Two stations in one shop, but different setups for checkout?

[theanogreek]

Hi all!   We're setting up a space for a retail boutique with small cafe/coffee shop.  We are putting two pos stations in, one for the cafe counter and another for the retail checkout. However, two things we would hope for:

Both stations would be able to "sell" any inventory in the place (boutique or cafe stuff), BUT the cafe pos station would have different screen layout and prompt guests for a tip (where the station in the retail counter wouldn't prompt for tip).

So, access to full inventory from both stations, but only prompting for guests to tip from one, and possibly different pos layouts (since they are focusing on different aspects of the products).

My current thought was to set it up as two "locations" (each station being a "location") using one inventory pool, but will that actually track inventory counts correctly, regardless of which "location" sold the item? Or will square want an inventory count for any item separate per location? (It's a little different setup than just having register 1 and register 2 in one shop).

Thanks for any insights!

[Gold]

HI, hopefully these Square Support pages will help.  Square for Retail or Square for Retail Plus.  What you are describing would probably be Square for Retail Plus.

https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6921-square-for-retail-free

https://squareup.com/help/us/en/subtopic/248

https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5580-manage-multiple-locations-with-square

https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7588-cross-location-orders-with-square-for-retail

https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5586-manage-devices-by-location

[theanogreek]

We do plan to use Retail Plus for that shop. I'll dive into the references. Biggest thing is we want to have a different "guest experience" depending on where they are checking out.   Tip prompts at the cafe counter, but if they're 6 ft away at the retail side, no tip prompts (unless they want to tip on their jeans and necklace!). Although they could buy anything they want at either station.

Thanks!

[theanogreek]

Looks like using Plus and doing the "location" trick for each station will make Square charge the monthly fee "per location" - so 120.00 instead of 60.00.   Anyone know if just having two stations can actually have each tablet's pos and checkout features customized from eachother?

[Lovewell]

@theanogreek Okay, so I am not super familiar with more complex dealings but here is what I do know. We have a square terminal and a square register. When I edit things on the terminal i.e adding a category to my favorites page that will sink to my pos app on my phone because their interface is virtually the same. And when I edit things on my Register, again, like adding a category to my homepage it will look similar and sync with what my POS app on my ipad looks like.

Here would be my work around- You are able to add a second page of categories to a register checkout. So i would suggest one page be the layout for your coffee shop, and the other page be the layout for the retail side. As with tips, we are a coffee shop so I havent tried turning tips off for my register and seeing if they will stay on with a different point of sale device but my guess would be no. Just in the sense that any device you are using, because it's set up as a solo location/ business in the behind the scenes settings your devices  will be trying to accomplish the same job. 

I hope my train of thought makes sense!

Definitely try the categories and separate home page option though!!

Let me know if this is helpful!

-H