Square for Restaurants POS Review: Is Square for Restaurants Right for Your Business?

Square for Restaurants is a cloud-based point of sale software that can be used by all types of businesses to accept credit cards. The service offers many advantages over old school POS systems, and the end result is an increase in sales for your restaurant business.

Square for Restaurants is a new point of sale system that offers a wide range of features. This article will review the pros and cons to help you decide if Square for Restaurants is right for your business. Read more in detail here: square for restaurants pricing.

Square for Restaurants is an iPad-based cloud-based restaurant point-of-sale (POS) system. Built-in capabilities for full-service, delivery, and counter service restaurants are included in this iPad POS. There is no monthly membership charge for the entry-level POS, and higher-level subscriptions are reasonably priced. Square for Restaurants is a good solution for small and medium-sized restaurants since it has built-in payment processing and a 30-day free trial.

Restaurants may be found on the Square.

Square for Restaurants Is What We Recommend

While Square has been processing payments for almost a decade, Square for Restaurants was first released in 2018. However, in that short period, this very cost-effective cloud-POS has become a favorite alternative among tiny, independent eateries. It comes on our list of the finest restaurant POS systems on a regular basis.

Square for Restaurants is especially recommended for:

• Food trucks: Square for Restaurants’ basic POS is free and iPad-based, making it ideal for small businesses. It is our top pick for a food truck POS system.
• Quick Service Restaurants (QSRs): With the recent inclusion of a built-in kitchen display system (KDS), this cost-effective technology may now be used in QSRs.
• Restaurants on a budget: Because it is the most cheap choice on the market, Square for Restaurants tends to appear in most rankings of restaurant POS systems—whether for cafés, pizzerias, or bakeries. There aren’t many free POS systems available, particularly for restaurants.

When Square Isn’t a Good Fit for Restaurants

• Square for Eateries has built-in payment processing for high-volume restaurants. Square’s tariffs are in the center of the pack, although high-volume eateries will almost certainly find better deals elsewhere. Lightspeed provides various payment alternatives.
• Square for Restaurants does not presently support credit card pre-authorization, which is a need for bars that require pre-authorized tabs. Bars that run tabs will undoubtedly feel the squeeze, so take a look at our best picks for bar POS systems.
• Restaurants looking for vendor management should: Square for Restaurants’ inventory module is not ingredient-level, and unlike other rivals, it does not handle automated vendor orders. For basic inventory management, we choose Toast, and Upserve provides excellent vendor management.

Are you looking for something unique? Square offers a variety of POS systems for small companies, including retail-specific alternatives, appointment-based enterprises, and a basic all-purpose POS software.

Overview of Square for Restaurants POS

Restaurants may be found on the Square.

Pricing for Restaurants in Square

There are three price options for Square for Restaurants: free, plus, and premium. Plus price begins at $60 per month for a single terminal and $40 for each additional terminal, with no monthly software subscription charge. Premium subscriptions, on the other hand, are priced individually.

For a price, restaurants may also add other functions like payroll processing, marketing, and loyalty programs. Square for Restaurants provides a 30-day free trial if you want to try out the program. You may hire a Square professional to come to your restaurant for $600 to assist you in setting up the software and training your personnel. Because Square for Eateries is a plug-and-play system, most restaurants put it up themselves.

Square for Restaurants’ varied membership categories make it an excellent match for a variety of food and beverage enterprises. Because they are housed on the same platform and run on a month-to-month subscription basis, upgrading to higher service levels as your company expands is simple.

Square Payments for Restaurants

• Restaurants have a built-in square. Square payments are pre-installed on the POS.
• Square’s pricing is transparent, with processing charges shown prominently on its website.
• Payments are encrypted and safe to protect your customers’ information and avoid chargebacks.
• Accept online payments from customers who make orders via your Square Online shop.

• When you lose internet connectivity, the offline mode spools credit card payments.
• Accept payments through Apple Pay, Square Pay, and Google Wallet via mobile wallets.
• Pricing may be tailored to your needs: Restaurants with a high number of transactions may get a personalized processing pricing quotation.

