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The way we pay for things is changing – fast. Make sure that your business stays up to date, secure and streamlined with our guide for every payment method that may come across the counter.
1. Credit and debit cards
With the reduction in use of cash in Australia continuing, chip + PIN cards and contactless cards are the norm for customers checking out at your business. In fact, Australia is considered one of the leading countries in cashless transactions. These days, we only carry $30 in our wallets on average and we top up our funds from the ATM less than once a month.
With Square Reader, it’s simpler and easier than ever to accept credit and debit cards, whether you’re running a countertop or mobile business – without the hassle of long-term contracts, hidden fees or variable processing rates for different card types.
2. Mobile wallets
This type of payment method uses near-field communication (NFC) to transmit information from a mobile device to a card reader. NFC is a type of radio frequency identification technology that allows your smartphone and a payments device to talk to each other wirelessly and complete the appropriately named contactless payment.
Contactless transactions are secure and fast, taking just seconds to process. On top of that, they’re a lot more convenient for customers – who no longer need to carry around a physical wallet now that their smartphone is all that’s required to process a payment. As a business owner, you can start accepting mobile payments by purchasing an affordable contactless payment reader like the Square Reader for contactless and chip + PIN.
Here are the three most well-known examples of mobile wallets (all of which you can accept with the Square Reader for contactless and chip + PIN):
Apple Pay
Apple Pay is available on the iPhone and Apple Watch. When customers pay with this method, they use a credit or debit card saved to Wallet and hold their iPhone over a card reader while holding their finger on the Touch ID button to have their print scanned and verified. On an Apple Watch, they double-click the side button and hold the watch over the card reader.
You can read more about how you can start accepting mobile wallets like Apple Pay in our post Accepting Apple Pay in Your Business.
Google Wallet
Google’s mobile wallet technology, Google Wallet, is available on any NFC-enabled devices that run Android version 9 or later, and smartwatches that run Wear OS 2.0 or later. To use Google Wallet, customers just open the app on their device (which requires the user to have a secure lock screen) and complete the transaction by holding their device over the card reader.
Samsung Wallet
To use Samsung Wallet, customers open the app and then hold their Samsung device over the point-of-sale (POS) device. This technology is available on Galaxy smartphones and smartwatches.
3. Digital invoices
Business owners managing clients understand that it’s a constant struggle between completing the work in a timely manner, and getting paid in the same fashion. This can be made even more frustrating when you’re relying on physical paperwork, manual reconciliations and chasing up clients for payment over the phone.
Digital invoices help to streamline this process. Square Invoices enables you to send email invoices for free from the Square Point of Sale app on your smartphone or tablet device, and then track the payment from open to deposit.
We’re continuing to see big shifts in the way that customers pay for things, so now’s the time to ensure you can quickly and securely accept any sale. Fast-track the latest and greatest POS and payments processing technologies at your business.
More ways to get paid with Square
Square offers an abundance of online and in-person payment tools designed to help you grow and streamline your business. Here are eight ways you can integrate online payments into your business.
8 payment methods for you to choose from
| # | Payment method | Cost | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Online Invoices | 2.2% per invoice paid | Regularly billing remote clients |
| 2 | Appointments Prepayments | 2.2% per transaction | Services-based businesses |
| 3 | App Marketplace | Free | Integrating with your existing apps (Intuit, Xero, Deputy, etc.) |
| 4 | Manually Enter Transactions | 2.2% per transaction | Forgot your Square Reader |
| 5 | Take payments with Square Point of Sale | 1.6% per tap or insert | In-person payments |
| 6 | Virtual Terminal | 2.2% per transaction | Accepting remote payments over the phone from your web dashboard |
| 7 | eCommerce API | 2.2% per transaction | Process online payments on your own self-hosted, fully developed website |
| 8 | Hosted Checkout | 2.2% per transaction | Process online payments on your site with a payment form from Square |
Online payment methods
Online invoicing
Sending out paper invoices is slow, manual, time consuming and definitely not so friendly to the environment. Square Invoices is a more streamlined, convenient and eco-friendly to accept payments from customers or clients. You can use ready-made invoicing templates to quickly and easily whip up invoices and send them out to your customers, where they can pay with a click right from the email.
Streamlining this process for customers means you can take payment a whole lot faster, and paid invoices land in your bank account as fast as the next day. Square Invoices also enables you to track all your invoices, so you can quickly see what’s been paid and what’s outstanding.
Prepayment with appointments
If you’re a business that deals with appointments, it’s a good idea to consider adopting an online payment method that lets your customers prepay you for the service. This is easy to do with Square Appointments, which has a client prepayments feature included in the software. Client prepayments also have the added benefit of helping to cut down on no-shows (if people prepay for a service, more likely than not they’ll show up).
Explore App Marketplace’s online store integrations
Square App Marketplace has 24 business apps you can connect to your Square account to help you streamline the platforms you’re using to run your business. Using Square’s integrations with WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Wix or Weebly, you can set up a beautiful online store to complement your brick-and-mortar store.
In addition to being a way to accept online payments, Square also offers integrations with apps that can help you do everything from simplifying inventory management to managing your bookkeeping. Or use Square Online Store and have everything in one place.
Build your eCommerce solution with Square’s eCommerce API
With Square’s eCommerce API, you can use Square to accept online payments on your own self-hosted, fully developed website. By seamlessly integrating your website with Square’s online payments services, you can grow both your online and offline businesses together with one partner, and from one convenient dashboard. Square’s eCommerce API also makes PCI compliance (security standards for securing and protecting payment card data) easy. Square takes on the burden of staying PCI compliant. No checklists, assessments or audits required.
Square Checkout
Square’s hosted checkout solution, Square Checkout, allows merchants to accept online payments for supported payment types using a checkout workflow form hosted at squareup.com. The checkout form provides next-business-day transfers, a PCI-compliant integration and SSL support.
In-person payments
Manually enter transactions in the Square Point of Sale app
Left your Square Reader at home? You don’t need to miss a sale. Manually enter your customer’s credit or debit card information into the Square Point of Sale app for a card-not-present (CNP) transaction. For manually entered transactions, Square’s fee is 2.2% per transaction. To use Square Point of Sale’s manual entry feature, you need your customer’s complete card number, expiration date and security code / CVV. Read more about using manual entry.
Accept debit and credit payments with Square Reader
Using Square Point of Sale, you can accept credit and debit cards, Apple Pay, Google Wallet and Samsung Wallet at a rate of 1.6% per tap or insert. Square offers a contactless and chip + PIN card reader for fast and more frequent card payments.
Remote payments
Virtual Terminal
Remote payments are ideal for businesses that accept payments over the phone when charging a client’s credit or debit card. With Square Virtual Terminal, you can accept payments right from your web browser at a rate of 2.2% per transaction. No hardware, reader or app installation is required. To process a transaction, you need your customer’s debit or credit card number, expiration date and CVV/CVV2.
The 1.6% card present rate applies for Square Sellers who sign up on or after 30 May 2024, or who signed up prior to this date and subscribed to a paid software plan. The rate of 1.9% will apply for all other Square Sellers who signed up prior to this date when using Square Reader, Square Stand or Tap to Pay, as listed in the Square Fee Schedule.
