I'm 19, beginning my freelance car detailing business; and I've been thinking about getting square. This video has really been helpful! Thank you for giving the pros and cons

In some states it's actually illegal to charge a card fee, and is called "payment type discrimination." But one loophole you can utilize is to raise your rate, then offer a cash discount.

We got the Square Terminal recently. We chose Square because of the low rate, and no monthly rental charge. When on the road and you get someone flagging you down for snow removal the ability to take credit cards and debit cards is essential. People are more likely to pay a little higher rate for a one time service if they can just throw it onto their credit card. So far we have encountered NO problems with Square.

Thanks for the tip about opening a separate account for use with the square. Gonna do that! Makes perfect sense.

Smart and will be opening an acct just for square! Glad I bumped into your video prior to purchasing a card reader.

I'm researching the square myself and the best tip I've hear yet is a separate bank account... I was going to register for it tonight but now I'm going to wait and go to the bank first !!! thank you for that tip

There were 3 tips i haven't Considered you mentioned..Thank you, Great tips! i have the square now but wouldn't use it till now..you answered the Questions i didn't KNOW to Ask...I knew i didn't want anyone in my act....without my permission!

Good tip on the Square account. This is similar to how I explain on-line shopping to older folks who hesitate to put their details out there...I tell them to go and open a free, debit-card account and only drop money in when they need to make a purchase. These accts. (so far) have zero fees. Cheers from AU, Bill!

Great tips. You are right every utility company charges a fee for any payment unless it’s a recurring payment.

I'm starting my mobile spiritual business this week, so this is very helpful. THANK YOU!

Thank you. That was very helpful.. I purchased the square stand from my local apple store.. I am considering returning the product as the lack of customer support is a problem (I can just imagine dealing with any dispute, nobody to call and talk to, etc)... Thanks again..

This review was very thorough and helpful, i'm sure my friend who uses square didn't know about the higher rate of keying in the card numbers, now I can pass on the advice.

Had a delivery issue. NO Way to contact them. Wth how can you have a business with no contact? I'm very wary now of using them.

great tips about using another bank account. very smart!

Like him! He gets straight to the point! Thanks

Thanks for the advice & tips!!! Really appreciate it!! From another guy starting a small business.

thank you for making this demonstration quick and straightforward

@ H Lef- For some reason youtube does not allow me to reply to some comments, I believe it has something to do with how they were entered. This happened with yours so I hope you see this... Your question is how much of a fee to pass along. I would say the entire amount. I actually just had this conversation the other day with a customer of mine who sales credit card readers and systems to restaurants and businesses and she told me that a lot of her customers are starting to do this. Not the guys who deal in small transactions but the ones who get hit with bigger numbers are doing it on a regular basis. I know a guy who charges his snow plow customers 4 percent when he is getting charged around 3 percent but he is banking on a manualy key in that will cost him more. I believe square has dropped their manualy key in price to under 4 percent but I haven't confirmed that yet. I'm going to do a video on this so keep an eye out for it BurbBilly

Thanks for the tips! I just purchased my square. Did I hear you correctly when you said they would refund what i paid for it? I did notice in my research that you can get a reader for free after you register. But like I said I just bought mine. Look forward to your response

Square now has a customer phone number that you can speak to a live person, great info you provided

Great informational video. You brought up some things that I never would have thought of. Thank you!

This was such an amazingly easy video to follow and understand. Thanks for making it super simple!!!

Question: What if you have a business account and you connect it with Square and someone swipe their card, will it transfer to the business account? Or will it stay on Square’s account and you have to transfer it yourself?

Appreciate the review! Tons of useful tips. Thank$!

Just getting started with Square. Your last tip about keying in cards is helpful. Many of my customers will call for storage lot info and I was tempted to take their cards over the phone and then issue them a code to the lot. Now I will make sure to do it in person. Thanks for the great info!

Thank you so much for an articulate and insightful video...brought up points I wasn't even considering!

This does help. Thank you for the tip on having a bank account just for Square. I wasn't aware of that. I'm currently looking for a POS for a small business I'm about to start. I appreciate your video.

This is excellent, as I'm launching a new 1-man business. Most helpful. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your hints in how to use this Square device. Very, very helpful.

When you key a card in, does Square verify that the card is good and also with a swipe?

Hey Billy, I never thought of the convenience fee. What would be an appropriate convenience fee amount? Thanks!

Thanks for the tips, I have square and love it. Its good to protect yourself. Great advice.

Good info billy, its good to hear a review from an actual business owner.

Thank you for the info our freind. alot of it i knew but it was refreshing to here it from another small business owners perspective. Keep up the good work and good luck with all of your endeavors and god bless you and your family. Mike Keyes Custom Diesel and Performance

and i know its sells not sales...i just woke up when I wrote this :-) The customer I mentioned told me that they her company ranges on what is charged from a 1 plus percent fee up to over 3 percent based on the credit card...so a person charging a 4 percent fee is covering all possible cost. If a customer doesn't want to pay the fee they can always write a check or pay in cash

Bank along with Square is royal info. Thanks Brah!

