Square Get Started Guide
Getting set up to accept payment cards on Square only takes a few minutes but don’t miss out on our entire suite of products and features that can help you run and grow your business.
This five-step guide can help you take payments faster, significantly reduce your team’s training time, generate robust sales and inventory reports, and reduce your administrative time.
What if I get stuck?
You can contact Square Support by live message, phone, or email - we’re more than happy to help. You can also find answers to common questions in our Seller Community.
Use this guide for reference, or share it with your team by saving or printing this page. Right-click anywhere on this page to save or print.
The products and features that you choose to use may depend on your business type or industry, the size of your business, and number of team members.
Step 1: Get Set Up to Take Payments
Use this section to order your hardware and set up your secure Square account so you can get paid quickly once you start accepting payments.
Account Creation
| To Do | Steps | Why? |
|---|---|---|
| Yes | Create Account with a Business Email Address | Use your business email when creating your account as important alerts and updates are sent to this email address. |
| Yes | Enter Business and Personal Info | Help Square verify your business account and recommend useful features for your business type. |
| Yes | Enter Bank Account Info | When you first link a bank account, verification can take up to 4 business days to complete. You can get deposits within 1-2 business days after the verification is complete. You can also add additional bank accounts from the Account & Settings tab of your online Square Dashboard |
| Yes | Order Hardware | Make sure you’re set for opening day by ordering your hardware at least 7 working days in advance since shipping takes some time. You can visit one of our retail partners to purchase hardware more quickly if you wish. |
| Yes | Download the Square App | Get the Square app - the point-of-sale system designed to grow with you - to accept payments in-store or on the go. |
Step 2: Set Up your Account on Square Dashboard
Your online Square Dashboard is your business headquarters, where you can take care of everything from adding locations, employees, and items, to customising your account, viewing your sales reports, and more.
Account Security
| To Do | Steps | Why? |
|---|---|---|
| Yes | Turn on 2-Step Verification | 2-Step Verification provides an extra layer of security when accessing your Square Dashboard. |
Transfers Setup
| To Do | Steps | Why? |
|---|---|---|
| Yes | Schedule Transfers | Choose how quickly you’ll receive your funds based on our different transfer options. |
| Optional | Set your Close of Day | If your business closes after midnight Melbourne time, setting a close of day lets Square group and send transfers based on a full day’s business activity. |
Location Setup
| To Do | Steps | Why? |
|---|---|---|
| Yes | Add Locations and Addresses | Set up multiple locations (if you have them) to slice and dice sales data, update inventory, and manage employees across the different places you do business. |
| Yes | Add other Bank Accounts | If you have separate bank accounts for each location, you’ll need to visit the Bank Accounts tab in your online Square Dashboard. Select a location, click Add external bank account, and complete the bank verification process. |
| Yes | Add Web and Social Media Sites | Adding your website and social links to digital receipts is a great way to get more online traffic. |
| Optional | Add Deposit Tags | Match deposits to specific locations with deposit tags. |
Receipt Setup
| To Do | Steps | Why? |
|---|---|---|
| Yes | Customise Receipts and confirm your business details | Customise your receipts and help set the right expectations around your store policies. Your logo appears on customers’ digital receipts and helps them recognise your business and their purchases. You can choose from a framed or full-width logo for your receipts. |
Dashboard Library Setup
| To Do | Steps | Why? |
|---|---|---|
| Yes | Create Items | Items created in your online Square Dashboard display at the till, which increases checkout speed and provides detailed reporting, so you know what you’re selling. |
| Yes | Add GST | By default, your Square account has GST turned on. Set up GST and the items it applies to and let Square calculate the total automatically. The tax report shows total tax collected. |
| Optional | Create Categories | Categories classify items into different groups like Hot or Cold Drinks and control which items print on kitchen tickets. |
| Optional | Create Modifiers | Let customers tailor their orders with modifiers and get better item-level data. |
| Optional | Create Discounts | Discounts for neighbours? Team member meals comped? Create pound and percentage discounts for items or an entire sale. |
| Optional | Set up Inventory | Know exactly how much inventory you have and when you need to restock by setting up Inventory Management. |
| Optional | Set up Dining Options | Note how and where an order will be used (e.g. ‘Delivery’, or ‘Takeaway’) to help your employees prepare orders correctly. This information also appears in your reports. |
Team Setup
| To do | Why? |
|---|---|
| Create owner passcode | This will allow you as the owner or admin to be able to access your Square POS to get full access. |
| Customise Permission Sets | Customise permission sets (Team Permissions) to ensure your team has the right level of access. |
| Set up Square Shifts | Square Shifts enable you to track your team’s timecards, create schedules, track commissions and more. Free and paid versions available depending on the size of your team and features needed. |
| Assign Permission Groups, passcode and location | After a team member is created, assign them to the appropriate permission group to restrict their access to parts of your online Square Dashboard or the Square Point of Sale app. |
View Analytics
| To Do | Steps | Why? |
|---|---|---|
| Yes | Transaction History, Summaries and Reports | See how your business is performing by the hour, week, year and more to make informed business decisions. |
| Yes | Match Deposits to Sales | Click a deposit in your online Square Dashboard to see all transactions included in a deposit. |
| Yes | Learn about other Reports | Create reports from your online Square Dashboard that include items, discounts, taxes, payment method, team members and more. |
Step 3: Set Up Hardware and the Square App
Once your hardware arrives, you can connect your compatible iOS or Android device to start taking payments. This section will show you how.
