📣 Calling all sellers—submit suggestions for the POS-sible Hackathon!

[Tom]

Hey there, Seller Community!

We’re pleased to announce that the Square: Build What’s POS-sible Hackathon is now live. Developers will be able to utilize one or more of our customer point-of-sale APIs to build useful tools that help sellers scale and grow their businesses. Customer point-of-sale APIs include: Customers API, Gift Cards API, Invoices API, Loyalty API, Team API, and Labor API.

Plus, participants are also free to use a wide array of the APIs available within the Square developer platform to build more robust apps and integrations–as long they’re building with at least one of our customer point-of-sale APIs to be eligible for the hackathon. Build what’s possible for a chance to claim your part of $100k in prizes–including a $20k grand prize.

We would love your help to get started. There are two ways to participate:

Option One: Share a challenge prompt for participants to solve

If you're a Square Seller, please tell us about the types of use cases you’d like to see solved to improve your day-to-day workflows. Reply to this post below with your suggestions through November 10 and we'll make sure they're represented in this event.

Option Two: Participate in the Hackathon

If you're a developer and interested in participating, submit your entry by 4:59pm EDT November 22, 2021: Square: Build What’s POS-sible.

Excited to hear from you!

[PIVO_Brewery · Accepted solution]

TEAM: we would love to be able to request time off by the hour, not a whole day. If workers could request time off by the hour we would use the scheduling functionality of team/timecards.

[shybear · Accepted solution]

EDITING THE MENU GRID / ADDING ITEMS on RESTAURANTS POS (with admin or managerial rights)

Not sure why this can't be done as it seems like a very necessary option for people on the fly.

GIFT CARD ISSUE when comping a gift card using the Actions Tab -> Comp Check

The gift card retains no value when doing this.  The only way you can comp a gift card and still have it retain value is by clicking on the item and then selecting "comp" in the drop down.

RESTAURANTS KDS to be more consistent - too many refires/repeat tickets or missing tickets vs other KDS platforms.

[Kellykc · Accepted solution]

The ability to do an exchange (1 transaction) instead of having to refund an item, then reselling another (2 separate transactions).

[Mlsmith1]

PLEASE!!!     Enable $ Discounts to be applied to line items (e.g. $ discounts appear in discount search box and can be applied on single line items. I do alot of 1 for $28 or 2 or more $50 each.

[OurCupCakery]

And to be able to discount an item of any amount.

[ParkersTable1]

Since we can sell by weight down to the .00, it would be great if we could receive product by weight down to the .00

We sell cheese by weight at our shop, and it would be great if we could keep an accurate inventory and keep track of waste.

Thanks!

[JUYBoutique20]

I would love to be able to add tracking info on an invoice once it's been paid like we do when someone orders online.  

[shoneycutt]

Challenge: Ability to set a sale price, instead of a discount.

[OurCupCakery]

Yes that would help us too if we want to discount an item at the end of a day.

[cornerstore]

When creating order sheet. if we select the category have the item list in that chategory shows up so we can select.  so I can look through the list and not miss   Right now we can search only the whole item lists and I have too many items.  I can't remember which category I listed my item under sometimes and sometimes I forget what  I named the product that I need re-order. (gatorade breeze sea 20oz or blue small gatoraide)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       h 

[OurCupCakery]

And to be able to merge categories if we find that they can be put together.  And... to see what items are in the category and be able to more items to a different categories with all history moving with them.

[Noelle1]

It would be so helpful to have an open ticket created from the customer phone number and their last order  from their history on it that you could use to edit or create a new order.  That would be a huge time saver and cut down on any order errors

Another great feature for management would be to be able to edit, correct clock times immediately from the pos menu without having to sign into the dashboard.  Thank you, Noelle from Panther Pizza

[Noelle1]

It would be helpful to be able to look at a real time sales vs labor report from the pos reports tab or include it in the hourly sales graphs on the current report.  Thank you, Noelle from Panther Pizza 

[Skyviews1]

We are opening four companies of different nature ..

I would like to have separate financial reporting and also a consolidated financials seeing that the beneficial owners are all the same just the nature of each business is different and the percentage of ownership varies for each subsidiary. 

[PvnNpt]

Purchase orders-

Be able to use own purchase order numbers or at least edit the system generated purchase order number.  This way it can match what the vendor or sales rep uses. 

Be able to manipulate columns while writing the PO. Or even when done with PO. For instance, put in order of value, alphabetical, etc. 

Be able to have a column that shows when item was last received. (As to not order duds form long ago and have to keep going back to each individual item file)

Be able to see how much each receiving voucher equals, whether the entire PO is received or only partial.  And then when the rest of the items come in, another receiving voucher is generated.  They both would post against the same PO but the look back shows different receiving vouchers.   This way they match up to invoicing.

