How do I accept payment for an invoice using the Square POS app?

[Stellar732]

Please: how to apply payment to an invoice using the Square POS? We had a customer come in with their invoice and wanted to pay it in-store. How to?

We took care of it by creating a new sale with the items and discounts, just to help the customer and keep the store running smoothly. But when they come in and want to use their credit card, they want to pay it on the spot. AND they want a receipt. There's no option for paying an invoice in-person.

[#2]

@bfmovingco 

This feature was rolled out to all accounts over the summer and into Retail and Appointments in late September. You should see the option to take a partial payments on an invoice in your Square POS on Android and all devices at this time.

You should be able to follow the steps in this article to take payments in person from your device. Android

To process an in-person card payment for a deposit or partial balance, follow these steps: 

1. Open the Square Point of Sale or Square Invoices app
2. Select the desired invoice
3. Tap Add Payment
4. Enter or Select the payment amount 
5. Tap Next
6. Select the appropriate payment method
7. Continue the check out flow

Note: Currently, tipping is only available as a percentage of the final invoice payment.

Please let me know if you have further questions or are experiencing issues with this. Happy to help.

[kellyj]

@ChrisHeuer @BruceS @kayogaayurveda @Bluckain @WhimPig @JeffB 

We're currently recruiting for Sellers to Beta test in-person partial payments on Invoices. If you are using Android, this Beta will be opening soon. Add your name to the thread or join our Android Beta Community so we can get you started.

If you're using iOS - you can add your name to this thread, and we'll let you know when we've started recruiting for the beta on iOS.

Check out more here. 

[BruceS]

A year later and this still hasn't been addressed? I found this thread because I was emabarassingly fumbling through the register to mark a client invoice paid who presented me with a check in person. I thought it was just me. Square, this reflects on us as a business that this simple task cannot be completed.

[jang]

I agree. I've been waiting patiently for Square to fix this very simple issue. But like most companies, square is looking for a way to monetize this option. It's frustrating and embarrassing to fumble around in front of a customer, trying to help them without taking too much time. Also it really messes up our accounting when we have then go back and delete things and enter things in different. SQUARE.... FIX THIS ISSUE!!

[BruceS]

It's fully integrated on the Web though, so I fail to understand why it's not in the app. They aren't gaining anything by forcing people to their computers. In fact they're just going to frustrate businesses into looking at alternative solutions.

[thomasbcox]

Dear Square:

This is an unholy mess.

The sequence of events so far, and how bad you are making me look to my customer:

1. I invoice the client
2. The client phones me up with a credit card
3. I can't figure out how to call up the invoice and take his payment and apply it to the invoice in that moment, so I just take his card and call it a Custom Charge
4. Your system now shows two separate sales that cannot be connected to one another, despite being the same customer for the exact same dollar amount
5. Your system now forces me to cancel and refund the invoice I initially sent him
6. Your system now (apparently) automatically sends him an email about the closed canceled refunded invoice
7. I now look like a complete clown
8. Your system apparently will not allow me to create a new invoice and mark that invoice paid via the credit card transaction that already occurred. Apparently, I would have to void that and rerun his card. Making me look even more like a clown.

I think what's really going on is, you don't want me running thousands of dollars worth of business through your system. You want me to find another system that isn't broken.

If that's the case, mission accomplished. If you have recommendations of other systems that are not broken in the way years is broken, please share those with me. I look forward to it.

[EJ_]

@thomasbcox Sorry to hear about the trouble. 

I want to assure you that in no way would we purposely prevent your business from completing payments with Square. 

With Square Invoices, your customer wouldn't need to provide you with their card number since they can enter their card information on their end through the invoice that they receive. 

If in the event your customer wants to pay for the invoice over the phone or in person, you can mark the invoice as paid in your Square Dashboard. 

Here’s how:

1. Navigate to your online Square Dashboard.
2. Select an invoice.
3. Click More > Mark as Paid.
4. Select the payment type. If you processed your client’s payment with the Square app or Virtual Terminal, select Square Point of Sale to prevent duplicate reporting.
5. Click Confirm.

[BruceS]

EJ...we know how to mark the invoice as paid in the Dashboard online. We are asking for a way to do so in the app. My example (customers presents me with a check or cash) and others above have shown the situations this occurs in,  how it is embarrassing to not be able to, and adds more work and potential for error to have to jump to another platform at some point later in the day.

