Sharing Invoices via Shareable Link

[Maxwell303]

I started using Square to invoice customers yesterday using the shareeable link option.  One thing that I don't understand about this feature is why do I have to know my customer's email address to share the link?  My preference would be to have the email address captured as part of the invoice data or included as a mandatory field if I have the option to collect a shipping address selected.  The customers that I am invoicing are brand new; therefore, I don't have their information on-file and going back and forth trying to collect their email address before sending the invoice is time consuming.  My business is very transactional on Instagram, primarily communicating with people on the East coast, so the time difference makes communicating in real-time a challenge.

For clarification, I am sharing the link with my customers via a Direct Message in Instagram.

It also appears that invoices do not import into Shipstation.  Is there a reason why a paid invoice with a shipping address would be exlcuded from the API call from Shipstation?

I would really like to use the invoice feature and hoping there is a way to change the default setting so that the email address is captured as the invoice is paid.

Thank you in advance for any assistance or feedback regarding this issue.

[Tom]

Welcome to the Seller Community and thanks for bringing this up, @Maxwell303!

I see what you mean that, by having the email requirement, it requires extra back-and-forth for your customers on on Instagram. At this time, there isn't a way around that, but I'll be sure to surface this point to our Invoices Team as they continue to iterate. Out of curiosity, can you reply with a bit more information on why it's important to share the invoice link versus directing your customers to email—is it that you want to keep all communications in one place?

In addition, we are tracking the request for Square Invoices and ShipStation. We'll post any updates to this thread as soon as they become available: Using Square Invoicing with ShipStation fulfillment?

Please don't hesitate to let us know if any other questions remain. Happy to have another look!

[Maxwell303]

@Tom Thank you so much for responding to my question and I appreciate you trying to understand my issue on a deeper level.

In response to your request asking for additional information regarding sharing the link via Instagram I am happy to explain why it's such an important part of my business.  About 75% of my returning customer base started doing business with me via my auctions that I host on Instagram.  There has always been a slight challenge communicating with customers after the auctions close, because typically they end at 10pm Eastern time which is 8pm Mountain time where I live. Because of the time difference many times it would take up to 4 days from the date of the auction to when the actual invoice was settled to get everything finalized with the customer.  During the course of this extended cycle of going back and forth many times I would end up losing around 20% of my sales beacase I wasn't able to close the sales cycle with the customer fast enough.  Keep in mind, everytime a potential new customer backs out of their auction win, not only do I lose the 20% of sales but I  also lose the ability to capture their marketing preferences for future prospecting sales via Email promos.

A couple years ago, I started creating individual product listing for every auction item on my Shopify website and sending the link directly to my customer via Instagram DM right after the auction closed. Immediately after implementing this new process I went from and 80% conversion rate to a 100% conversion rate, because I was able to streamline the paymet process and customers could not proclaim they never received the email or use other excuses to try and back out of their purchase.

You are probably asking why I don't keep using Shopify for auctions, and the reason is because my Auctions have a different cost basis and need to be treated as a stand-alone revenue stream, so I wanted to move the auctions back to a dedicated sales channel.  I started researching Square invoicing in December and decided it would be a great alternative to move my auctions back to their own sales channel using the share a link invoice feature.  For the 2 auctions I hosted last week, I had 100% conversion rate so I know it's a great option to offer customers, but to work around the issue of having to have an email address before I could share the link meant that I lost about 14 customer emails because I had to enter a dummy email address so I didn't have to try and faciliate the back and forth conversation.

From a development standpoint it seems that if the share a link option is selected then the email option should be disabled and vice versa, because I noticed regardless the invoice was sent to the customer via email too, becuse the dummy email address I used was directed to my business email addresss.  Seems like the features compete with each other, because I just don't understand why you would share a link if the customer is also going to get an email with the invoice too?  This could be my part of ignorance of not understanding how other people use the feature.  I would love to my my auction sales over to square, but until I know for sure what the roadmap looks like for invoice feature it doesn't make sense.

Last bit of feedback is that from a design perspective, I wish developers would just make as much as they could customizable and let people figure out how to make the tools work for their business, instead of developers trying to fit everyone into the same square hole.

Thanks again and I apologize for the long winded email. @tom

[Maxwell303]

@Tom further clarification about collecting emails via Instagram that wasn't stated very clearly in my reponse, but the majority of people participating in auctions are brand new customers; therefore, I don't have any email on file to associate the invoice to.  That's why I as excited to try the share a link feature because I thought it would capture the email and shipping addresses at the time payment was collected which is much more efficient than PayPal or the creating a product in Shopify.

Thanks again  

[Tom]

Got it! Thanks for taking the time to lay this out, @Maxwell303. It definitely sounds like there's a lot of opportunity to improve the payment experience on Instagram (as well as other platforms). We don't want any of our sellers to miss out on a sale. While I don't have another workaround to suggest at this time, I'll be sure to surface your post with the appropriate team members. We'll circle back with any other developments or updates as they become available.

[gottahaveaname]

I know this is a dead thread, but I came across it while trying to find out if there was a way to send a link to an invoice. It would be really great to be able to send it without the email. I can’t tell you how many people I run across that can’t figure out how to find the invoice in their email and it is just a lot of waste of time and back-and-forth in messages trying to explain how to find the invoice or what it’s called... Not to mention sometimes I try to send invoices to people who have their emails filtered out in the messaging programs, like eBay or Amazon or other platforms that don’t want you sharing email addresses. 

[AdamB]

Not a problem, @gottahaveaname. When you create an invoice for a customer, you have a choice to email the customer or just create a link you can give to them. If you take a look at the support article on sending Square invoices online, it mentions how to do that.

[gottahaveaname]

Oh thanks, and it’s been changed so you don’t need to enter an email address in order to send an invoice link?