Be able to put a total discount in the receiving. % or $-just like the discount feature for sales.

Thanks!!

[GWTS]

GIFT CARDS

I would like the ability to send a complimentary gift card to my customers on a case-by-case basis.  I would like it as a drop-down option from the customer tab,   

[GWTS]

LOYALTY AND CUSTOMERS

When customers order they are given a ticket number.  For various reasons I often have to search the transactions to find the ticket.  If they pay with cash I cannot search by card number so it would be very helpful if that ticket number populated in the list so I do not have to guess | Open the transaction | Look for the number and then count forward or backward to find the correct transaction

Additionally, I wish the ticket numbers would reset at end-of-day or when the drawer is closed

[Anthem]

Gift card management across multiple Square accounts: 

Think franchise operations or small regional brands with different ownership per location. The ability to use an electronic or custom swipe-based gift card across all those locations would enable these types of organizations to use this feature within the Square ecosystem. Our 6 locations continue using old-school paper gift cards, we'd really like to begin using square gift cards and no matter which approved location it was purchased from it could be used at any of the other approved locations based on account and location affiliations. 

[GWTS]

CUSTOMERS AND LOYALTY

PRINT CUSTOMERS PHONE NUMBER ON KITCHEN OR PACKING SLIP TICKET

We take customers' phone numbers for the Loyalty program and give them a ticket number to pick up their food. Often they think we are going to text them when their order is ready so they walk away.  We have limited space on our food truck to hold orders until the guest decides to wander back over.  If they take too long we sometimes have to go back into the transactions to see if we can find their phone number or name to help us contact the customer.  this is one of the reasons that I would like the ticket number to show on the transaction screen as requested in a different request. I wish there was an easily accessible prompt that would show on the screen to enable us to populate the phone number and the ticket number on the kitchen ticket or packing slip ticket

[Thevioletfox]

My number one big challenge is adding inventory. I run a used bookstore and have to manually enter each item. Being able to scan the barcode or add by ISBN would be HUGE!  I know that searching by barcode number and ISBN is currently available, however, the items found only match sometimes and even when they do, the information that gets pulled in is minimal.  Automatically pulling in information like title, author, hardback vs. paperback, and an image of the book would be HUGE for myself and all other booksellers using Square.

[libertygifts]

When I owned a used bookstore I had to find a bookstore specific POS to be able to do this... a work around is create an excel and upload it its a bit quicker than creating it in square. 

[Anthem]

Social selling (food & beverage): I've been barking up this tree for 10 years now. Sorry - kind of. I'll keep tossing it out whenever I can, I think it will work but I don't have the bandwidth to learn how to build it or the cash to pay someone what I've been quoted. 

I'm not talking social media I'm talking social circles. Abbreviated example - Chad opens his app to purchase an item on the way to the daddy & me yoga class. He tags his fellow yogi friends who each get announcements via their app or text message with an opportunity window to add on to Chad's original order. Usually, Chad allows others to pre-pay for their orders via their own app but feeling especially chipper he selected the I'm Buying button today so friends could add item(s) up to the per-order limit he has established. The window closes and chad gets an in-app and text announcement letting him know who has placed orders for him to grab when he picks up his order. With the gratitude of many, Chad has become the hero of the morning among his yoga circle and Jan takes the example set by Chad and begins thinking she might rinse and repeat with her work circle before attending the afternoon meeting she'll be having at the office.

All apps I've found to date (including the ones I use) are cost centers. They increase the cost of doing business, oftentimes with the audience a business already serves, making it more expensive to sell to existing customers. This isn't bad, it brings incremental gains, and improves the loyalty of existing customers but it is still a cost center. Seems to me, this idea and the many others that come along, turn an app from a cost center into a revenue center, it turns loyal customers into more than billboards, they become micro-distributors. They bring new customers and with analytics, business owners can invite those new customers and reward their biggest supporters.  

[libertygifts]

I would love if entering items into inventory had an option to create sku and barcode. Right now its a multiple step process. 

I would also love to scan a barcode to give a discount. 

barcode Scan function using ipad/iphone camera

Better way to charge for customization on square online... right now I have an option for customization (if they toggle yes it charges them) and then a customization field. this is an issue because sometimes they fill the customization field without paying for it or the opposite is true as well.

On pickup allow me to customize where pick up is... I dont want fundraiser people to pick up items from my store. I want them picked up from the schoo.

[PIVO_Brewery · Accepted solution]

TEAM: we would love to be able to request time off by the hour, not a whole day. If workers could request time off by the hour we would use the scheduling functionality of team/timecards.