that it's rolling, I'm rather pleased. Yes, it does add several steps to the transaction compared to the integrated method on CSM - but the savings are worth the trouble.

I'm a simpleton when it comes to merchant accounts. Our "fee" is 1.57%, which is quite a good rate. The complexity comes with all the swipes, charges, fees, etc. So I simply take our monthly statement, add up all the fees the cc has subtracted and divide in the gross cc sales processed.  There has never been a month when the fees have been less than 4%, usually around 6-8%, and sometimes as much as 9%.

Presume that you process $2500/mo in cc transactions, under our current merchant account, we will be charged between $100 to $225 for that month in fees. Square will charge $68.75 (presuming only swiped transactions). That's $31.25 to $156.25 in your pocket per month to pay other more important items, like dairy, paper, coffee or simply mad money for the owner.

Consider that a new iPod now costs $200 and you will have paid back your investment in Square within two months.

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Permalink Reply by Coffee Haven on August 12, 2012 at 11:17am

LOVE SQUARE! Now that they received a cash infusion from Starbucks....more features, more sophistication, and more oomph is in the pipeline. 

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Permalink Reply by Nathan Voght on August 17, 2012 at 6:07am

Jay, how is your Square fee 1.57%?  I thought Square was a straight 2.75%?

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Permalink Reply by amy louise eaton on August 28, 2012 at 5:15pm

I wondered the same thing...... I'd like to use my standard register and just do the Square on my phone in place of the cc slider.

Bambi Clark said:

Is it possible to use square if you have no pos system? We just use a regular cash register.

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Permalink Reply by Jay Caragay on August 28, 2012 at 7:50pm

Nathan- Sorry for the confusion. The 1.57% is actually the "fee" from our legacy merchant account. Our Square account charges a flat rate of 2.75% for swiped transactions.

Amy - you most certainly can use your standard register and Square. Just think of Square as a traditional, stand alone credit card machine.

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Permalink Reply by Nathan Voght on August 30, 2012 at 5:55am

Jay, thanks, that's what I thought.  My plan is also to use Square like a stand-alone CC processor, just like traditionally what was done years ago.  I think I mentioned in a previous post I stand to save around $2,000/year in CC fees.

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