Square Payments is the in-built payment processor in Square for Restaurants. For swiped, dipped, or tapped purchases in person, Square charges a 2.6 percent + Square for Restaurants comes with Square Payments as the in-built payment processor. Square charges a 2.6% + $0.10 fee for in-person swiped, dipped, or tapped transactions. Manually keyed payments are 3.5% + $0.15 each, and online payments are 2.9% + $0.30. In a sea of custom-quoting payment processors, it is refreshing to see published fees. Square is so transparent, in fact, that it included a fee calculator on its website so that you can estimate your costs..10 fee. Payments made by hand are 3.5 percent plus Square for Restaurants comes with Square Payments as the in-built payment processor. Square charges a 2.6% + $0.10 fee for in-person swiped, dipped, or tapped transactions. Manually keyed payments are 3.5% + $0.15 each, and online payments are 2.9% + $0.30. In a sea of custom-quoting payment processors, it is refreshing to see published fees. Square is so transparent, in fact, that it included a fee calculator on its website so that you can estimate your costs..15, while internet payments are 2.9 percent plus Square for Restaurants comes with Square Payments as the in-built payment processor. Square charges a 2.6% + $0.10 fee for in-person swiped, dipped, or tapped transactions. Manually keyed payments are 3.5% + $0.15 each, and online payments are 2.9% + $0.30. In a sea of custom-quoting payment processors, it is refreshing to see published fees. Square is so transparent, in fact, that it included a fee calculator on its website so that you can estimate your costs..30. It’s nice to see stated fees amid a sea of custom-quoting payment processors. Square is so open that it even has a charge calculator on its website so you can get an idea of how much it will cost you.

Some restaurants like to look around for the most competitive processing fees. If you’re a high-volume eatery, you’ll almost certainly find cheaper processing charges elsewhere. However, if your restaurant has yearly sales of more than $250,000, you may request an unique price for processing expenses.

In offline mode, Square for Restaurants allows credit and debit card payments. If you lose internet access, you may swipe cards and the payment information will be saved for 72 hours. These spooled payments will occur automatically whenever you restore internet connectivity.

Hardware for Restaurants Square

• iPad-based: You may either bring your own hardware or buy it from Square.
• iPads are multifunctional and serve as the base for both the POS and the KDS.
• Tabletop choices include iPad minis that can accept orders and payments at the table, as well as Square Terminals that can process payments at the table.

• Square offers a variety of peripherals, including iPad supports, cash drawers, receipt printers, kitchen printers, bar code scanners, and hand-held payment devices.

Complete hardware kits from Square for Restaurants include an iPad stand, cash drawer, credit card chip reader, receipt printer, and kitchen printer, among other things. With an iPad, these packages cost roughly $1,400, and without an iPad, they cost around $1,000. You may also buy products separately or bring your own suitable hardware with you.

Restaurants have a square. iPads and other hand-held devices are used for POS. (Image courtesy of Square)

The freshly introduced KDS, like the underlying POS, runs on iPads. On iPad minis, you may use the complete POS software or use Square’s mobile Square Terminal to collect tableside payments. Square’s customer service site has complete installation and networking instructions to help you through your hardware setup. Customers who want help setting up their Square account may schedule an in-person visit from a Square expert; the cost of this service begins at $600.

Features of Square POS for Restaurants

Square for Restaurants also includes a free Square Online shop for accepting online orders, as well as an integrated KDS software that syncs orders from your POS, online, and third-party delivery apps. Premium customers enjoy all of the benefits of the Plus subscription plus special pricing on other products like Square Payroll, Square Marketing, and Square Loyalty.

Square for Restaurants includes all of the features that a restaurant POS need, however it differs significantly from the other two. You cannot place course orders, assign seat numbers to goods, or reopen closed checks if you have a free membership. Individual shift reports will also not be printed. For full-service restaurants, this may seem restrictive, but if you manage a coffee shop or a counter-service deli, Square for Restaurants’ free version is ideal.

However, you should be aware of the services that are not included, since they will have an influence on your restaurant’s operations:

Square for Restaurants includes, in addition to the online ordering, marketing, loyalty, and reporting functions discussed below, the following:

• Customer Management: When you handle a credit or debit card transaction, the system’s built-in customer directory produces a profile for you. Restaurants may create comprehensive profiles with names, contact information, and stored payment methods using the directory.
• Workforce management: The Team Management feature in Square enables you to schedule personnel and monitor their hours for payroll purposes. Multiple user roles, permissions, and compensation levels for a single employee, as well as sales monitoring and activity logs, are all available with a Team Plus membership (included with Plus and Premium Square for Restaurants customers).
• Integrated Payroll: With Square Payroll, you can effortlessly pay your employees with physical checks or direct deposits. Payroll may be handled weekly, monthly, or every two weeks, depending on your preferences. This module can monitor deductions for perks like 401(k) and health insurance, as well as automate your payroll tax filings. Square has a free payroll option as well as a more sophisticated paid payroll option; for a specific quotation, contact a Square representative.
• Inventory is not a significant issue for Square for Restaurants. The system records complete, packaged commodities like wine bottles and beer bottles and enables diminishing item counts and auto-86’ing. Third-party connectors provide more comprehensive inventory and physical counting capabilities at the ingredient level.
• Square for Restaurants interfaces with popular applications such as Homebase and 7shifts for scheduling, BentoBox for restaurant website design, Yellow Dog and MarketMan for inventory management, and QuickBooks and Xero for accounting (accounting). Square also encourages software developers to bring tools to the Square Marketplace, resulting in a steady stream of new integrations.

