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 Everyone!

We’re excited to announce some new updates to the Automatic Surcharges feature that will make managing your Weekend and Public Holiday Surcharges easier than ever! 

What's New?

Weekly Surcharges with Custom Day and Time Selection

You can now choose the exact days and times when a surcharge should be applied, such as weekends or late nights.

1. From your Square Dashboard, navigate to Account & Settings > Business information.
2. Click Service charges > Create service charge.
3. Enter service charge details such as a Name, Amount type (% or $), and Amount.
4. Choose which locations the service charge will be applied to.
5. Toggle on Apply automatically.
6. Click Weekly schedule and select the day of the week and time period for automatic application.
7. Click Save once all changes have been made.
   

Public Holiday Service Charges

National, state, and local public holidays are pre-populated – simply pick the ones that apply to your business.

1. From your Square Dashboard, navigate to Account & Settings > Business information.
2. Click Service charges > Create service charge.
3. Enter service charge details such as a Name, Amount type (% or $), and Amount.
4. Choose which locations the service charge will be applied to.
5. Toggle on Apply automatically.
6. Click Public holiday schedule and select the holidays for automatic application.
7. Click Save once all changes have been made.

Custom Date Service Charges

Easily create surcharges with a custom date to suit your business needs.

1. From your Square Dashboard, navigate to Account & Settings > Business information.
2. Click Service charges > Create service charge.
3. Enter service charge details such as a Name, Amount type (% or $), and Amount.
4. Choose which locations the service charge will be applied to.
5. Toggle on Apply automatically.
6. Click Public holiday schedule > Create a custom holiday > Create holiday.
7. Add a Holiday name and Date, then click Create.
8. Click Save once all changes have been made.

Once set up, these surcharges will be automatically applied to card payments on Square Point of Sale, Square for Restaurants, and Square for Retail based on their specified dates/times.

Check out the Product Launch here. For more information on setting up service charges, visit our Support Centre.


As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences with these new updates, so please feel free to send through your feedback on this thread!

[#3]

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!

[#4]

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

---------------

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]

We have an update for sellers following this thread. 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 them to transactions

We understand this isn't going to offer a solution for everyone who has commented on this thread, however it is an important first step in building out further surcharge functionality moving forward. While we don't have a timeframe to share, we hope to be able to share further updates to Service Charges in future!

[threebirdies]

Oh for goodness sake!

the surcharge is pretty much ONLY needed for the restaurant business. 
you need to do it for Square for Restaurants FIRST

i give up

[Emjaykez]

Hey @Seamus

Thanks for getting this feature through. We've been waiting patiently for it.

I have tested it and it appears to work well. A few things to note:
1) I have an option to apply it to Online Sales automatically however the option is greyed out for me and I have messed around trying to figure out how to get it to work for Online Sales... any ideas?

2) I know this an early release and more options are planned to be added in but would love an option to apply the Service Charge to every order on specific days rather than having to remember to add it manually for each order at POS.

Cheers and thanks again for the progress on this - having worked in IT and Software Development I do know how long these minor details can take to get through with development teams, Quality Assurance teams, Legal, Support and Marketing. Especially in large organisations with many moving parts. Appreciate you going in to bat for us and copping the flack from Square customers who (rightly or wrongly) can imagine it being a simple thing to add.

[Mmp74]

So is this surcharge option not affected by a fee from square?

[Sab1]

@Seamus  you may be an advocate for adding a potential surcharge into our pricing. But that would mean we are assuming everyone is going to pay by card. It is everyone's free choice to either use Card or pay cash. I believe that it's not a business problem that customers choose to use their cards for their purchases. If they decide to do so, then they should carry the cost. Small business struggles are real, and 1.9% is a lot. For a restaurant- this may be a cost of an extra worker who can help on busy days. I am at this moment deciding if I should go with square as I originally thought it looks good and simple to use but I probably won't look at surcharging being so difficult to set up. 

[GL-6721]

I've been reading the threads and don't understand how the surcharge can be added to the dashboard and the app however not to the Square Register.

How is it after years of customers wanting and needing this, it is still only a 'feature request'? Surely in this day and age, someone on your team is able to make the coding/programming adjustment required.

[KincumberIndoor]

Absolutey. Someone is asleep at the wheel despite us paying them to stay awake

[BPN081]

Square is very quickly becoming the Apple of the POS (or bank merchant) industry. All your wow features are done half arsed, not rolled out before prior testing properly and the competition have had it for years 😂🤐

[SurchargeForAus]

I hate that the terminal doesn’t make an audible sound when payments fail. Unbelievably frustrating. Also another feature that’s been ignored as a request for years 

[Mosaicacai]

This is absolutely required. I can't believe how old this thread is and would love to understand Squares trepidation. If the concern is over charging then place a signed waiver before we the users add the feature, I'm more than comfortable passing any card charges on to my clients.

I am a recent convert from Lightspeed and am impressed with so many aspects of Square but simply cannot fathom that a feature such as Card convenience surcharging and Public Holiday charges are so very difficult. Running into my first Christmas with Square with 4 public holidays to deal with is truely daunting. I may have to switch back to lightspeed for these days

Come on @jackdorsey and @squarerestaurants. Be the best!