The short answer is yes. But let me explain why. It’s important to have a POS system that not only accepts credit cards, but also tracks your sales. In this day and age with technology advancing so quickly there is no reason why you shouldn’t accept most forms of payment.
On my coffee truck we use a Square. I use the Square for multiple reasons:
It’s easy of use: It’s really simple to use. Download the app. Plug in the square device into your iphone or iPad microphone jack and it will walk you through the rest. The app has a easy to use plat form so it keeps my transaction time to a minimal. You can make buttons of commonly purchased items or if you like manually input the cost. Super simple.
Reputable name: People trust it.
Sales Tracking System: It keeps track of the sales type, time and average sale for you. Nice numbers to have. It will also compare how you are doing this week to last week. It sends reports at the end of the day via email so you can see how you did.
Customer data collection: If people choose to receive their reciept by text or email, they are then added to your customer data base and you can send them emails and promotions via email marketing. Pretty sweet.
Automatic deposit: Deposits the money every night, automatically into your account.
Integrates with Quickbooks so that I can find out my profit/loss . Quickbooks will import all the data from Square directly into their software and use it to determine how much I’ve lost or made. It simplifies my accounting process so much! And come tax time it makes it even easier.
The negative to Square is how much they charge. 3% off the top. There are cheaper systems out there: Flint, Paypal. I’ve even heard of free services. But I like Square and will stick to it.
Alternatives
Okay so, I have an entire breakdown of this in the eBook (yes, I sat in on all those hour long sales presentations they make you do), so I’m not going to dig too much here. But I will give you a few tips for your homework if you chose to do it on your own.
First, look at start up fees. Is there an “installation fee” or a “set up fee”. Companies often try to collect right out of the gate.
Second, is there a monthly fee associated with using their service.
Also, what is the equipment fee?
Do you have to have an internet connection for it to work? If so, what are those requirements and how much will that cost you?
Can you set up subscriptions? For us, we like to have a monthly coffee club and need to be able to continue to bill clients on a regular.
Lastly what are their transaction fees? Can you pass those on to the client?
Further, can they batch without internet for those festivals where you are in the middle of nowhere?