[jetcars]

You are forgetting that this way the amount of revenue will be counted twice. One in the POS if it's paid in person. We are not talking about paying on the clients end. Once the payment in person is made as a regular transaction and then marking it as paid on the desktop will make duplicate revenue amounts. 

[cmusicshop]

So, one would have to have both the POS app and the browser signed in and ready to go?  Not really a good solution.  Wouldn't we be charged the higher fee (3.5% plus $.15) by using the virtual terminal?

[Sean]

HI @cmusicshop. You are correct. The cost to manually enter a payment through the Virtual Terminal is 3.5% plus $.15, so it's not necessarily a solution I'd recommend. Having said that, this is definitely a feature request that is not going ignored by our product team. We will be sure to update you once we have more details to share in the future. In the meantime, we really appreciate your patience and your feedback. 

[thomasbcox]

Please do not overlook this point, which I have NEVER seen Square staff even acknowledge: when a payment is taken directly and NOT attributed to the invoice at the time of payment, it is currently impossible to retroactively attribute the payment to the invoice. So the mistake cannot be fixed without REFUNDING their money, according to what I was told! 

Square needs to allow records to be corrected, and not be a source of headaches in our accounting systems. That means allowing one to correct errors, rather than require us to be perfect. 

[Tom]

Hey @thomasbcox, thank you for taking the time to flag this. You are correct — you cannot retroactively attribute a payment that's completed with the Point of Sale app to an invoice.

I will share your experience with our Product Liaison team, and point out that the ability to assign a Point of Sale payment to an invoice would streamline your reporting. Sorry for any trouble this is causing you right now — we will circle back with any updates.

[jetcars]

Atta boy. 

[kayogaayurveda]

Yes, I often have clients want to pay an invoice in-person, and then I'm left to keep them waiting while I recreate it in POS. I'd love to see this feature soon, so my clients can continue to view Square as convenient, not a hassle. Thank you!

[3monkeyspad]

I was able to finally convert Invoices to allow payment at the Square POS & then in one of the last updates the fuction was dropped.

Why, why?? Please add this back!!

I have customers that I will email the invoice for order confirmation that then want to pay the Invoice in person at my Square stand.

Why do I have to rebuild the order into a ticket? This is totally ridiculous. The function was added then removed!

Please fix this ASAP. 

[Howard]

We are sorry for any confusion. 

To continue to use this feature you just need to update your app either via the App Store or through the Beta app. 

[kayogaayurveda]

I just updated the Beta app, and still no invoice pay.

[jetcars]

Can I ask how you were converting the invoices before?  Ver curious that you had found a solution.  

[Sean]

Hi @jetcars @kayogaayurveda @3monkeyspad! I can tell that there's a little confusion here, so I'm going to let the cat out of the bag and clear things up. This feature is fully launched on Android and is slowly rolling out on iOS. We're aiming to have it availabe to everyone this week - so it's not a bait and switch! I promise it's coming (if it isn't already available to you).

It sounds like 3monkeyspad may have had early access to this feature as part of our Preview Program. If this is something you're interested in for the future, head here for more details. 

We will update this thread once this feature is 100% live. In the meantime, please hang tight!

[Sean]

Great news everyone! I've very excited to share that we've offically launched the ability to take invoice payments on a mobile device (iOS and Android). This unlocks the ability to pay off outstanding invoices in-person. Here's a basic run-down of how it works:

1. Select Invoices from the navigation menu (the three horizontal lines in the corner).

2. Tap on the invoice from your list. Or if you don’t have an outstanding invoice, create one from your device first.

3. Tap Add Payment.

4. Charge $[Amount] Now.

5. Swipe, Dip or Tap your customers card or select a separate tender type (Card on File, Cash, Gift Card, Check or Other.)

 I know has been a very popular feature request so y'all will have to let me know what you think! 🙂

Note: You can now also request a deposit for an invoice. However, if your customer has paid a deposit for an invoice they must also pay the balance online — it's not possible to accept the balance of a partially paid invoice from the app. To learn more about this feature request read this thread: How do I accept a payment for a partially paid invoice via the app? 

[cmusicshop]

This is long overdue and very, very welcome.  Since I've been using Square on and off starting last year I've had only one person pay from the invoice email, everyone else has been in person.  Other than regular sales I've been using Square more for repairwork, most people want to see the finished product before they pay (very understandable).  This will make me use Square a bit more now since it improves the workflow.  Good job!