Can multiple businesses use one Square?

[Wonderstruck]

I am part of a potter's co-op. There's 6 of us that work in the space and sell our products in the gallery. We each have our own square reader and account. But we aren't always there to accept card payments, so someone else takes it for us. We used to just accept payments for other people on our own account and then do a "pay out" to the other potter. However, we have decided to change this method to have one account for the whole gallery, then the "owner" will do "pay outs" at the end of each month. 

Is there any way on the Square, through the Dashboard that we could create a category for each individual potter, but have it all on one account. That way each potter's records are separate for report and tax purposes? 

I know this may be confusing, I will gladly clarify! But any help is greatly appreciated!

Thank you.

[#2]

Hello @Wonderstruck, this is an interesting concept. 

I always start off by saying this can get a little messy, if you process more than $20,000 dollars per a year on this account we will file a 1099-K. Since only one persons information can be connected to the account they will be responsible for paying the IRS. 

Also it's hard to do for the reasons @RHatch mentioned. It might be easier for each person to have their own account and sign into Square Point of Sale when they need to make a sale. Since your Square account is stored on the cloud any device you sign into will have your item library automatically populate. 

[RHatch · Accepted solution]

This is hard because in order to get all the information you need in your reports you need to do a couple things.

You can create your items and put them in categories,  categories being the potter's name.  You can pull a report by category but it only shows you sale, refunds, discounts, and tax.  It does not show your credit card fees.  The only way to get this is with the transaction report.  However, the transaction report does not list the category.  So when you create your items put some kind of identifier in the item name like a number.  IE: potter one items are "01 Title" and so on.   Then you can sort your report and calculate the correct fees based on the items sold.

[Wonderstruck]

Hi @RHatch, Thank you for responding. I know that this is a tricky situation to try to figure out since we are all seperate entities. I appreciate your suggestion of the categories but I'm not sure if that method would be feasible for us to do, but I will definitely keep it in mind.

[Chad]

Hello @Wonderstruck, this is an interesting concept. 

I always start off by saying this can get a little messy, if you process more than $20,000 dollars per a year on this account we will file a 1099-K. Since only one persons information can be connected to the account they will be responsible for paying the IRS. 

Also it's hard to do for the reasons @RHatch mentioned. It might be easier for each person to have their own account and sign into Square Point of Sale when they need to make a sale. Since your Square account is stored on the cloud any device you sign into will have your item library automatically populate. 

[Wonderstruck]

Hi @Chad, Thank you for responding. I know that this is a unique and tricky situation. As a whole (all 6 artists), we do not gross that amount, solely at the gallery, so theoretically it could work on one account. Each of us does have our own Square account, but since it's a co-op, we are not always here to process our own card payments on our account. Therefore someone else has to take the payment on their account. We had a system in place for "pay out" slips and logs so that this could work, but we were trying to think of a better (more manageable) way to process it. 

We could theoretically add all the square accounts onto the sole device and switch between accounts depending upon whose item is being sold. However, that enters a new layer of risk where all of our accounts and passwords would be shared.

[Chad]

@Wonderstruck, if you want to just use one login I do think @RHatch's suggestion is probably your best option for tracking and reporting items and sales. 

Yeah, it does become a trust thing if you decide to keep the accounts separate since it's a co-op. Whatever you decide, I would love to hear how it goes. I see someone ask this question a few times a year and I never hear how it works out. 

If you have any other questions please let me know! I would be happy to help out. 😀

[Wonderstruck]

@Chad I will definitely let you know what we decide to do and how it goes. The more our co-op grows, the more challenging some aspects of it become!

[pa_inc]

@Wonderstruck ,

I am the manager of a Co-op considering Square POS and have similar concerns about tracking sales and payouts to members. I would like to know what approach you ended up using and how it worked out?

[This post was updated by moderator to tag Wonderstruck in the post as originally intended.]

[WAWoodturner]

We are investigating using Square POS for a similar purpose; tracking sales and payouts to multiple members. How do you organize this? Can each member have the payout sent directly to their bank  account or does the payout have to be done manually. 

[WAWoodturner]

Did you ever set up a multiple user Square account for your co-op? If so, how did it work out? I've posted a similar question on the Square Community site. 

[capricorndancer]

i'd love to know how this worked out as well
i'm in a co-op and we need to set up something that lets us track sales better than a piece of paper.
i can see how categories will work but i'd also like the individual artists to be able to log into square on their own device and check their stock balances instead of having to trek down to the gallery and to a visual

[janednj]

Is there a way to differentiate payouts? We buy small items such as milk and log in as a pay out.  We also pay out credit cards tips each day at end of sift.

Last year all pay outs were applied to one account when data was transferred into Quickbooks. so they were mixed up and I had to manually move hundreds of transactions.  Don't want to do that again.

Thank you  

[nika]

Hey there @janednj-

I moved your post on over here so you can see how other sellers have accomplished this same thing. Feel free to ask any additional questions about their processes by tagging them in this thread!

[busy-bee-potter]

I am new working on setting up a square account. I have collectibles that i want to sell here but I also want to sell my moms pottery Can i just so 2 category one for pottery and one for the collectibles for example;;    1:  Pottery  each color   2 : Angles  3 college items  4 and 5 and so on how many categories can i have . and also have many items can i have under each categories  Thanks for any help.

[Arie]

Hey @busy-bee-potter,

Thanks for writing in to the community! I notice it's your first post, welcome 👋

You can set up multiple categories, and assign items to them, too - there is no limit to how many items you can add to your categories. You might find setting up your items and categories easier on your Dashboard via a computer a bit easier - I find it easier on a larger screen. Please let us know how you go!