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Product Update: Introducing Square for Retail

Hi Community! I’m excited to share some new features that we’re rolling out in the new Square for Retail solution. Square for Retail is a separate app - now available in the App Store - that adds on a suite of oft-requested features to the Point of Sale app, including advanced inventory reporting (Cost of Goods!), vendor management, and purchase orders. Let’s take a look! 

 

Features: 

 

  • Inventory Plus

 

With Square for Retail, you have access to three new, powerful reports: Cost of Goods Sold, Projected Profit, and Inventory by Category. In order to take advantage of the new reports available with Inventory Plus, you can now add Unit Cost for each item in your library.

 

01_Inventory List.png

 

  • Vendor Management and Purchase Orders

 

Now you have the ability to create and manage your vendor list and send and receive purchase orders – your online Square Dashboard is your new Back of House.

 

10_Purchase Order_B.png

 

  • Team Management and Customer Directory

 

We’re bundling some existing features into the Retail POS as well. With Square for Retail, you’ll also have access to Team Management and Customer Directory features!

 

Pricing:

 

For $60 a device per month per location you will get access to the full suite of features available above. The first device for each location is free, and each additional device (per location) costs $20. There’s also a zero-commitment 30-day free trial, if you’d like to give everything a try first.*

 

Processing fees for Square for Retail are 2.5% + 10c for swipe, dip, or tap payments, and 3.5% + 15 cents for manually-entered payments. Invoices and Online Store orders are 2.9% + 30c per transction. 

 

(Note: If you’re already using Team Management, you will not be billed separately and all of your employees will be included in the price of Square for Retail. No action required on your part!)

 

*Pricing for Square for Retail was updated in 2018 .

 

Getting Started:

 

If you’re new to Square for Retail, take a look at our comprehensive Getting Started Guide – it includes helpful tips for sellers who are new to the Square Point of Sale for Retail (but already have a Square account), as well as easy-to-follow onboarding steps for anyone brand new to Square.

 

You can also check out our Town Square blog for more information.

 

Feel free to comment below with any questions, thanks!

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@VanKalkerFarms - let me see if I can tackle some of your questions! 

 

  • This is a different app than Square POS. How different is it? It looks like it's just barcode scan or search, no pages of buttons like POS.

The biggest difference between the two is that the Square for Retail app is search-centric, since it is optimized for businesses with significant item libraries. So you're right in that there are not pages of buttons like POS - instead we'd expect people to use a barcode scanner or use search to pull up items. There are also some parts of the app, like the payments screen, that will look very familiar to folks who've been using Square POS.

 

  • It includes Employee Management, which is $5 per employee per month when added to Square POS. Does it offer any additional functionality, or is it the same?

The Employee Management functionality offered is the same as with Square POS. If you had been paying $5 per employee per month that entire cost of all your employees would be replaced by a flat $60 monthly fee.

 

  • It includes Customer Directory, which is free. Does it include Loyalty or Marketing as well? Is there anything different about Directory with Retail versus POS?

Loyalty and Marketing are not included, and the Customer Directory included with Retail is the same as what's included with POS, with an additional (useful!) feature. With Retail, you'll also get access to the ability to keep multiple notes about a customer, including information on who added the note and when. 

 

  • It seems like Retail is particularly intended for those with more complex inventory and purchase order management needs. Does that seem accurate to your view? It would be great to have a side-by-side comparison of features for the two products.

Yes! Retail is definitely intended for merchants with complex inventories. A side-by-side chart is a great idea, we'll see what we can do. 😊  And I agree with you: the more information the better!

 

Also, thank you for the feedback @sciabica1936. We know that things like Advanced Discounts (and all the other things on your list!) would go a long way to getting exactly what you need from Square, and we're continuing to make sure our product teams get this feedback. Thanks for taking the time to outline your needs. 👍

 

@UpstateHydro appreciate your feedback as well around pricing. We always try to be up front about fees so that you can plan for your business, which is why we outline the monthly and per swipe fees in this post. We definitely hear you though, and will make sure to relay your thoughts to the appropriate team here at Square.

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A resounding YES!  I would like to be able to separate the inventory  and have it as a stand-alone.   While my inventory is not extensive  (yet), it would be nice to keep track of my costs so that I wouldn't have to "remember" the purchase price of every item, while ensuring that I have sufficient stock on hand.

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YES, that would be very helpful for me. 

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Can you please let me know if I've got this down?

 

In order to get my products into the system:

1. create the items; items cannot have a unit cost bc there is currently no inventory

2. create a purchase order, still no unit cost

3. receive the items by manually adding inventory count and a unit cost for each item

 

I am really looking for a way to add unit cost and price at the same time regardless of inventory count. Or any other way to streamline this process. Thanks!

 

Suggestions?

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Square Community Moderator

Hi @readwithme

 

You can manage your unit cost with all of the actions you mentioned in your post. I could be misinterpreting this, so correct me if I'm not addressing your issue the right way. 

 

There are three ways to set your Unit Cost:

 

  1. Bulk import from your Square Item Library,
  2. Receiving Purchase Orders
  3. Updating your stock manually using your online Square Dashboard.

This article might help you a bit more:

 

Item Library and Unit Cost Management

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@Spenser do you have API as well for " Square for Retail " ?

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Where do I find the Cogs report?

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nevermind. found it

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