Thank you for sharing. Your video is quite informative and easy to understand.

You provided information I never thought about. Thank you.

That is a GREAT idea about having a 2nd account to protect your money. I had that happen with TSYS. Really pissed me off. I couldn't use the Square app on a LG2 piece of hardware.......I just ordered a Samsung. I do have a personal bank account in the same bank where my business account is, but I think just for the hell of it, I'll open a 3rd account so I can't protect the credit card charges. Thanks for the tip....

Very enlightening. I have a bit of a longwinded question that I hope you might be able to answer for me because I can't contact SALES without allowing Square to run a credit report and verify my identity. This seems like a huge red flag when I have to BECOME a client just to ask the questions necessary to determine if I WANT to be a client. I understand that "Cross-border card payments are unsupported. This means that card transactions attempted outside of the country where you activated your Square account can’t be processed with Square. However, you can accept cash transactions while traveling internationally." This doesn't fully answer the question and isn't entirely clear. I'm not interested in taking intrnational payments or performing work for clients who are located outside of my home country. That description could mean that all transactions cease to function, or it could simply mean that international cards aren't accepted outside of your home country. It implies that I'm trying to take a foreign payment in the foreign country that I'm in, but it doesn't really touch upon whether you can continue to use this while traveling to maintain a business which is physically located in your home country. Let me give you an example: I'm a Canadian. My Canadian business is run online, so I can work from anywhere. If I go to my winter home in Florida for six months and work remotely, can I continue to manually charge my Canadian clients in Canadian funds by keyed-in credit card number? Or does the reader use my IP address and location to determine that I'm outside of my home country and stop allowing me to take payments altogether? This product would be an absolute win if people like me could take it with us and continue to do businesses aboard (in our home currency and with clients who are located back home). Because while there are serious implications to illegally working in a foreign country without a visa or permit, there is absolutely nothing illegal about remotely maintaining an online business which operates (and is located) in your home country while you, yourself, are abroad. Business owners have to be able to maintain their businesses while traveling, and they shouldn't have to wait weeks on end to receive payments simply because they're away from their physical office. Preventing transactions while abroad is kind of missing the mark here, especially for modern enterpreneurs in the age of internet startups. We're not tethered to offices or desks. We travel, we work remotely, we take working vacations. We need a product that allows us to continue accepting payments back home even when we're 1000 miles away. Granted, my system allows payments to be made by email, but the nature of my business requires certain clients to make deposits, and they typically provide a number to be keyed-in manually. So, to reiterate: If I go to my winter home in Florida for six months, can I continue to charge my Canadian clients in Canadian funds via the keyed-in method, for business transactions made and performed in Canada? Or does the reader use my IP address and location to determine that I'm outside the country and stop allowing me to take all forms of payment? And with that said, if the reader doesn't work outside of the country, does the app still continue to process keyed-in transactions or does the app cease to function as well?

I always ask for 90% upfront to buy materials and use the square for lower priced tranactions. That way you loose less money. The 90% is paid direct into my business ac

Thank you for this Video, helped me a lot. Just got mine for my little business and I had mixed feeling too about it.

Our state charges a convenience fee if we use a card to pay when getting our car tags/ license plate.

.I did a job for $565.00 worth of work including parts , in which I had paid for the parts and SQUARE deducted the entire amount of money from my account without consulting me about the problem. So in other words they sided with the card holder who would be my customer and I not only lost the money for my labor, I also lost my money for the parts that I had paid for with my money to begin with. I will not deal with SQUARE any longer if they will do transactions in the future this way. It cost me lots of money

What about fees from the credit card companies? Like if you charge $10, what gets deposited? Do you pay the fee or does the customer?

How long did you have to wait to transfer funds after they test your bank account for direct deposit?

Is there anual fee ? Or fee come only for every sale ? Thanks and can you do large sales like $5000 ?????

I got an offer for square after registering my business, I’m not sure how to order it. It was asking for product description. Also, do you recommend I open an account under the business name for this, or its fine the personal account?

Awesome advice. Thank you!

Where did you enter the 3% convenience fee for use of CC?

Hello Burb Billy, Its been a year since you posted this and I see you are keeping up with it. I have a question that I cannot seem to find the answer to. I think you referred to my question early in this video. I was wondering if you would be willing to elaborate. I have an Android tablet (only WiFi or Bluetooth). Does the device have to be connected to a network at the time of a transaction or will it hold the transaction until the device connects to a network. I am a new business and resources are minimal right now. My desire to to get a cellular based tablet.

Good review, have you ever worked with a Chip/Fast tap square reader ? Would like to see a review on that one as well

Thanks for the tip on the bank account!

Thank you very much, so better only use debit card?

Thanks. A number of nay Sayers about this product. Want to get the larger one, sounds more secure. Appreciate your info. Thanks.

