Taking payments and receipts

[HSNC]

I've just spend almost 2 weeks trying to set up square and our donation processor just to find out yesterday that it is not at all what we need. Slight panic is ensuing. 
With Square, we will be taking payments over our phones with the readers. Will we be able to put in the item and amount (it's an auction, so totals will not be known until event is over) for the person to pay? Will a receipt be sent to them? Is there a way for us to have record of who purchased and the amount? 

Thank you for any help!

[MayaP]

Hey @HSNC - I see this is your first post in the Seller Community, so I'd like to officially welcome you! 🎉👏

I'm sorry our platform isn't what you were expecting. I'm happy to help in any way I can! You can take payments over the phone, but you would have to use manual card entry in your app, send an invoice, or use Virtual Terminal since the card won't be present. If you use the Virtual Terminal at the end of the transaction you do have the option to send a receipt. When your customer pays the invoice through the invoice link they do have the option to select a receipt. So to answer your question, yes you can send a receipt to the customer with all the options I provided above.

I hope this helps! If there is anything else our team can do to help make transition easier let us know! You can reach out to me or any of our Seller Community moderators, we are happy to help! 😊

[HSNC]

Thanks for the welcome!!

It isn't square that was the issue, it was the other platform that was the problem.

I have the square app set up on 2 phones already and have the square card reader for each one. We are needing to collect payment at the end of the event night. We won't be sending any invoices.

Will we be able to put in the item and amount (it's an auction, so totals will not be known until event is over) for the person to pay?
Will a receipt be sent to them?
Is there a way for us to have record of who purchased and the amount? 

[MayaP]

Well, I am glad to hear that Square wasn't the issue @HSNC. My reply above are options that you could use to take payments over the phone. If you are looking to not charge until the end of the night then you can use open tickets. Keep in mind right now with open tickets you cannot pre-authorize a card to charge at the end of the night. We are currently beta-testing the preauthorization feature. If you use open tickets you would have to collect the card information when the ticket is opened. Through the notes, you can input who made the purchase. And yes, the customer will get a receipt. 

[Candlestore · Accepted solution]

@HSNC ;

You could do this 2 ways that might help.

First create an Item in Square, name it Auction Item, Leave the price blank.  Then at the end of the auction you can select Item Auction Item, enter the price.... if more items are sold you would need to enter auction item, enter the variable price, then add another auction item if applicable and enter the price.

Next thought would be to create an Item for each auction item Number.  So when I have been to an auction the auction never state we are selling XYZ item but state up next is item 123.  So before the auction create Item 123 again leaving the Price blank.  During the auction have someone else in the Square account for the Auction hose pull up the Item 123.... when the Gavel falls for $20.00 on item 123..... the person can enter $20.00 for the item.  Then give the person a paper that they won action for item 123.... with or without a barcode for this item.  Then the person comes to you to pay they give you the paper and you can search for Item 123, or scan the barcode that will select Item 123.  If the other person tracking the price entered the price correctly it should just populate it.  This shows on the receipt then ITEM 123 for $20.00   The first way would only show They paid for Auction Item $20.00.

The second way is more work and would also help track that item 123 was or was not paid for.  The one issue is that you might need to keep updating your checkout device or devices to get the price of the item.  Bottom right of your app More Items and search for something recent that just sold.  Not sure since the item would be in Square and just the price is getting updated by someone close to the Auctioneer.

[MayaP]

Thank you, @Candlestore, for hopping in here with some great solutions! 👏