We want your first few weeks with Square to be smooth sailing. Let’s take a look at the top requests we hear from new sellers, so you can be better prepared!
(1) Link your Bank Account
To get your deposits, you’ll need to link a bank account on your Square Dashboard. Once you start the process, it takes 3-5 business days for your bank to finish the linking process. In the meantime, your deposit will stay safely with Square and will automatically go through when your bank is ready.
(2) Review the Deposit Schedule
As soon as your bank has been verified, funds are delivered by default the next business day. If you want your funds faster, you can use Instant Deposit. You can also customize your deposit schedule to suit the needs of your business.
(3) Know your Rates
For most sellers, Square’s fees are a flat per transaction fee for swipe, dip, and tap transactions and 3.5% + 15 cents for manually-entered (aka “card not present”) transactions. These fees are the same for all major card brands - Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express. Some larger sellers qualify for custom pricing, but you’d need to speak with a sales rep before different pricing would be in place. Hear what other sellers have to say about fees, and learn more about why fees for manually-entered transactions are higher.
(4) View your Sales Summary
Here’s a link to see your sales summary, which includes your gross sales, net sales, and fees collected for payment processing. Log in and check it out - remember logging in from a desktop computer works best.
(5) Get Tax Reporting Info
Many people reach out to us to confirm that they’ll be able to access all the info they need for accurate tax reporting. This is easy to download from your dashboard. Read more about downloading sales and fee info for tax purposes and download your sales summary from the Square Dashboard.
(6) Understand your Fraud Protection
Square Secure which includes PCI compliance, live monitoring of transactions to prevent account takeovers, and secure data encryption.
(7) Resolve Declined Cards
The #1 reason you’ll experience a declined card is because your customer’s card was declined by the cardholder’s credit card company. To get it resolved, the cardholder has to talk to their card company.
If you’re manually-entering payment information, make sure to get an accurate ZIP code, security code (CVV - remember for Amex this is 4 digits), and expiration date. If one of these is incorrect, the card will get declined.
Resources for Help 🙋
If you run into any other issues, you have options:
- Post in the Seller Community to get answers from fellow business owners and Square experts
- Check the Support Center to read through product documentation and FAQs
- Give us a call or email
- Square isn’t right for you? No worries, you can deactivate your account from the Square Dashboard. You can also safely pass your reader along to someone else who might use it - no account information is associated with your Square Reader.
Hope this is helpful, but let us know if you have any other questions as you get started!
