Square Terminal - USB cash drawer in UK without receipt printer

[snowflower]

I would like to set up a Square Terminal with cash drawer in work - I do not want to buy an additional receipt printer so that rules out the printer-driven cash drawers, but I cannot seem to find a cash drawer in the UK that works with the hub. There is no option to purchase one of these on the UK Square site, although there is an option on the US site. Has anyone been able to find one here? Even the MPop printer/cash drawer would be fine but as far as I can see, it doesn't appear to be compatible with the Terminal. 

Any guidance would be appreciated! I really don't want to have to fork out for a receipt printer that won't be used, just to have a cash drawer that I won't have to give staff the key for.

[Helen]

@snowflower Helen here from the Community team. I just wanted to let you know that we are working on support for a USB printer that you can use with Square Terminal in the UK, this is a popular request. 

I don't have timeline to share yet but I'll let you know here as soon as I have more information. We'll also update the hardware compatibility Support Centre article with the compatible USB printer details. Thanks for your patience in the meantime!

[Sam_400º]

Helen’s answer pretty much only confirms what you’ve already found out....

Having a printer driven option could actually work out to be a lot cheaper anyway - as a (for example) Star TSP645 Ethernet can be picked up really cheaply on eBay (£20-50) and then you can connect nearly any till draw you want to that. 

This would then give you the option of ruining the terminal without the cable/hub plugged in as everything would go though your router and the terminal can run on the wifi. 

[Helen]

Thank you @Sam_400º and @snowflower for letting us know what your set up is! I'm going to mark this as the Best Answer so any other businesses looking for help will find this. 

[snowflower · Accepted solution]

@Sam_400º  and @Helen thanks so much for your replies. Given our location in a business centre, we actually struggled to get an ethernet connection working with the terminal (we don't have direct access to the router) and so we had to rely just on Wifi. For that reason, we went for a USB printer, otherwise the Ethernet option would have been a lot more cost effective.  

Just to update the thread on what we did in the end - we purchased the following:

Square Terminal

Square Hub

USB Receipt Printer (Star TSP143U)

Printer-driven Cash Drawer (Star CB-2002)

It did work out cheaper to purchase the separate receipt printer and printer-driven cash drawer than a single USB cash drawer (not that there seem to be any of these easily found for sale in the UK). 

We take a lot of cash payments so the cash drawer was essential for us to pair with the terminal.

It still would have been preferable if we could have just bought a USB Cash drawer that could plug directly into the Square Hub, but for now this set-up ticks off our requirements. It's just an extra piece of equipment and we've just turned off the printer on the terminal and take receipts solely from the USB printer. Thanks again for your help.

[tranguyen]

Hi everyone, Tra here with an update: Square now supports Star Micronics mPOP Printer Driven Cash Drawer!  The mPOP Printer and Cash Drawer automatically opens the cash drawer or prints receipts every time you complete a sale.

Note: This printer can also be connected to iPads via Bluetooth or connected to Square Stand, Square Register, Square Terminal, or Android devices via USB hub. This printer doesn't support network connectivity.  Bluetooth connection is not available on Android devices at this time.

Alternatively, you can purchase the APG USB cash drawer that is compatible with the Hub for Square Terminal. 

You can purchase the Star Micronics mPOP Printer Driven Cash Drawer or APG USB Cash Drawer from our Square Shop website.  For more information about hardware compatibility with Square visit our Hardware Compatibility By Device site.

[Earthrefresh]

Does anyone know if it's possible to connect a printer and printer driven cash drawer to the terminal/hub but only use the terminal for receipts? Or would this mean that if the printer isn't triggered, the cash drawer won't open? 

[Sam_400º]

Yup, you can do this no problem. The two printers (inbuilt & external) will have separate settings. 

When you set up the external printer just deselect all the print options - then the terminal will know it’s there for pinging a cash sale but not print to it 

[Earthrefresh]

Amazing thank you!