Square for Table and Menu Management in Restaurants

• Support for several menus: Make breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, and happy hour meals that are timed.
• Set discounts for certain periods, such as happy hours or special events, on your menu.

• Color-coded table status: Use straightforward green, yellow, and red warnings to see which tables are lagging or about to depart shortly.
• Customers may order via their cellphones without having to wait for a waitress.

You may build menus for various days of the week, times of day, and special events using Square for Restaurants. Restaurants may also automate special discounts, such as happy hours, to apply at certain times. You can bulk import information from a spreadsheet file if you have a lot of things to add or change. Individual item counts and auto-86ing are available with the Plus and Premium memberships to keep your team on the same page.

Without any extra monthly expenses, the system delivers QR code ordering capabilities. Customers may make orders or pay for their meals without having to wait for a waiter by scanning a QR code with their cellphones. In addition to credit and debit cards, the QR code ordering and payment tools support mobile wallet payments such as Apple Pay. Payments made via the QR code ordering function are handled at higher online transaction rates rather than card-present rates.

It’s simple and quick to create unique floorplans. (Photo courtesy of Square for Restaurants)

With a simple drag-and-drop interface, the POS lets you to construct as many bespoke floor layouts as you need. Tables might be named based on their location (for example, “patio 1”) or by using basic table numbers. Table timers are included with the program subscription for Plus and Premium customers. With basic green, yellow, and red notifications, this simple color-coding indicates you how long clients have been sitting.

Check the management of restaurants with a square.

• Checks may be started with only two clicks by opening a tab or a table.
• Transfer Checks: Re-assign checks to a new waitress or bartender or move them from one part of the restaurant to another.
• Split Checks: Split checks by item or accept numerous payments on a single check using split checks.

• Accept checks at the table, with a QR code scan, or at the POS terminal.
• Internal check names or remarks that only print on kitchen tickets may be included as notes.

It just takes a few seconds to create a check-in Square for restaurants. There is a workaround for starting bar tabs using a credit card pre-authorization. In your Square POS, you may establish a customer profile, store the credit card information to it, and then link it to the tab.

You may move a check to a new table or assign it to a new server after it’s open. To keep your workers on the same page, add eating categories to checks, such as dine-in, pickup, or delivery. Internal names and comments may also be added to checks that only print in your kitchen, allowing you to notify your employees of allergies or special events without having to deliver a check to a client with the words “PEANUT ALLERGY- BIRTHDAY” across the top.

Square for Restaurants, like many other restaurant POS systems, allows auto-gratuity. Free users may add a tip to all checks, while Plus and Premium customers can establish an automated gratuity depending on the number of people in their party. You may divide checks by item and take numerous payments on a single check when it’s time to pay. Square for Restaurants does not presently support splitting checks by seat or splitting particular products over several checks.

Reporting Square for Restaurants

• There are many levels of reporting: free memberships provide basic reporting, while Plus and Premium subscriptions provide sophisticated reporting.
• Live sales reporting: Premium and Plus subscribers can check real-time sales performance.

• Time tracking: Keep track of employee hours so that payroll reporting is simple.
• Close of business: This report will not run until all checks have been processed and all workers have been clocked out, ensuring that your credit card batches and timekeeping records remain correct.

Basic reporting is included in all three Square for Restaurant subscription levels, and it includes in-app Sales Reporting and Item Sales. To assist you in creating accurate payroll reports, all levels monitor employee hours. You’ll need to subscribe to a Plus or Premium membership if you want more specific information for sales by hour, employee, discount codes, and labor expenses.

The Free tier varies the most from the higher-level memberships in terms of reporting. Individual shift sales data per employee are not available to free users. So if you have four servers, each taking orders and receiving payments, you won’t be able to distinguish between their activities. A counter service business or a ghost kitchen with few cash transactions will be unaffected, but full-service restaurants will feel the pinch.

