Square Banking Q&A: What is Square Banking?

[Tom]

Hello Seller Community,

We're continuing to release new features with Square Banking — some of you might have seen the recent mobile check deposit announcement! With that, our Square Banking team hosted a Q&A on Wednesday, December 8th. The main focus areas related to account setup, loans, transfers, and other key features. 💵 🏦 💳

We're unable to share specific details with regard to our product roadmap, though we will incorporate the experiences shared on this thread as we navigate future releases. 

A few example questions:

• How does Square Banking help small businesses like me manage my money?
• What are the helpful features Square Banking products provide? 
• How does Square Banking compare to a traditional bank? How are its products different?
• What’s the best way to start using Square Banking for my business?
• Is it okay to have two different bank accounts?
• How does Square Banking connect to payments I get from customers?

Block, Inc. is not a bank. Banking Services provided by Square Financial Services, Inc. and Sutton Bank, Members FDIC.

[MayaHope · Accepted solution]

Hello everyone,

Thanks again for taking the time to share your questions and feedback!

We hope your questions were answered—the experiences you've shared will help us as we continue to iterate based on your feedback.

As we close out this event, we wanted to do a recap on two themes that came up frequently:

1. You value having your payments and banking in one place. This lets you have instant access to your funds and set aside money for taxes automatically. That is fantastic, and it’s exactly what we sought out to do with Square Banking. Having no monthly fees or account minimums helps too. 
2. You want to see more flexibility, in particular with how you can use your Square Checking account. Many of you are eager to see more options for how to pay your suppliers. We’re working on that now and will share more there soon. We’re also looking into adding new features such as depositing cash and issuing checks. 

We appreciate you taking the time to share your experiences and we'll continue to improve Square’s products based on your business needs. We depend on you to tell us what you need, as that helps us direct our future efforts. So please keep the feedback coming!   

Again, thanks for your participation. For the latest updates, keep watch for announcements of new features in Product Updates.

[dearness]

Any idea when Square banking for C Corps will be available?

Thks

Ken

[Horsebits]

1. Can we have multiple checking accounts from Square?  This question is related to the concept in the book “Profit First” by Mike Michalowicz. This concept has been a hot topic in one of my bakery business groups. To implement it, though, a business needs multiple checking accounts. 
2. Can we have sales funds split and deposited into multiple accounts, say a Square checking account and my savings account at my local bank? Or split deposited into multiple accounts (3 Square checking or 1 Square checking and a Square savings)?

3. How do you we handle Square recorded cash sales for deposit? How do we deposit cash? Withdraw cash?

4. Do you have a minimum balance requirement? 
5. Is there a maximum transaction withdrawal amount? What are fees for these?
6. What other kinds of transaction limitations are there associated with a Square account?

7. What are the fees associated with a Square checking account?

8. Are there any interest accruing accounts?

9. what are the benefits of having a Square checking account versus a local bank business account?

[rbarbour]

Great questions. Let’s dive in.

1. You can create a Square Checking account per Location. So if you have many locations, you can have many Checking accounts. If you’re looking for different checking accounts for income and operating expenses, as described in “Profit First”, it may not map directly to your sales locations, so something to watch out for. However, for the advice he gives on separate Savings accounts for Profit and Taxes, we can do that. Our Savings accounts have folders, which you can create to set aside for specific purposes (such as taxes). 
2. Sales can’t be automatically split, no. Sales are automatically (and instantly) available in the Checking account of the location that processed the payments. That said, you can manually transfer any amount to another linked bank account.
3. Square supports cash deposits for recording purposes only, today. If you deposit cash into a different bank account, you may transfer them into Square instantly via a debit card (no fees) or in 1-2 days via ACH bank transfers (also no fees). For withdrawing cash, you can use your Square Debit Card at an ATM (third-party ATM operator fees may apply).
4. We have no minimum balance requirements.
5. There is no maximum withdrawal limit for Checking, and no fees for using ACH transfers which arrive in 1-2 business days. You can also instantly transfer up to $10,000 using an eligible bank account or debit card, for a 1.5% fee.
6. Square offers a variety of ways to move money, such as instant transfers, mobile check deposit, and account and routing numbers for ACH transfers. The limits of all of these increase as you build up history with Square, so I can’t say exactly what they will be for a given person, but they will be clearly displayed in your app.
7. We do not charge any recurring fees for Square Checking—no minimum balance fees, no services fees, no monthly maintenance fees, no overdraft fees. Square does not charge ATM fees, but third-party ATM operator fees may apply.
8. Yes, our Savings account earns .50% APY. 
9. One of the biggest values of using Square Checking over a local business bank account is instant access to your sales. You won’t have to wait for funds to get transferred to your other bank, you can spend the money you earned right away or start saving and earning interest right away. Additionally, there’s no fees. As I mentioned above, no minimum balance fees, no services fees, no monthly maintenance fees, no overdraft fees – this is much more competitive than most business bank alternatives. I will be upfront with you – I didn’t say yes to every feature request above you had on your list, and things like paper checks and cash deposits are what we want to build next. But we are making good progress and working every day to make Square Checking the best choice for small businesses like yours.

[allwhowander]

Looking into this more as we are becoming increasingly more frustrated with our current bank. One question I have relates to convenience on our end. Is there a way to send our Square sales into two different accounts, specifically to separate sales tax from our normal revenue? Ideally each daily transfer would move 8% of the sales over to a sales tax only checking account so I don't have to go in and do it manually every week.

[MayaHope]

Hi @allwhowander, yes, you can do this with Square. When you set up a Square Savings account, you can choose a percentage of your sales that you want kept separate from your other funds, and you can even give the folder a name (like “sales tax.”) One nice feature is that these funds will gain interest and grow over time in your savings account. So by the time you’re ready to pay your business taxes, you’ll find that you have even more money than what you initially set aside.

