Here's what you need to know about Square for restaurants

Key quotes:

• "While some business owners choose not to draw a salary while getting started, you will eventually have to pay yourself — after all, the goal of opening your own restaurant is intended to be an investment that supports you financially."
• "For businesses that choose to work with an attorney to make sure all requirements are met, you will also have to pay legal fees."
• "A customized kitchen build-out can cost as much as $250,000 — a significant expense many new restaurant owners aren’t prepared to accommodate."
• "Kitchen appliances, for example, can be extremely costly, making a restaurant far more expensive than most other small business start-ups."
• "Insurance will vary based on size, function, and location, but most restaurant start-ups can expect costs of around $6,000 a year."
• "The investment in a good POS can save you both time and money in the long run, helping to automate processes like inventory management, sales tracking, analysis of sales trends, product orders, and even integration with accounting software like we previously mentioned."

Key quotes:

• "If you’re a small business owner looking for an easy way to accept credit card payments, you may have heard of a company called Square Up."
• "Square Up — as their domain implies — or just Square as they’re more commonly called."
• "Much like a small business loan or merchant cash advance, the account provider analyzes factors such as personal credit, years in business, and the type of business you operate to determine their risk for bringing you on as a client."
• "Square has built a reputation for offering simple, flat-rate credit card processing fees for small businesses."
• "We are two satisfied customers” — Samantha, MidWest Vape Over the years, Square has shifted from its core business as just a payment acceptance platform to include an array of other solutions."
• "If you’re operating a real business and you want to accept credit cards, the best thing you can do is set up payment processing the conventional way — using a merchant service provider and bank account, not an aggregator."

Transcript: With square for restaurants close of day reports it's easy to create your report quickly and in just a few steps saving you time when you're ready to close your restaurant for the night you can run close of day reports to gain insights into your daily sales reconcile your cash and tip out your employees employees can also run shift reports which allow them to see their own daily sales without accessing those of your restaurant as a whole once they've clocked out they are now ready to run the close of day report to process your close of day report on the square for restaurants app start by tapping actions next select run close of day you'll want to close out all open checks adjust all credit card tips and all cash drawers and clock out all employees you can even let employees run the close of day reports for you and set it so they have to take any or all of those steps first once you're all set tap run close of day you will see that day's covers gross sales refunds net sales tax paid tips collected via Bulls cash and card payments all your... See more →

Key quotes:

• "Because retailers have even more advanced inventory needs, Square for Retail offers an entire POS app with additional inventory tools, including Nothing endears a customer to a business like a real relationship — and good customer relationship management data can help you build one."
• "That means that whether you swipe a customer card via Square’s Reader, enter a client’s payment information manually via the Square Dashboard, or charge a subscriber a monthly fee, a small percentage of the total amount will be deducted by Square before the funds make their way to your bank account."
• "If you use Square’s free credit-card reading dongle with your smartphone or tablet, the only fee you’ll pay for sales via swiped cards will be 2.75 percent of the total transaction, including taxes and tips."
• "According to FastCompany, Square’s sleek-looking Terminal, their most recent hardware offering, is a “gateway to an entire ecosystem of small-business solutions.” Integrated add-ons to Square’s POS app include appointment and booking software, payroll, and e-commerce and marketing tools such as loyalty program setup."

Transcript: Square registers the point-of-sale that's powerful enough to run your whole business before we go over the things that make it great you'll first want to make sure your device is connected to the Internet then launch the square register app and sign in with your username and password the first thing you'll see is a 5x5 grid where your items and discounts are just a tap away to create an item hold your finger on a blank tile until you're in edit mode then tap the plus sign from here you can create new items discounts or add category shortcuts to your menu but we'll talk more about these functions later to view your item library by category tap the list icon in the bottom navigation menu or tap the calculator to ring up a custom amount going back to the navigation menu on the left hand side reports is where you can view your daily sales summary email any report by tapping the envelope icon or create a custom report by tapping the calendar icon and selecting custom you can see a feed of every payment that's flowing through your business and the activity section search for a... See more →

