I have lost a lot of money by not using card reader properly. I need

[Albert69]

• I lost a lot of money by thinking I made a charge but didn't. What am I doing wrong? Please help a beginner. I do have the customers email. Can I  ask them to pay now if there was no charge to their card?

[ryanwanner]

Hello @Albert69 !

I'm sorry to hear that you had these troubles!

Making a sale on Square should be the matter of entering items sold (either through specific items or the number pad part of the Point of Sale app), tapping Charge, swiping the card, and waiting for the authorization. You'll know the payment is complete when you see a receipt screen.

Have you checked the Transactions section of your dashboard? It'll show all completed sales for the time period specified. If this sale isn't listed here, then there is something odd happening.

Make sure your device is connected to a wifi network or a cell network. Offline mode is nice in a pinch, but I don't recommend using it regularly.

If you don't get to a receipt screen (or a new sale screen) then something stopped the transaction from completing. Usually though the little spinner will just go and go and go until it times out. You'll see a connection error screen if that happens.

As for asking your customer, you definitely can. I would recommend asking them in a way that's not too defensive: "hey, I just wanted to make sure you're seeing our transaction. I'm new to this system and I want to make sure I didn't break it" kind of conversation. Then, if not and they're ok with it, you can send them an invoice that they can pay online. Ring up the sale as you did before, and when you hit the Charge button scroll down the list (or hit the more button) and find Invoice. Follow the steps here (entering their email information and the like) and send the invoice. You'll get an email alert when the invoice gets paid.

If you're using your phone for payments, check out this help article for in depth ways to make Square work for you. If you're on a tablet, this article can help as well.

I hope this helps!

[alexandriak]

Are you using the swipe reader or the chip reader? I would say to switch to the chip reader for customers to insert their cards or tap. It'll make a ding when it's complete and also show the receipt screen. The chip card reader is a bit easier to use than the swipe reader.