[RedSix]

How do I get QuickBooks to see the checking account? It imports sales but not transactions. For example, if we use the debit card, QuickBooks does not see it. Accounting is a bit cumbersome with square already. 

[MayaHope]

Hi @RedSix - That’s great feedback. We don’t currently support automatically pulling Square Checking transactions into Quickbooks through their bank account login flow. We are working with the Quickbooks team on that.

In the meantime, the easiest way to transfer your Square Checking transactions into Quickbooks is by downloading a CSV of your Square Checking activity from the Square Dashboard and then uploading it into Quickbooks. Below are the steps to do so:

• Open up your Square Dashboard and go to Balance > (select a location) > View all activity. On the activity page click the “Download” button and select “Download .CSV”.
• Once you’ve downloaded that CSV file to your computer, open up Quickbooks, navigate to the Transactions > Banking page and select the “Upload transactions” button. 
• Choose the “Manually upload your transactions” option and select the CSV of Square Checking activity you just downloaded as the file to upload.
• Once done, your Square Checking transactions will appear in the Quickbooks Banking tab.

[jgriffy]

When using a square checking acct. and accepting check should I have the customer address the check to my business name? or my name?

[rbarbour]

Hey @jgriffy - assuming you are a sole proprietor, you may deposit checks in either your name or your DBA (“doing business as”) name.

[Bevpaganucci]

without the ability to write paper checks to cover rent (my landlord wont accept electronic payments, so this is a MUST) this business account falls short of meeting my needs, especially if it doesn't communicate accurately with quickbooks.

[rbarbour]

Hey @Bevpaganucci, I’m sorry we can’t meet your needs today. We know people want paper checks for exactly the reason you described, and so we’re working on ways to offer that next year.

As for Quickbooks, you can transfer your Square Checking transactions into Quickbooks by downloading a CSV of your Square Checking activity from the Square Dashboard and then uploading it into Quickbooks. Below are the steps to do so:

• Open up your Square Dashboard and go to Balance > (select a location) > View all activity. On the activity page click the “Download” button and select “Download .CSV”.
• Once you’ve downloaded that CSV file to your computer, open up Quickbooks, navigate to the Transactions > Banking page and select the “Upload transactions” button. 
• Choose the “Manually upload your transactions” option and select the CSV of Square Checking activity you just downloaded as the file to upload.
• Once done, your Square Checking transactions will appear in the Quickbooks Banking tab.

[Relaxstudiok]

Does Square Banking offer a way to deposit cash into my account, like through an ATM?

[rbarbour]

No, we don’t support depositing cash directly today. However, you can easily transfer cash deposits from another bank into Square instantly via a debit card (no fees) or in 1-2 days via ACH bank transfers (also no fees).

[Juicefactoryvii]

How to obtain a report for the specific year from using the square card?

[MayaHope]

Hi @Juicefactoryvii – You can currently view your Checking account activity for a period of time in the Balance section of your Dashboard or Square Point of Sale app. To look at the last year, click on “View all activity,” click the date selector, and click on “last year.”

Downloadable monthly statements will also be available very soon – keep an eye out for those.

[shelyn]

I'm very interested in the banking for the ease of having funds all in one place and doing the electronic check deposit (that is a huge draw for me) I'm concerned about not having someone readily available to contact if need be - such as occurs with a local B&M institution.

[MayaHope]

Hi @shelyn, yes, I hear your concern. Money is deeply personal. With my bank, I want to be able to talk to someone if I need help with something. 

Square has a team of customer success advocates who specialize in banking and can be reached by phone at (855) 700-6000 from 9-5 PT. I work with this team closely, and I am consistently impressed by their expertise. You can also send text messages to a customer support specialist through the Square Point of Sale app. Square also offers general weekend phone support. 

I know this isn’t the same as meeting with someone in person at a brick and mortar institution, but we aim to provide more flexibility and specialized support to help troubleshoot anything that comes up.

[catkins]

we are a very small art business who also sell other artists work via consignment.  How can we pay out other artists with our the ability to write checks?

[MayaHope]

Neat! If you post your website, I’d love to check out your work.

We’re currently working on adding more ways to pay from your Square Checking account. Right now you can pay via your debit card, ACH, or payroll. We’ll be adding more ways to pay suppliers (like your artists) next year, and we’re also looking into issuing paper checks.

[MayaHope · Accepted solution]

Hello everyone,

Thanks again for taking the time to share your questions and feedback!

We hope your questions were answered—the experiences you've shared will help us as we continue to iterate based on your feedback.

As we close out this event, we wanted to do a recap on two themes that came up frequently:

1. You value having your payments and banking in one place. This lets you have instant access to your funds and set aside money for taxes automatically. That is fantastic, and it’s exactly what we sought out to do with Square Banking. Having no monthly fees or account minimums helps too. 
2. You want to see more flexibility, in particular with how you can use your Square Checking account. Many of you are eager to see more options for how to pay your suppliers. We’re working on that now and will share more there soon. We’re also looking into adding new features such as depositing cash and issuing checks. 

We appreciate you taking the time to share your experiences and we'll continue to improve Square’s products based on your business needs. We depend on you to tell us what you need, as that helps us direct our future efforts. So please keep the feedback coming!   

Again, thanks for your participation. For the latest updates, keep watch for announcements of new features in Product Updates.

[MarinGlass]

We love square and what they are about . We wish there was a way to let us know after 15 years with them and over 900K in sales how we could qualify for a saving account or Square Capital .