Device Setup
| To Do | Steps | Why? |
|---|---|---|
| Optional | Create Device Codes to Sign Team Members into other Devices | Pair devices to specific locations and log into the Square app without using your Square email address or password. Pro Tip: Securely save the Device Code as a note on the device, for easy access. Also note that Device Codes cannot be re-used on additional devices. |
| Optional | Configure Items Grid, Tile Colour and Name | Customise the layout of the Square app on an iPad or Android tablet to locate important items, discounts, and categories quickly. |
Square Point of Sale Settings
| To do | Steps | Why? |
|---|---|---|
| Optional | Set up Tipping | Prompt your customers to enter a tip and customise how tips are added to a sale (% or custom amount), or disable tipping if it’s not customary. |
| Optional | Set up Cash Management | Track how much cash should be in your cash drawer at any given time. Note: Return to Permissions in your online Square Dashboard if you wish to allow employees to ‘View expected amount in cash drawer’. |
| Optional | Turn on Staff Management settings | Enable passcodes on POS to allow your team to clock in and out. |
| Optional | Create Guest Access | Create access for anyone to take payments in your Square account and manage the permissions of this guest group. |
| Optional | Turn on Open Tickets | Create tickets you can modify before charging customers. Close out the ticket when the customer’s ready to pay. Return to Permissions in the online Dashboard if you wish to allow Employees to ‘Manage all Open Tickets’, or ‘Delete or void saved items in Open Tickets’. |
| Optional | Set up your Customer Directory | Add customer profiles to your directory from the Square app. Know more about your customers’ past purchases and preferences. |
Hardware Setup
| To Do | Steps | Why? |
|---|---|---|
| Optional | Connect a USB Printer | Print customer receipts and order tickets with a receipt printer. USB printers connect directly to a single Android device via a USB OTG (On-The-Go) adaptor. Make sure your device supports USB OTG or USB Host mode. Note: USB printers can only be connected to compatible iPads via Square Stand. |
| Optional | Connect an Ethernet Interface Printer | Ethernet printers are a great option if you need to connect more than one printer to your iOS or Android tablet or smartphone(s). Connect multiple printers to a single mobile device, or multiple devices to a single Ethernet printer, all via a shared Wi-Fi network. |
| Optional | Connect a Bluetooth Printer | Bluetooth printers are a great option for iPads and iPhones if you don’t have an Ethernet interface, and for businesses on the go. |
| Optional | Connect a KDS screen | You can use a Wi-Fi Android device as a kitchen display screen. It appears in the Square app like a printer so you can customise which items or categories of items are printed. If you’ve connected multiple printers and KDS screens to the Square app, designate which items or categories of items print to which printer or show on which screen. |
| Optional | Connect Cash Drawers | Configure your cash drawer to automatically open after a cash sale when connected via a compatible receipt printer, so you can keep track of your cash transactions. Note: Cash drawers are not compatible with mobile receipt printers. |
Step 4: Train Your Team and Go Live
Now that your account, online Square Dashboard, and hardware are set up, you’re ready to train your team. We recommend running through a few simple scenarios to make sure you, your managers, and your team members are ready to jump in.
Team Training
| To Do | Steps | Why? |
|---|---|---|
| Yes | Accept Payments and Split the Bill with Square Point of Sale | Let your team members practise adding items with modifiers and discounts to a sale. For food and beverage businesses, practise splitting the bill, selecting a dining option and saving items to an open ticket. |
| Yes | Accept Cards with a Square Reader | Whether you’re using Square Reader, Square Stand, or Square Register, let your team members take a few chip + PIN and contactless payments to practise using the Square app and hardware. |
| Yes | Manually Enter Card Info | Learn how to enter the card number manually if the card or customer isn’t present, for phone orders for example, or if you don’t have your reader. Review Best Practices for Accepting Payments, as well. |
| Yes | Accept Other Tender Types | Practise recording cash, cheques, third-party gift cards, and other tender types. When a payment is recorded as Cash or Other Tender, money for these transactions is exchanged directly between your business and your customer and will not be deposited by Square. If you’d like to reorder your payment types or there are some you don’t need, you can customise your checkout screen in the app. |
| Optional | Clock In and Out | If you’ve subscribed to Team Management, give each team member their own passcode and show them how to clock in and clock out. |
Manager Training
| To Do | Steps | Why? |
|---|---|---|
| Yes | Issue Full or Partial refnds | If you’ve restricted permissions for issuing refunds to managers, review steps to process a refund. |
| Yes | View and Print In-App Reports | View, print, or email your daily sales summary directly from the Square app. |
| Optional | View and Modify Shifts | If you’ve subscribed to Team Management, show managers with Dashboard access how to modify shifts, view reports, or clock out forgetful team members. |
| Optional | View and Manage Cash Drawers | If you’ve connected a cash drawer, learn how to start and end a cash drawer session, allow for cash paid in/paid out, and print a cash drawer report. |
| Optional | View and Reply to Feedback | If you take a test payment, you can leave sample feedback and view it in your online Square Dashboard. Practise replying to feedback and refunding the sale. |
Step 5: Grow your Business with Square
Once you start accepting payments with Square, expand your business with partner integrations and more.
Connect with Third-Party Apps
| To Do | Steps | Why? |
|---|---|---|
| Optional | Create Custom Apps | Square’s existing tools are just the start. Create custom apps for your data or connect with the services you already use. |
Engage with your Customers
| To Do | Steps | Why? |
|---|---|---|
| Optional | Set up your Customer Directory | Manage your customer information from your online Square Dashboard or the Square app. |
Sell Online
| To Do | Steps | Why? |
|---|---|---|
| Optional | Set Up Square Online | Create a powerful, professional eCommerce website with Square’s eCommerce partners and track all your sales in one place. Connect your Square account to accept online payments and sell your items. If you’re working with a developer, integrate with Square using Square’s Developer Tools. |
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