Square for Online Ordering and Delivery Management in Restaurants

• Square Online allows you to construct a payment-enabled online ordering site for free.
• Orders from a variety of third-party sites may be sent straight to your POS.
• Accepted online orders are sent immediately to your KDS screens, where they are associated with the delivery provider.

• On-demand drivers: For a set price, send in-house delivery orders to third-party drivers.
• For In-house option: Manage your own drivers for $0.50 per order..50 each order, you may manage your own drivers in-house.
• Stackable solution: To optimize delivery operations, combine in-house techniques with third-party platforms.

For digital ordering and delivery management, Square for Restaurants provides four options:

1. Integration of a third-party platform
2. Your website allows for direct online ordering.
3. Third-party delivery using on-demand drivers
4. Deliveries are made by a team of in-house drivers.

With the exception of the final two, all of these choices may be combined to build a unique online ordering and delivery solution for your business.

Square for Restaurants offers free direct connections with Postmates, a third-party ordering and delivery service. Other third-party systems (UberEats, Grubhub, and DoorDash) use aggregating applications like Chowly, Deliverect, Ritual, and others to connect to the POS. While Square does not charge for these connections, the applications usually charge for subscriptions and commissions. Orders made via these linked platforms will be sent immediately to your POS and KDS or kitchen printers; you won’t need to monitor separate platform orders using a tablet or smartphone.

Square for Restaurants does not yet have a fully unified delivery management system. Orders from third-party platforms may be accepted directly in your POS and KDS, but 86’d products do not vanish from your web menus. If you run out of an item, you must update each platform’s online menu separately. However, you may control numerous locations’ delivery from a single Square dashboard.

Square Internet Store is an easy-to-use online ordering system. (Photo courtesy of Square for Restaurants)

You can also use Square Online to establish a free online ordering website that enables you to construct time-limited menus and take online payments. You may accept these orders for pickup alone or utilize the site to plan an in-house delivery strategy. You may also send automatic text or email notifications to consumers to inform them that their purchase has been accepted, as well as delivery or pickup schedules.

When it comes to in-house delivery, you have two choices: on-demand drivers or deploying your own team. You must, however, select one or the other. Square will instantly issue a driver request from a nearby courier as soon as you approve the order if you choose on-demand drivers. For on-demand couriers, Square charges a set amount of $1.50 every delivery, while the courier service may charge extra delivery fees (typically $4–$7 per delivery). You may choose to pay the charge, pass it on to your customers, or absorb the delivery fee for purchases above a specific amount.

Square charges a flat For each order routed to your in-house team of drivers, Square charges a flat $0.50 per order fee. You can pass this fee onto your customers or charge an additional custom, distance-based delivery fee. You can also set a delivery zone in the POS so that your team doesn’t have to travel too far away..50 per order fee for any order routed to your in-house team of drivers. You may either pass this cost on to your consumers or charge a bespoke delivery fee depending on distance. You may also use the POS to create a delivery zone so that your staff doesn’t have to go too far.

This arrangement is a bit more complicated, but it gives you a lot of options. You may change your distribution plan at any moment since Square does not need any long-term commitments. However, keep in mind that the costs indicated are Square’s. While Square for Restaurants does not charge a cost to connect with DoorDash, you will need to register for a DoorDash account and pay the platform’s expenses.

Square is a marketing and loyalty platform for restaurants.

• Create unique email campaigns and monitor their performance using campaign management.
• Message automation: Create messages to send birthday or special occasion emails automatically.
• Templated Designs: To develop social media promos, update several pre-built templates with your restaurant’s logo and message.
• Send confirmation messages and marketing emails to customers’ phones using text message marketing. Messages may be automated or campaigns can be customized.

• Choose when and how to reward consumers (by purchase, quantity spent, or visit) with customizable awards (earning a free item or dollar discount).
• Enrollment is simple: Customers are prompted to enroll at the time of purchase and are tracked by phone number.

Square Marketing is an email marketing solution that allows you to create bespoke messages and deliver them to your consumers straight from your Square dashboard. You may send automatic messages, such as birthday emails, or you can include coupon and discount coupons in your emails. The monthly fee for the Square Marketing add-on is $15.

Additional text message marketing tools are available for a fee. You won’t need to download any additional apps or integrations since the messaging features are incorporated right within the POS. Unlike other marketing features, you only pay per text sent with Square’s text message marketing, and there are no automatic recurring fees. Pricing ranges from $10 per month for up to 250 texts to $25 per month for 1,000 SMS. You don’t have to pay any fees if you don’t send any messages in a month.

