The Square over time???? Still happy?

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Permalink Reply by Cyreathia Reyer on February 8, 2012 at 5:04pm

$1.59 at http://www.tmart.com/Cell-Phone-Stylus-Touch-Pens-231grid/  they have them to fit all phones - for the iphone.  I use the Mophie with intuit and just plug the stylus in the audio jack.  Everything then stays with my phone and never have to worry about forgetting them.

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Permalink Reply by Mark MacKinnon on February 8, 2012 at 5:18pm

wow this is great.. just bought one! when people sign using their finger, they always say it does not look like their sig..

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Permalink Reply by Barry Bernstein on February 6, 2012 at 7:52am

I just used the Square for the first time and I am very happy with the whole operation.  It's easy to swipe a card. People seem to get a kick out of using their finger to sign their name.  Sending your customer a receipt is as easy as typing their email address or cell phone number. One click and they have a record of their purchase.  I noticed that I received an email after every transaction. Most people didn't want a receipt.  There is an option to take a picture of the piece you are selling.  I assume that the pic of the piece goes on the receipt, but, since I didn't take any pictures, I can't confirm that.  I received an email Sunday evening telling me that The Square was depositing funds into my bank account within 36 hours.  When I checked this morning, the money had been transferred already.  That was impressive.  The only sale that didn't make it into my bank account, yet, was the one that I made at the end of the day on Sunday. There are a few settings that you should be aware of.  One is how you handle signatures.  I have it set to mandatory, but, that could be set to optional.  The key setting is how it handles the tax.  The default is set to unavailable, which means you just figure out the tax and enter the amount as one lump sum.  It is desirable to activate the tax function.  You just enter the percentage for the state you are in and The Square will figure and add the tax automatically.  I didn't do that and it occurred to me that I was paying the .275 fee on the tax, also.  It doesn't amount to more than a few dollars, but, why pay it if you don't have to? The default setting is inactive for the tax function, probably because most people don't bother to change the default settings. I went to the web site and accessed my account.  It stores a record of every transaction and maintains a history of your activity using this device which you can download into a spreadsheet at any time.  It does not store credit card numbers, email addresses, or names of your customers which is a good thing in case your account is hacked by crooks looking for credit card numbers.  In conclusion, after my first experience, I give The Square a big two thumbs up.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Reimer on February 7, 2012 at 7:57am

Barry - sounds like the square is working for you.

I don't get the part about paying the 2.75% on tax or not - I can't see how you can avoid that.  I don't think any credit card merchant cares how much of the amount you are getting from the customer is tax.  They get their nut on the total amount.  This is from Square's web site...."Note that Square's fee is taken out of the total amount of each transaction, including applied tax."

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Permalink Reply by Barry Bernstein on February 7, 2012 at 9:43am

Michael, thanks for the heads up.  I missed that one. It hardly seems fair that we have to pay an additional percentage on the tax, but, it isn't that much money and it probably helps keep the overall rate down.  The last of my charges from last weekends show got deposited into my account, this morning.

Of all the advantages of using the square over traditional merchant services, 2 things stand out: 1)The remote CC machines still requires you to pay a monthly fee to connect to their network, usually $20 and you can't use it for anything else. I pay $30 for my 2 gb from Verizon.  For an additional $10 I have access to so much essential info that art fair artists need while traveling to shows.  I saved at least $10 in gas alone by using the Gas Buddy app, which told me which exit off I-75 had gas for 20 cents less per gallon. 2) I love the fact that I received an email after every sale and I have a sales history at the Square web site. It doesn't store names or CC #'s, etc. just a transaction number and an amount.  They tell you exactly how much they are taking out and I received an email when they transferred funds into my bank account from my Square account. My merchant services account never did that. In fact they tried to charge me $10 per month for a paper statement which came 2 weeks after they took out their monthly fees.  I will never go back to using a merchant services company.  If fact, after seeing the possibilities, I would rather not take credit cards than have to deal with those people again.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Brady on February 6, 2012 at 6:28pm

