Got an email notification from Square that they have added an update that supports a wireless printer and a cash box that unlocks with completed transaction. I don't see a need for either and the peripherals seem a little pricey to me, but I know some have been critical of the inability to print a receipt. In my experience, only 1 or 2 customers at most hold out for a paper receipt and I love paper-less. Anybody gonna bite on this one??
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What is the best/cheapest carrier and handset to use a square? I was considering an iPad w/a $15mo. att connection, however it is only good for 250mb per mo. I think thirty transactions a mo. w/it would go over the limit?
It doesn't take a whole lot of data to send a merchant transaction and batch data. It's not going to use up 250mb a month. The transactions are just text, encrypted to be sure, but just text. Maybe at the outside 1K apiece for your entire batch. You are much more likely to use up the data allowance with email, attachments, music downloads, pictures being sent, facebook, web browsing, looking at artfairinsiders, that sort of thing. Text is low bandwidth.
Personally, I like AT&T. They have the most experience with the high data loads imposed on their network by iPhone/iPad traffic. In the beginning, it would crap out a lot. Now, not so much. Verizon owners are experiencing the issues we had on AT&T a year, two years ago as that network ramps up to carry the heavy bandwidth of many iPhone users all sending crap at once. Same with tMobile and Sprint...
As best we can tell, there are no fees associated with either the cash box or the external printer feature, but they are currently only supported on the iphone. One nice feature is the ability to input a description of the item and a photograph of it. This information can then be downloaded into a spreadsheet should you wish to keep records at that level of detail.
Nope. No use for either item or service. I don't use the Square app to track cash or check sales either, since I am already writing a paper receipt for those items.
I have a receipt book. If someone wants a printed receipt I hand write one. But most don't and I can's see having the extra apparatus and expense for the occasional printed receipt. Kind of negates the appeal of the Square.
I hand write a receipt in a receipt book so I have the person's name - very simple, name, date, my inventory number, price, tax and total. More for me than for the customer, but they get a copy. That way if someone contacts me later and wants to buy another, I know what they bought - type of fish, paper, color of mat. It has come in handy a few times. Without the paper receipt and with square, I don't know who made the purchase. I'm entering names in my sold spreadsheet right now from yesterdays show.
So, I won't use the wireless printer.
I would go for the printer, not the cash box.