Transcript: You probably know Square as the little whitereader that lets you accept payments anywhere. But there’s so much more Square can do tohelp you work smarter and save time. It all starts with our Point of Sale app. The Point of Sale app is simple, powerfuland highly customizable. It works in all kinds of setups, includingSquare’s beautiful hardware, but right now, we’re going to focus on the apps. First off, you can name and organize your products and you can take pictures of them for faster checkout and less employee training. Which means you or your employees can easilytake a payment for, say, a pizza. Just tap the item, add some toppings, then bingo - you’re ready for them to swipe, dip or tap. A tip window pops up, customers can then signand you’re all set. It works perfectly, whether you’re sellingclothes, coffee or cradles. But the point of sale app does more than justtake orders. It lets you add employees so they can clock in and out, and give them secure permissions to keep control of what they can see and do. You can also create and manage your customerdirectory, right in the app. You can keep a card... See more →

Transcript: In this video we'll cover how to get started with your free trial and take your first payment in just a few easy steps I'll square up comm click sign in and enter your email and password this is your square dashboard let's start by creating a menu in the navigation select menus here we'll click on create a menu and give it a name like brunch next click add a display group this is a group of items like mains or appetizers let's call this one entrees give it a color and click Save let's add our first entree egg scramble click create new give it a color and a price hit save this is what your menu will look like in the app but we'll get to that later you can also click grid layout to preview and customize your menu right here from the dashboard now let's add modifiers to our dish in the navigation click items from here click modifiers on the left hand side let's create a new one we'll call it brunch sides we'll add the names on prices of our modifiers and at the bottom will enable conversational ordering hit save let's apply... See more →

Key quotes:

• "Traditional on-premise systems may tempt you, but choosing a modern restaurant POS app will serve you better in the long run."
• "Not only can the POS software that these systems use cost up to thousands of dollars, but you also need a variety of hardware components to flesh out a full system."
• "You’ll also need to buy or lease the hardware that the software runs on, and that your staff uses to input orders, ring up customers, and more on a day-to-day basis."
• "Cloud-based systems are typically paid for through a monthly subscription and any updates you need are downloaded directly to your POS just like an app on your phone."
• "If you’re choosing a traditional POS system you’re already paying more than you would with a modern, cloud-based restaurant POS app."
• "These reports help you with various aspects of your business like inventory, calculating your cost of goods sold, keeping track of sales performance, and even monitoring your top customers and how they’re paying."

Transcript: Creating items and square register enables you to speed up your check out and send itemized receipts to your customers here's how you do it from an iPad or Android tablet first tap the list icon in the bottom navigation bar then tap Edit then the plus sign then tap create item here you can choose a color or a photo for your item give your item a name assign a category to find it more easily at checkout time and set a price if it comes in multiple sizes or prices adding that information is easy select modifiers to let your customers customize their order add a clear description of your item to help your customers know exactly what they're getting especially if they order online for pickup when everything looks good tap save then done editing if you want to edit an item simply search or browse to it then hold on the item to enter edit mode and tap it once more now you can edit item details or delete it completely discounts are created in a similar way tap the plus sign select create discount and enter the necessary information next let's go over creating pages... See more →

Key quotes:

• "Born out of frustration with the traditional cash register business, ShopKeep was founded in 2008 by a business owner with a different goal in mind — to replace complicated POS systems with simple, powerful, affordable, payment solutions."
• "We provide you with the flexibility to choose your preferred credit card processor or receive the lowest integrated rate with ShopKeep Payments — which means you always get the best rate possible for your specific business."
• "if you are a service business that needs to take credit card payments every now and again, Square is probably right for you."
• "On the other hand, if you’re diving head first into running a food truck, specialty retail boutique, vape shop, or wine store, like our founder, you’ll need more than a dongle to track inventory, sales activity and manage employees."
• "Many of our customers start out with Square and eventually upgrade to ShopKeep because it offers more advanced business features simply and intuitively."