Credit Card Payments on your iPad with Square Register

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Professionals and small business owners are faced with many challenges on a daily basis. An important one is how to collect and accept credit card payments from their customers. Some time ago this was reserved to bigger players due to the setup cost of the infrastructure or hardware needed to collect payments as well as the fees charged by the payment gateways in the market.
As technology evolved, these barriers of entry have lowered. Thanks to the Square Register App and the Square reader, you can quickly and easily start accepting credit card payments on your iPad.

At the moment, Square lets you process card payments for Visa, MasterCard, American Express and JCB. They charge a 2.75% fee per swipe, so if your customer is paying you $100, you will receive $97.25. Swiped payments are deposited into your bank account within 1-2 business days. For now, Square is available in the USA, Japan and Canada.


Your iPad has to be connected to the Internet in order for Square to process credit card payments.

Credit card information can also be entered manually on the App instead of using the reader, but in this case, the fee is 3.5% + 15ยข per transaction.

Compatibility

Square is compatible with iPad (2nd, 3rd, 4th generation), iPad Air, and iPad mini (both versions) running iOS 6 or higher.The App is also compatible with some iPhone models.

Getting Started

The Square Register App is free to download and can be found on the App Store. You can follow this post if you need to refresh How to download and install iPad Apps.

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To get a free credit card reader you will need to create a new account with Square. This can be done from the App on your iPad or through the Square website. Creating an account is free as well.


This is how a reader looks:

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Creating Items and Categories

Whether you sell products or services, you can create items adding their price, picture, size, SKU and description through the App.

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You can also create Categories to organize your items.

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Performing a Sale

Once you have created your items, you can select them from the library and add them to the order by tapping on them.

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The total amount for the order is displayed on the side and clicking on the Charge button lets you process the payment.

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Square Register lets you enter payments in cash, credit cards (swiped or manual), checks, gift cards or other forms of payment.

Taxes, Signatures and Tipping

Under the Settings tab, the App lets you configure tax rates which can be applied to all or specific items.

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You can set whether your customers should always sign when they buy with credit or only for purchases above $25.

Tip collection is also available and the tip amounts are recorded in your sales history.

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Other Features

Among other things, you can connect a BlueTooth Printer, a USB Cash Drawer and a BlueTooth Barcode Scanner.

The Activity tab shows you recent transactions and lets you send receipts or issue refunds.
The Reports tab shows you a Sales Summary. The Reports feature and others can be accessed as well through the Square online dashboard.

For more information you can visit the Square Register Guide.

Questions? Thoughts?

If you are a professional or you own a small business, Square Register seems like an easy way to turn your iPad into a cash register. By the way, I noticed the App looks nicer on the iPad when used on landscape mode.

As usual, I welcome your comments and feedback :)

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