Square POS a thoroughly recommended POS system
October 03, 2019
Square POS a thoroughly recommended POS system

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Square POS
Up until my bricks & mortar shop closed a couple of months ago, Square POS was our only till system. We used it to ring up customer orders in person and by phone and we loved that stock control was fully integrated with our website. Very easy to obtain reports and effect all manner of customer transactions from refunds to collecting email addresses for marketing to gathering information for the taxman. Superb system.
Pros
- Very intuitive system - easy to use, clearly laid out
- Excellent reporting capabilities
- Fast payments
- Reasonable fees
Cons
- The cost of the hardware (specific scanners and receipt printers) was prohibitive for my company, and whilst we managed without them, they would have been nice to have. The range of scanners and printers that integrate with Square is small, so despite our devices' capabilities to read barcodes (we used ipads) and the Zebra receipt/label printers we had, we couldn't use either as the system wouldn't integrate with them.
- Whilst Square's credit card reader is nifty in design, it's a bit small and lacking substance to have as a customer-facing reader so it really needs the dock the company offers. The dock is awkward to open to reset or pair the reader. We often found pairing the reader with the device running the system tricky and confusing, relying on pressing one button and then interpreting a sequence of lights that often caused confusion. The pairing process might have been clearer presented through the device rather than the reader.
- Truly can't think of any more!
- Square significantly reduced the time spent on bookkeeping for this area of the business. By at least 95% over our previous electronic till system.
- The ability to sell website stock in the physical shop and integrating the two in terms of stock control was hugely beneficial. Before Square, we had to change stock levels on the website immediately after every sale to prevent overselling! This was obviously a massive expense in terms of team hours.
- Using Square also meant we could offer a number of materials for sale that didn't lend themselves to a traditional shop display format. This way, the shop was optimised with items that made for a good display, whilst the entire offering was available to all customers by way of signage, catalogues and access to our website. It definitely helped to promote our website in the shop so a very positive impact here.
Having used a manual cash register and a very expensive and robotic card payments processor (Global Payments which was partnered to our business bank, HSBC), we knew we wanted something that would cover both cash and card transactions, and integrate with our website.
Izettle was very new at the time that we were scouting for a POS system, so it was more of a card payment processor than the fully fledged POS system that it is today. I have no experience of iZettle's POS but it's a very good card processor.
VendHQ was a very strong contender, scoring highly on design and usability, but its fixed pricing was more expensive than the likely charges on credit card transactions that Square POS charge (1.75% for card transactions, cash transactions are free).
We tried other systems that were often bundled with a cash register - most were horribly complicated and outdated.
Square POS was way ahead of all that we tried in terms of usability, design, features and pricing. With VendHQ closely behind, only failing on the pricing.
Izettle was very new at the time that we were scouting for a POS system, so it was more of a card payment processor than the fully fledged POS system that it is today. I have no experience of iZettle's POS but it's a very good card processor.
VendHQ was a very strong contender, scoring highly on design and usability, but its fixed pricing was more expensive than the likely charges on credit card transactions that Square POS charge (1.75% for card transactions, cash transactions are free).
We tried other systems that were often bundled with a cash register - most were horribly complicated and outdated.
Square POS was way ahead of all that we tried in terms of usability, design, features and pricing. With VendHQ closely behind, only failing on the pricing.
Do you think Square POS delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with Square POS's feature set?
Yes
Did Square POS live up to sales and marketing promises?
Yes
Did implementation of Square POS go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy Square POS again?
Yes
Comments
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