Can I use a federal tax id number to receive deposits in Square Payroll?

[LynnOstrem]

I am doing business with another Square customer.  She pays everyone through Payroll.  She is telling me she cannot complete the process of signing me up to receive deposits, Square to Square, with my federal tax ID number, and is requesting my social security number.  But I am a business! How do we get around this?

[Personal Information Redacted]

[isabelle]

Hey @LynnOstrem!

Thanks for posting in the Seller Community. Before I make some suggestions, I have a few questions:

1. Are you having this person create a Square account for you?
2. Are they going to be paying you using Square Payroll?
3. If they are paying you with Square Payroll, are they trying to add you as a staff member so you can receive direct deposit? 

If you're just creating a Square account as a business, you will need to input your SSN. You can change your SSN to an EIN when in Tax Forms, after creating the account. I'll look forward to hearing from you so I can look into this further. 

[LynnOstrem]

Hello  Isabelle,  She is trying to set up the account to pay me via Square Payroll.  And I set up my own Square account a couple of years ago as a business with my EIN number.  So I guess those are two separate accounts.

But I spoke with someone in the payroll section yesterday, and he said that Square's system can only accept social security numbers (sole proprietors) and issue 1099s to them.  They are not set up to accept EIN numbers, even though they get 1099s too.  I don't get the difference from this perspective.  And for a couple of business, tax and estate reasons, I'm not willing to accept payment personally. I want it coming through my company.  So it looks like I lost that source of revenue unless Square can come up with a neat solution.  Any thoughts?  Thanks.

[isabelle]

Hey @LynnOstrem!

Thanks for your timely reply. 

Yes, so that is correct. We haven't developed the ability via Square Payroll for a business to pay directly to a business (EIN to EIN). Right now, Square businesses have the ability to add staff members as individuals (not businesses), to pay them.

I'm sorry about this. I guess if you are a business, you can collect payment from her via Square (as a merchant) for your services. That's the only workaround I can think of.