Using Square as a Cash Register

[looloolizzi]

If using square as a cash sales report also - are there fees on each of these payments also?

[Seamus]

Hey @looloolizzi,

We'll only ever charge fees on card transactions processed via Square.

There are no fees to record cash, cheque and other payment types on Square's POS app 👍

[theroyalctambo]

I can attest to its a pretty good system too, especially printing out dockets for kitchens/cafes.

Falls short from a stocktaking point of view, and loyalty program. 

Hopefully these come soon

[MarketWorx]

Can you use Square Terminal, Square Register, or Square Stand like a cash register? We do estate sales and it would take too much time to enter every item that we are going to be selling. Is it possible to just enter an item in one of the Square POS systems like you do a cash register. For instance, a customer at the estate sale brings up 4 items. They are price $2, $10, $50, and $125. On our traditional register, I would enter each of these items, hit the subtotal button, and then tender the transaction either by cash or credit/debit card. I would like to get rid of the cash register and just use one of the Square POS units. Is this possible?

[Laurie_]

Hi @MarketWorx thanks for reaching out with this question!

You can certainly process cash transactions on all Square hardware. Square will record the sale in your transaction history, without collecting funds (as this is a physical exchange of funds). 

You can customise your settings on any app or device to ensure your preferred Payment Types are included as options in the checkout flow. For this example, you'd be wanting to toggle ON the option to accept cash payments. In the checkout flow, the default payment option will always be a credit card where there is a reader connected (or when using the register or terminal), however, you can close this option to manually select cash in order to complete the transaction. 

Although it is possible to process cash transactions without a connected cash drawer, it's important to note that the Square Register, Square Stand and Square Terminal don't provide any cash storage, outside of connecting with a third-party cash drawer. 

Let me know if that helps to answer your question!

[MarketWorx]

Thanks Laurie. What I was really wanting to know is if I can use one of the Square devices (Terminal, Register, or Stand) as a cash register. If you've worked in retail before it went digital, you used a cash register. You would ring up items by entering each item's price and dept. Once you completed ringing up the items, you would press Total key and then tender the transaction as Cash, Check, or Charge. When we do estate sales, that's exactly what we do. There are too many items in a customer's home to enter all of them into inventory so that isn't an option for us. I've looked and I can't find anything that tells me I can use one of the Square devices like a cash register. It looks like I can only enter a total amount of a transaction but I can't enter each item unless I've already added them in as inventory. If there's a way to use a Square POS device like a cash register, I would love to be able to do so. Is there an app for Square that does what I'm wanting to do? I'm really wanting to automate the estate sales process without having to enter every item into inventory because we don't need the items to be in inventory.

[Laurie_]

Thanks for clarifying, @MarketWorx, I'm with you now!

Yes is the answer here! If you're just wanting to add separate custom amounts to a single transaction, you can do this from the keypad when on the Checkout page (either in the app or on specific Square hardware).

To do this you'll begin by entering your first amount on your keypad. Once entered, click the blue '+' button in the bottom-right corner of the keypad and this will allow you to begin typing in the next custom amount.

To check the progress of what you've added so far and the current total, simply click Review sale and you will see your separate custom amounts sitting in the transaction with running total at the bottom. You can press the 'x' button to continue adding in amounts. When you're ready to process the payment, click Review sale > Charge.

The receipt will show each individual custom amount and can be printed or sent to your customer.

Hopefully, I've done a better job at answering this for you in my second attempt! 

[MarketWorx]

Thanks Laurie. Your instructions were great. I followed your instructions and it worked! I really appreciate you assisting me with this. I have one other question that came to mind. Sometimes we have vendors that come to our estate sales and they are purchasing items that they are going to resell so their purchase is tax exempt. I know I can go in and disable sales tax but that has to be done before any items/prices are entered. I'm concerned about one of our staff forgetting to go back in and enable sales tax after that transaction. Do you know of a way to disable sales tax in the middle of the transaction when items have already been entered? I looked around and didn't find a way to do it.

[Arie]

Jumping in for @Laurie_ here, @MarketWorx 👋
 

There isn't a way to change sales tax in the middle of a transaction, unfortunately. For now, you'd have to continue ensuring the sales tax is not enabled for these sales. I'll pass this feedback on to our team for consideration!