Connect multiple square readers to one iPad

[chee2021]

The title of this thread has been edited from the original: square reader

Hi all,

I would like to know if it is possible to use 2 Square Card Readers to one iPad terminal? 

Thanks in advance.

Chee

[Seamus]

Hey @chee2021,

Thanks for reaching out!

I think you should be able to do this - what exactly are you trying to do here so I can confirm? Is it so you can have a reader in two different places, and ring up a customer from wherever they are? Eg have one reader on a coffee order window, and the other at the front counter, but be able to have the same staff member ring up the transaction on the same iPad?

[chee2021]

Hi Seamus,

Thanks for your reply; you've got the scenario spot on! I'm thinking if I can have a reader in front of our ordering counter inside the store, and another reader at the coffee window (order ringed up at the same iPad terminal)

Otherwise, is it than possible to use 2 iPads and 2 readers on just 1 Square account?

Thanks in advance.

Chee

[Seamus · Accepted solution]

@chee2021 I just checked and you can definitely connect two readers to an iPad, then when you go to take the payment, either reader can be used to complete it. Note though, this does not work an an iPhone.

It is also possible to have 2 iPads with 2 readers all logged into the same account. If you wanted to, you could have 50 iPads with 50 readers all logged into the one account! 

[chee2021]

Thanks Seamus, much appreciated!

Chee

[RGAUS]

Hi Seamus,

hoping you might be able to answer my question too!  I've contacted Squareup but haven't heard back.  I sell a product at a local cafe, I just drop them off and go. It gets a bit complicated as my sales go through their system and then we have to sort out card fees etc.  I was hoping if  I get my own Squareup and have it on the counter, that the sales from my product could be directed from their iPad to my square up and they wouldn't have to worry about sales going through their eftpos system.  I guess I'm asking can two seperate square up's run through the one iPad system, for different sales?

Thanks in advance

RGAUS

[Seamus]

Hey @RGAUS,

Thanks for getting in touch and welcome to the community 👋

You could possibly do something like this, though it wouldn't be quite as straightforward as just having a reader there. Square Readers actually contain no personal information and are not linked to particular Square accounts - this is all determined by the account you're signed into on the Square Point of Sale app. So to do what you're trying to do, you'd need:

1) A compatible mobile device signed in to your Square account. If the cafe is already using an iPad logged into their own Square account, you'd need to set up a secondary device signed in to your Square account.

2) You'd then need to connect a card reader to the device logged into your account on the Square Point of Sale app.

3) The staff would need to make sure to use that specific iPad/reader combination to sell your products.

All things considered, it's probably not ideal.  It effectively requires someone else managing your sales while you're not there and trusting that all the staff know to process your transactions in a different manner to their usual ones every time, which could get awkward and frustrating in a fast paced cafe environment. It'd also probably throw up issues if customers want to buy a combination of your goods as well as the cafe's - they'd need to be run as seperate transactions on seperate devices. If the cafe doesn't currently use Square, you've then got to also consider that it may become an extra burden on them to learn to operate the Point of Sale app and troubleshoot issues if anything were to go wrong.

With that said, I don't know the exact situation, and it may be doable, but you'd need to have a seperate mobile device and mobile reader to do it! If you decided to go ahead with it, you might also want to look at setting up customer permission sets with Team Management features, so the cafe staff don't have access to all your private account info etc.

All in all I'd say there would probably be easier ways of going about things - but depending on the exact scenario it could work! If it were me I'd probably just do things the traditional way as there'd be less possible points of failure - I'd probably get a total sales figure then send an invoice.

[SA01]

Hi

i have a question. I do markets & have another person that has just started to help me. She has downloaded the App to her phone but we find only one of us can do card sales unless we disconnect from the Reader so the other one can connect to it. This is time consuming as customers don’t want to wait around. Can we be connected at the same time? Or do I need to get another Reader so each Phone App is connected to a Reader? 
Thanks

[Arie]

Hi @SA01,

Thanks for writing in and welcome to the community - it's great seeing new faces here! 

The Square Reader can only be connected to one device at a time, so you'd need a second reader, if you'd like your helper to take payments on her phone at the same time.