I operate an art gallery and we do a lot of layaway purchases. Here's my workaround:
After calculating the total and the deposit due, I ring the item/items and manually change the price to reflect the deposit amount. For each item I use the Note function to indicate it's a layaway deposit. I then make an invoice that splits the remaining balance into equal thirds or fourths depending on the customer's choice. We set a reminder for 2 days prior, and the day of each payment due date. The paper agreement says we prefer they use the online invoice function. If they do happen to come in to make an in-person payment, I create an item for the amount and use the Notes to indicate what it's for. Since we're a consignment gallery, and artists are paid as each payment comes in, having the invoice record helps our accounts to ensure commission payments are made correctly.
Re: How can I offer my customers a layaway option with Square Point of Sale?
Posted
04-01-2016
Great question, @wh! We don't have a specific layaway feature, but we have had some sellers use our open tickets feature to facilitate layaway sales. The workaround goes like this:
1) Create an open ticket for the item
2) When the customer makes a payment on the item, close out the existing open ticket with their payment
3) Then create a new open ticket with the updated balance
4) Follow this process until the item has been paid off
You could also create an Invoice for the upfront partial payment and more Invoices for the balance until the goods are picked up. Here’s how to create Invoices: http://squ.re/1SGkd8s.
Yes, We're thinking of moving from Shopify to Square but I'm not seeing the layaway feature offered via square either, which is why we were thinking of moving to Square. There is very much interest for this option to be available.
@freonburn in your process of recording layaway deposits separately and then recording the final sale with the prepaid amounts as cash would record the deposits twice? I’m not sure how you would account for that?
That makes it a bit difficult indeed. At the moment we just track it on a spreadsheet and only finalise the sale once it’s fully paid which works but it would be nicer to have it in Square.
I have found a rather easy solution: - create an invoice for a customer with the items - set invoice delivery as Manually by URL so the customer doesn’t get emails
- save the invoice - open the invoice - record payment and enter the amount of the first payment - take the payment and finalise Next time the customer puts an amount, open the invoice and record the next partial payment Repeat until fully paid
We need this to be reflected in inventory though... Our online customers can still buy products which have been put into an invoice... even if the invoice is partially paid.
This is not effective for anyone who has a finite amount of a product... The product stays in inventory and thus can still be sold to a different customer online or in the store. This is the specific reason to have layaway... To keep it from other customers buying it!
Yes I agree with Nicholas. Not practical at all. The issue is that the item is still in inventory and online. We cant take it off until it has been totally paid for . When you are busy in store it is time consuming to have to take off inventory and off online section.
Invoices are completely inadequate, and not at all helpful... the purpose of the layaway is to hold the item and keep it from being purchased by another customer... The items don't leave inventory when you put them in an invoice (which is actually extremely frustrating in and of itself as when I send an invoice for an item, it may not be in stock by the time the customer pays).