The Square Loyalty program is a digital rewards system. Customers join at check out and their phone numbers are used to follow them, so there are no rewards numbers to know, cards to dish out, or applications to download. Customers might be rewarded depending on how often they visit, how much they spend, or what they buy. Data from your loyalty program is instantly synced with your other sales reports. Square Loyalty’s total pricing is depending on use, much as the text messaging tools. Pricing for up to 500 loyalty visits begins at $45 per month. After 501 visits, you’ll be in the $75 range, and after the 1,501st loyalty visit in a month, you’ll be in the $105 range. The Loyalty program, like other Square features, may be tried out for free for 30 days.

Ease of Use Square for Restaurants

• Access to the App Store: POS software may be downloaded straight from the App Store.
• Square for Restaurants’ order displays and back office are simple to utilize if you can manage a smartphone.
• High-contrast display: The dynamic menu, table, and KDS displays employ contrasting colors to make them easy to read.
• Bulk import: Importing new information through spreadsheet files will help you set up and update your menu quickly.

• For Plus and Premium subscribers, customer care is available through chat, phone, or email 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Pacific time, Monday through Friday).
• A rich online collection of lessons guides you through numerous administrative duties and tool configurations.
• User forums with a lot of information: Get answers to your questions and interact with other restaurant owners.

Square for Restaurants is one of the easiest POS systems to set up and use. You establish a Square account, install Square for Restaurants on an iPad from the App Store, and you’re ready to go. In most large cities, a Square card reader may be purchased at a local office supply shop. With a few clicks in your Square dashboard, you can effortlessly add third-party connectors or more Square modules. When you add features like an online shop, payroll processing, team management, and marketing, your POS becomes a full-fledged small company administration platform.

Square’s simple interface is familiar to both employees and consumers. The bright color selections in the POS and KDS modules make it simple to determine whether tables or orders are lagging. It merely takes a few clicks to set up numerous floorplans, menus, and discounts.

Square Plus and Premium customers have access to phone and email customer assistance 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but you can get quicker answers by checking Square’s online help database and user forums. The sources are quite extensive and, in most situations, give sufficient information to eliminate the need for human assistance. Square does provide live customer support agents if one-on-one contacts are crucial to you, but some customers report that they are difficult to reach.

Square for Restaurants Alternatives to Restaurant Software

Square for Restaurants is a great cloud POS for small food and beverage businesses as well as restaurants with simple menus. Square for Restaurants is a bit limited if you don’t have a good internet connection or require high-volume capabilities like customized reports and driver management.

What Users Have to Say About Square POS for Restaurants

The pricing of Square for Restaurants is praised by both consumers and professionals. It’s hard to beat “free,” yet finding a POS that supports smaller food and beverage companies is difficult—Square for Restaurants fits the criteria perfectly. Square for Restaurants is still a new POS for restaurants, thus there aren’t many internet reviews yet, yet the most of the feedback is favorable. The majority of evaluations are for the Square POS, which is a more broad POS that covers retail and small enterprises.

• Capterra: Square for Restaurants has a 4.2 out of 5 user rating based on 22 reviews.
• Square for Restaurants has a rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars in the App Store, based on 798 reviews.

Users of Square for Restaurants rave about how simple it is to use and how rapidly new features can be added. Many small eateries who switched to contactless operations during COVID-19 found the online shop connection to be a lifeline. The lack of functionality in the Free POS is mentioned in the majority of unfavorable evaluations. It’s important to keep in mind that the Free POS is best suited for small businesses like slice shops and cloud kitchens.

Conclusion

Square for Restaurants is a user-friendly point-of-sale system with useful front-end features such as numerous menus, item modifiers, table management, and a customer directory. Square for Restaurants Free is a fantastic match for your company if you are a counter-service, quick-service, or delivery-only restaurant. Square for Restaurants Plus, for $60 a month, offers a lot of features at a reasonable price for full-service restaurants with dining rooms.

The POS subscriptions for Square for Restaurants are month-to-month, so you may cancel at any moment. You may hire a Square specialist to visit to your restaurant, set up Square for Restaurants with all of your modifications, and teach your employees for a charge. To learn more, go to the Square for Restaurants website or join up for a free 30-day trial to try out the software.

Restaurants may be found on the Square.

The “square for restaurants support” is a product that allows businesses to accept credit card payments via the Square app. The product has been used by many different types of businesses, but some people have had issues with the service.

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