Set age restrictions on items with Square for Retail

About age restrictions on items

With Square for Retail, you can set age restrictions on items in your Item library. Use age restrictions to prompt for age verification when you sell age-restricted items from the Square Retail POS app.

Before you begin

To set age restrictions, you need access to your Square Dashboard. When an age-restricted item is added to the cart, a prompt for a buyer ID check will appear at checkout and staff can manually enter the buyer's date of birth. Sellers who offer age-restricted products must follow local regulations regarding age verification whenever a buyer purchases one of these items, such as the case with alcohol or tobacco products. 

Set an age restriction

1. Sign in to your online Square Dashboard, and click Items & orders > Items > Item library.

2. Click Create item or select an existing item.

3. Navigate to Age restriction, then click Set. 

4. By default, you will have several options for an age restriction:

   • Buyer must be 18+

   • Buyer must be 19+

   • Buyer must be 21+

   • Custom (input your chosen age restriction)

5. Once a minimum age restriction has been set, click Save. 

Remove an age restriction

1. Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Items & orders > Items > Item Library.

2. Click an existing item with an age restriction.

3. Click the arrow (>) next to Age restriction.

4. Select the age you want to remove and click Remove.

5. Click Save.

Bulk edit age restrictions

1. Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Items & orders > Items > Item Library.

2. Check the box next to each item you want to edit age restrictions on.

3. Click Edit items.

4. Click Attributes. Scroll down to locate Age restriction and select it.

5. Once the Age restriction column displays, you can select from the following options:

   • None

   • Buyer must be 18+

   • Buyer must be 19+

   • Buyer must be 21+

   • Custom

6. Repeat adding a default buyer age restriction or custom age restriction for all items selected. To apply one age restriction to all items, click on the Age restriction column header and then select an option from one of the cells. This will apply the change to the whole column.

7. Once all changes have been made, click Update variations to save changes.

Sell age restricted items

To sell your age restricted items with the Square Retail POS app:

1. Tap Checkout and choose an age restricted item from the Item Library.

2. Manually enter the date of birth, then tap ✔️ or Confirm. A confirmation message will appear.
   Note: If additional age restricted items are added to the cart, the date used for the first age restricted item that is successfully added to the cart will be reused. This way, you will not have to re-enter the same buyer’s date of birth multiple times in the same transaction.

3. Once all items have been added to the cart, tap Check out to complete the transaction.

Troubleshooting

When selling age restricted items, there are a few possible reasons an age verification may fail. You may receive an error message with one of the following:

• Invalid date of birth (DOB) entered

• ID has expired

• DOB does not meet age restriction

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