Squared Away

I don't do many product endorsements on this site, but I'm really impressed with a new service I recently signed up for that will allow me to process credit card orders through my Android phone.  First, a little background:

Back in the late 90's I established a merchant account for the quartet with my credit union so we could accept credit card payments for products, tickets, etc.  Up to that point we were limited to cash or check, and with the rise of debit cards and the audience increasingly moving to plastic for purchases I needed to be able to handle those requests.  The merchant account fees were 3.25% + $.17 per transaction with a $20 monthly minimum.  I also had to buy a $600 software program to run the thing on my home computer.

At concerts we would run the person's card through one of those old zip-zap machines using hard copy receipts.  If the card didn't print legibly on the form, or somebody screwed up and put it in the machine the wrong way, I usually didn't find out about it until it was too late and that money was lost.  We also had no way to get approval on card transactions until they were entered into my computer.  I lost some money on bad cards along the way because of that.

When the quartet's schedule was greatly reduced it no longer made sense to pay $20 per month just to keep the merchant account so I dropped it.  When we had a big trip or other big event I worked out a deal to run credit cards through one of my member's business account.  That added other layers of effort to the process, and also caused some confusion with purchasers at times.

While flying home from Texas last week one of my guys spotted an ad in a photography magazine for SquareUp.com, a service that allows you to accept credit card payments via your iPhone or Android phone.  It has a simple little card reader that plugs into your phone's earphone jack and the software does the rest.  There's no monthly fee and the transaction fees are less than I was paying for my merchant account.

The sign-up process is very easy and within a few days you're ready to go.  Once transactions are processed the funds are electronically transferred to your bank account the next day.  It couldn't be easier.

The software also provides a way to process cards without swiping them in case you have some issues with the card swiper, though the discount fee is a little bit higher.

A couple of interesting features - the program allows you to put a note in the system about what the person bought, and if you want you can also take a photo of it which will be part of the receipt.  You can't print receipts on your phone, but the service allows you to email a receipt to the customer's email address.  It also uses your phone's GPS to record the location of the sale on the receipt.  Square will also allow you to create email receipts for cash transactions should you have need for that.  I don't believe there are any fees for that part of the service because no money flows through the system.

Another nice feature is that up to 10 devices can be signed on to the same account at the same time.  One of my other guys also has the service, so both of us can be signed onto the quartet account at the same time and that will make things much bigger at events where I can't be at the table all the time.

I've already used it for a couple of transactions and it works like a charm.  As long as you have a good phone and GPS signal it processes everything very quickly.  I'd recommend it for any business that moves around to different locations and doesn't just have one fixed location.  Check it out at Squareup.com.