Square Appointments -- Automatic Service Charge or Gratuity

[samkw]

We will be using Square Appointments for our day spa.  At checkout we need to apply an automatic 20% gratuity/service charge using Square Register.

Unlike Square for Restaurants, this doesn't appear to be an option for Square Appointments -- is this correct?  If so, are there any effective workarounds to provide this function with the current product?  It appears this has been an outstanding feature request for multiple years.

Candidly, I may need to find a different POS solution for the day spa if I can't find a reasonable workaround for this function.  I also want this for online service sales as well, but for now I'm focusing on in-person Square Register checkouts.  Thank you for any useful suggestions that can be provided!

[PerroneTech · Accepted solution]

Hi @samkw you can create surcharges but they cannot be automatically applied to items.

A workaround for this is to create a tax. Call the tax whatever you want, ex: Auto Gratuity, and then choose the option to apply it to particular items. You can apply it to your service items for appointments. It will charge both taxes if you are also charging state tax.

I just tested this and it works. Now, the only issue I may see is that reporting will show it as a tax. This is separate from your tax registrations in Square, so I am not 100% sure how this will be reported to tax authorities.

If someone can chime in and correct me, that would be great. That is the only idea I can think of so you can automatically have a 20% gratuity.