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.

[Lexies]

This is also our sentiment. A Sunday/PH trade is around $1000 from the surcharge. So the lack of this feature is about $60,000 a year. 

The workarounds are inadequate:

- Custom Tax. Pre GST calculation so inaccurate. The example was about 10c difference in a $10 transaction, that adds up the $1,000s!

- Custom Tax part 2. Turn on the tax manually on applicable days? Adding more human error to an already flawed system.

Even if Square does care, the perception from frustrated business customers is clear - we believe you don’t care, with no action taken on this issue for so long, no real update, no expected timeline. Support probably has their hands tied, so the forum mods and message handlers just say the same thing “that’s a neato idea, I’ll pass it on (to the bin/the void known as the development team)”.

Im at the point of sad and disappointed. Time, energy, money on a product with so much ‘sizzle’ yet cant seem to solve issues that seem so easy for an innovative company that has done so much. Back to our old POS then, and organise a refund on the Square POS (not an acronym for point of sale).

and don’t get me started on the limited number of pages you can use!!!

[SmallBizOwner]

+1 Vote for this feature. I cant believe it hasnt been added yet...unacceptable.

[DimplesCowes]

Public Holiday Surcharge Feature

We really need an option of ticking a box when we have a public holiday to add surcharge, I have noticed square is lacking in a few areas when it comes to hospitality or retail you are meant to be forward thinking & ahead with product features but since signing up with square it is falling short, the ability to disconnect the pay pad for POS would be great to edit prices on the go and the screen has a habit of being unresponsive at times when attempting to add items.

Seeing as square has leaped ahead with sale of it's system you need to start development of these feature to keep up to date otherwise we shall be looking for another system, seeing as you can't or haven't add a feature by now like a public holiday surcharge  option is very poor considering most businesses use this.

I look forward to seeing these integrations very soon. 

[Seamus]

Thanks for adding your voice to this feature request thread @DimplesCowes.

Automated surcharging has been a popular request and one that I hope we'll see in the future - I don't have an ETA to share at the moment, but will post back and tag everyone who has posted in this thread if this does change in the future!

[DimplesCowes]

Seems like an AI automatic response!

[cheersolutions]

Would really like an automated surcharge option.  I don't understand why this is so hard to implement after people asking for years. I am also in Australia and lose money on every single transaction through my website as I have no way to pass on the fee to customers so I wear the cost. 

[HunterL2D]

Another request for this feature for Australian users. This thread has been running since Oct 2020. Surely enough interest and need has been demonstrated for Square to enable this feature.

[LunchBar]

It appears you have been 'looking at this' for over 2 years now. Is it going to be released? Apparently available in the US?

[SeaSwell]

I vote for a public holiday surcharge option too. It is essential to be able to cover staff costs with the high wages in Australia on a public holiday.  With Easter as the end of this week, I'm disappointed that there is no viable solution yet! 

[welstub]

This is very poor service ... why is it so hard to implement this feature .... we have all been hit with staff shortages and have to pay ridiculous wages just to keep staff ... I am so annoyed that I have to go into each item to change the price to include a 15% surcharge for the Easter Public holiday (just to cover additional wages) then have to go back after and change back ... such a waste of my time!!!!

we are all paying the penalty for a US developed system .... Australia comes second when it come to program changes!!!! ... over 2 years we have been waiting