One other thing to watch out for is being in an area with no internet/wireless service whatsoever.  This happened to me last summer when I did a show in the middle of Idaho, up a valley that had zero cell phone coverage.  Another Square-using vendor was certain that there was a way to store transactions within the phone, but that was not the case, so I had to do the knucklebuster routine and enter all those numbers when I returned home.  If you do this, be SURE to get not only their card number and expiration, but also the 3-diget safety code on the back and their zipcode (and phone number for your own use in case you record anything incorrectly and have to call them back).  Without those four sets of numbers, you won't get the transaction to go through no matter how much you plead with the nice folks at Square. 

Happily, most festivals locations have good cell phone coverage, so you can just swipe away on this wonderful fast and easy device!

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Permalink Reply by Mark MacKinnon on February 6, 2012 at 7:22pm

I have a couple merchant accounts, and square now. while I was waiting for my swiper to arrive I manually entered sales, works fine, but they limit to $1000 per week. They raised it to $2000 per week, and now after one month, I requested and they raised to $5000. They held funds for the first month that I was not happy about.. but I can understand that. It's pretty cool, but I want to capture email addresses.. so i input them into the description line, and sometimes it puts that email right into the receipt filed.. 

My merchant provider of course, told me all about how it was just a start up, and look for chnages in the futuer, and if I look long term he would be better.. depends on your VOLUME.. at 2.75% and 3.5% for manual entry is is higher than the 2.25% he will offer, regardless of the other fees... And he waived the PCI compliance fee after I complained.  Of course there is the different % on cards, AMEX, reward cards, and nickel and dime issues.. Then he wanted to charge me $450 to cancel my account, which I signed up for if I cancel within 3 years.. so I decided to keep it, get a swiper with his deal, and have a back up.. I have two bank accounts anyway.. time will tell..

He also claims SQUARE is building accounts, so they can go Public - and then raise rates... and fees... and right now is not making $$....

I will say I'm pretty happy with the service for the month I have been using it...

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Permalink Reply by Alison Thomas on February 8, 2012 at 7:50am

I got the same song and dance from my provider when I cancelled.  He started out with "I guess you don't care about your customers credit card security"  So I looked into this.  Apparently the problem with Square is that it translates the card data into sound with the reader and that means "I" could write an app to take those sounds and translate them so that "I" could create duplicate credit cards.  So it all comes down to "Do I trust me?"  Well, yeah... And if it goes public in the future and the prices go up I'm sure there will be somebody else out there to offer a good deal.  

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Permalink Reply by Connie Mettler on February 6, 2012 at 8:53pm

This discussion has ben going on for so long and I'd never looked at it because I'm not traveling any more and have an in house system, but I see it going on and on and on so I thought there must be something going on here that was not about the "Square" -- I just monitored the discussion. Nope. It is only the square. I looked at the Dalton's link that takes you to Gadget Lab and now I want to know what company makes this baby and where I can buy stock.

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Permalink Reply by Barry Bernstein on February 6, 2012 at 9:03pm

Connie, save your money and buy the Facebook IPO when it comes available.

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Permalink Reply by Linda and Jim Dalton on February 7, 2012 at 12:51pm

Squareup is the company, it was started by the guy who founded twitter. It has not gone public yet. There is a good article on them in a recent issue of Wired. http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/05/mf_qadorsey/all/1

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Permalink Reply by Jan Raven on February 7, 2012 at 6:33pm

I have been using my Square exclusively since the middle of last July. I have no complaints about the service or flat fees. I love the fact that I can now accept Amex and that the card is approved/disapproved on the spot. Taking Amex allowed me to make a $900 sale this past weekend, something which would not have been possible with my old merchant account. I typically have 20 to 30 credit card transactions during a weekend, so I get to test the system a lot! The only trouble I have ever had was when I was buried deep in a building where cell coverage was quite marginal. People with the older wireless terminals also had connectivity problems. I managed to get most transactions to go through, but failing that, people gave me checks or cash. I am still happy!

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