Adding 2.2% to transactions

[ICONphotos]

Hi everyone! 

Is there a way you can add the 2.2% surcharge to the client on the square app for manual card entries ? So they can see the additional fee on the invoice ?

[Seamus · Accepted solution]

Hi @ICONphotos,

Thanks for reaching out.

It’s not currently possible for the Square Point of Sale app to automatically apply a card surcharge to your sales. We encourage you to build the costs of card acceptance into the general cost of the goods and services you're offering, as you would other business expenses. We've done a bit of research into this and found customers tend to appreciate it!

If you would like to pass on credit card processing charges to your customers, you can use the following to calculate what you would charge.


For transactions put through a Square Reader at 1.9%:
Transaction amount divided by 0.981
e.g. $100 / 0.981 = $101.94 - you'd add $1.94 as a 1.9% surcharge.


For “Card not Present” transactions at 2.2%:
Transaction amount divided by 0.978
E.g. $100 / 0.978 = $102.25 - you'd add $2.25 as a 2.2% surcharge.

Why Wouldn’t I Just Add 1.9% or 2.2%?
Square’s card processing fees are based on the overall transaction amount, so if you’re adding $1.90 to a $100 transaction, the transaction becomes $101.90, not $100. Using the above formulas accounts for this small change to the overall fee on transactions if you’re adding a surcharge

Should you decide to apply a surcharge, it is your responsibility adhere to Australian regulations as set out by the ACCC.

Let me know if you have any other questions. I’m happy to help.

[Macchiato]

Hi,

is the surcharge feature still not available? I truly believe Square is limiting its ability to offer a full service POS solution by not having this feature. I currently have 4 cafes where i use Square POS and Eftpos but as of next month ill revert to using a different Eftpos solution to get around this limitation. As far as I'm concerned Square is just a register POS solution for me and no longer a card processing solution. 

[paulmin]

I just explored a workaround by adding a Tax, calling it 'Card Processing', and setting the percentage as appropriate. It works on invoices and a mobile app. I don't know if it would be feasible for POS.

[Seamus]

@paulmin this is a workaround I've heard before, but I tend not to recommend it as any custom tax you add to act as a surcharge will be calculated on a pre-GST amount, which means the surcharge won't be an exact total of a transaction featuring GST (or any other tax).

With that said, some sellers are fine with wearing the small difference - if you're OK with that then we won't stop you from using the tax workaround 🙂

[Macchiato]

Hi,

Im happy to wear the difference but how do i actually set this up? i only want it to apply when a customer chooses to pay via card (i also have the latest integrated square POS so not sure if that makes a difference) 

[Seamus]

Hey @Macchiato,

I had a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I was forgetting another reason I've not recommended this often in the past and you've just pointed it out - there is no way to exclude a tax from an item on the basis of whether it's paid via card or cash.

So the tax workaround is going to be more convenient for something like a holiday surcharge rather than a card surcharge. You would need to turn the tax on or off each time you completed a sale via Settings > Checkout > Taxes. Not ideal.

With this said, I am aware of a potentially better option that is not too far away in the form of a 'Service Charge'. Once available this will allow you to manually add a percentage or dollar based "service fee" to a transaction. At the moment I'm still unsure whether the service charge will be based on a pre or post tax amount, but because it'd be manually added like you would another item to a transaction, it wouldn't involve turning tax settings off and on.

While I don't have an ETA to share I'll ping sellers in this thread once I hear more about the launch of this feature - while not as ideal as a fully automated card feature, it should be a better solution that adding an extra tax to act as a surcharge.

[DonnaN]

If my customer clicks the link for their invoice, how can I set it up that the customer pays the fee and they can be advised also?

[Arie]

Hi and welcome to the Seller Community @DonnaN 👋 

I've merged your post to this thread where someone had the same question, check out the Best Answer.