Feature request - surcharges

[mikesee]

When will it be possible to configure surcharges in Square?

I see some old discussion topics (2 years) saying it is on the roadmap.

There are several reasons why we need surcharges but the two big ones for me:

1. Apply a credit card surcharge to all card transactions

2. Apply a Sunday or public holiday surcharge. This is pretty essential in Australia due to the higher wage costs.

Needs to be automated and rules-based.

[#2]

Hi Sellers! 👋

Just jumping in here to share some exciting news about automatic surcharging!

We're thrilled to announce that Square’s Automatic Card Surcharges Beta Program is now open to all eligible Australian Sellers! This much-anticipated feature allows you to seamlessly pass on processing fees for card payments directly to your customers.

Getting started is easy. Eligible Sellers can now activate and manage one automatic surcharge directly from their online Square Dashboard. Once set up, the surcharge will be automatically applied when a customer pays with a card from:

- Square Point of Sale

- Square Restaurants POS or Square Retail POS apps on compatible iOS devices, Android devices, Square Terminal, and Square Register

To learn how to set up your automatic surcharge, visit Get Started with Service Charges Beta. 

For questions or feedback on this new experience, please join the Card Surcharges Group in the Beta Seller Community.

We're eager to hear your thoughts and experiences with this new feature. Feel free to drop your comments below!

[#3]

EDIT (July 2022): We've started to roll out Service Charges (AKA Surcharges) in Australia, which you can read more about here. The first iteration supports:

• The Square Point of Sale app
• Manually applied fixed ($) or variable (%) surcharges
  
  

In future iterations of Service Charges we hope to support:

• More Square products (eg Square for Restaurants, Square for Retail, Invoices etc)
• Automated service charges, so you won't need to manually add it

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Hey @mikesee,

I'm sorry to say that I don't have an update on surcharges right now.

We're still tracking feedback on this and it's a popular request from Australian sellers. For now we recommend building surcharging into the overall price of your goods as you might other operating expenses, or you can manually calculate a surcharge into the overall cost of a given transaction.

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.

For transactions put through Square Terminal at 1.6%:

Transaction amount divided by 0.984

e.g. $100 / 0.984 = $101.63 - you'd add $1.63 as a 1.6% 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.

[Seamus]

@DebThreeBirdies you can definitely try this, though keep in mind that any additional taxes you add will be calculated based on a pre-GST amount.

Another thing I've also heard of some restaurants/cafes doing is setting up different base prices for their menu, so the weekend menu or the public holiday menu is priced differently to the regular one.

To do this you'd need to create a new location (eg call it "Business Name - Public Holiday" or something similar), and assign your items to that location at different price points. Then when you need to change what prices you're charging, you sign out of the app and sign back in to select which "location" to take payments under that day - eg the public holiday location on public holidays.

[mikesee]

This is all getting rather silly.

The number of convoluted, time-consuming and error-prone workarounds to a relatively simple, and very common, but missing function, is enough to make us start looking at other POS systems. Are you listening Square? It's been years now with no light at the end of the tunnel.

[Seamus]

@mikesee Personally speaking, I pass on feedback to our product teams about the demand we're seeing for surcharging, and acknowledge it's a popular feature request.

I can't make any promises as to if or when it may be introduced as a feature in Square, however I'll continue to advocate for the things we're seeing demand for from Australian sellers and highlight the stories and comments we see on Seller Community.

If I have any news to share on this changing in the future I'll update this thread and tag everyone who has commented!

[DebThreeBirdies]

Jeez mate, that’s an awfully convoluted way of addressing a very simple issue. We just need the ability to charge a one off fee based on percentage of the sale - simple

[DebThreeBirdies]

And we legally CANT do it by adjusting the price. It has to be % based fee that is visible on the tax invoice as a separate charge - ACCC requirement 

[Seamus]

@DebThreeBirdies As far as I understand, this is true if you're charging a surcharge for card payments, per the article we've linked in a previous reply. This doesn't mention public holiday surcharges and I'm not aware of any specific rules for those, though always recommend consulting an expert/business finance advisor if in doubt.

You can still calculate a percentage based fee manually and add it as a custom amount on a transaction if you'd like, you can do this via the app's keypad in Checkout.

A surcharge option built into the POS would be understandably more handy than these workarounds! At the moment I'm able to provide advice based on how currently work, but will update this thread if I hear news of any changes!

[Pablo3]

Please another vote for surcharge. I was shocked that after days migrating to square I realised there is no surcharge option. I simply can't use it now. The workarounds in the thread are just unreasonable. 

[DebThreeBirdies]

Seamus - ignore the issue of charging for cc fees, that’s not what most of us need it for. We need to be able to add public holiday surcharges because wages are so high on those days

[DebThreeBirdies]

Cc fees we can easily factor in to the sell price. One off surcharges that happen a few times a year are the bigger issue, they are usually a significant bite into the bottom line and legally we can’t charge them without showing them as a separate charge on the bill

[Seamus]

@Pablo3 that sounds really frustrating - I've moved your thread to the surcharge feature request one we have going here, but if you're using Square for Restaurants, have you checked out the Service Charge option?

You can access this via your online dashboard by going to Devices > Service settings > Service charge or click here.

I'd recommend manually applying this on a per-bill basis - that way it won't be automatically applied to your cash transactions.

Note that if you're taking payments with Square Terminal via Open Tickets initiated on Square for Restaurants, the Service Charge won't be able to be applied at the moment. Do let me know if this is a viable solution for you though, or if not, why it isn't - I'll pass on your feedback.