This review has been very helpful, thank you. I liked the point you made about having a second checking acct...makes perfect sense! How has it been going with square lately? I read somewhere in your comments that they have an actual person you can speak to now? Any new thoughts on this?

I don’t even hesitate to pass that off to the customer because when I let them know we can do credit card I also let them know there’s a 3% fee

Why my Square account got deactivated?? Square sent me an email saying that I violated section 35 payment terms and therefore they deactivated my account. I only charged around $8k within. 3/4 days(each time $700-$3500)

If I used my primary account that I use for every day use to set up for Square does that mean it is too late to change it from my primary account to a different account such as an entirely different bank???

I have been reading some bad reviews about square and I have my suspicions. I will set up an account through my bank and charge a convenience fee or/And split the convenience fee with the customer. Thanks for the advice

Are you still up an running today ? I am so curious why so many complaints, yet some have no problem at all. May I ask, do you charge consistent $ amounts ? Daily, randomly ? I'm looking for a pattern on why some accounts get closed.

Thanks for all the info! I might get the square for my distributing business. I also make bath and body products using essential oils...would you say its worth it for smaller transactions? I know so many people don't carry cash these days and if I were set up at an event and someone wanted to buy some bath bombs, lipchap and face toner I want them to be able to pay with a card.

Great advice ty!

I was able to contact customer service by following a thread on their Twitter page. I went to squareup.com/help/us/en/contact then used the two drop down boxes to select the product I needed help with and the topic. Then I clicked "call us." At this point I had to log in and it gave me a phone number and customer number to reference when I called. I called the number and spoke with someone after a short wait. Super easy.

What happens when card reader does not work ?

Can I use Square products out from The United States? I live in Ecuador! what I understood Square hardware its working meanwhile I only accept cash is that correct?

Do you still use Square today? Have you ever tried the instant deposit? Its an extra 1% fee but still useful if you need that money quickly.

Even seen some gas stations do that extra fee if you use cards

Do you recommend putting it on my reserve account. Then I can transfer it to my big account. I just don't want to deal with issues. So I order it recently hoping it works good for me

Thanx Billy. I found your tut very informative. Like the separate account idea. I'm just getting set up. I will use it for my estate sale as opposed to opening a business, etc. Do you know if I don't collect local tax, would the state still require filing on that income?

Excellent video and explanation on what you should know! Thank You!

Great Video and very detailed and straight to the point you have earned a subscriber! :)

Square took 1500.00 of my money without reason and I had the customer go to their credit card company to get their own money back from this company. They took the money and said they would hold the money for 90 days. Today they (square) contacted me about the money and I asked them to return the money back to the customer.

thanks for the tip on opening 2 bank accounts, one for square deposit, the other to transfer that deposit. Do you have both accounts with the same bank or different banks?

can SQUARE READER be used outside of USA., particularly in philippines??

I have a lawn service business I just ordered my square. I have some customers that want to pay with credit card, I know there is a fee of 2.75%. I want to know how can I add the fee to what there are suppose to pay me. For example if there are paying me $30.00 does the fee automatically adds up to them. do I have to type in the amount with the fee already included.

Very informative! Thank you!

Great tips!

Has square ever taken money from your account? You said they will do that in certain situations but you've also never had called customer service.

Good video, thanks Burb Billy. Great tip about the secondary account. I think Paypal operates the same, as far as disputes.

Do u have to pay a fee if u run cash sales through the register ?? When u add a unit price , is that the whole sale price for our records ? Does anyone see that??

Hi. Just set up my Square for upcoming antique show. They asked me to charge $1.00 to start. I keyed it in manually. They then deposited $.81 into my account. That would be 19%???? Need to get this understood.

Interesting video ! Thnxs for sharing your experience and info.

awesome I was wondering were my money went I just used it for the first time. great advice

What about setting up a layway?

My business account on square just got a reserve for 90 days . How can i get my money back !?

Build the processing fee into your selling price then offer a discount for cash purchases. Since it's illegal (normally - it is at the very least a violation of the service agreement) to charge customers more to use a credit card, the loophole is to charge those who use cash less.

Im trying to add money from my bank account but it wants a debit card???? I cant just transfer from bank to cashapp without a debit card?

I do have one question about the 2nd bank account. My experience is that you should have a separate bank account in another bank to avoid someone going into any of your multiple accounts in the same bank. Is that true?

How do you contact cs. I need to know what is with texs

thank you great tips, really helped!

What's the highest amount you can use? Some of my customers pay around 250 or more for just regular mowing services.

Thanks for the good info. Can't wait to try it

I have a problem with swiping; the card doesn't go through most of the time. Is it the reader or another problem? I could do it manually but there is an extra charge plus a 15 cent charge.

Thank you for the information and tips you shared. Do you have any feedback or information/opinion regarding how this Square service compares to the one offered by PayPal? Thank you for your time and assistance.

Thank you... really great tips

Thank you. Very helpful tips.

how would you listed a small business with daily entry of income, how you deal at the end of the year to prove all entry?

Can I order one through Amazon or eBay any recommendations

can square work Internationally????