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.

[we_need_updates]

Knowing that Public Holiday Surcharges are STILL not an option for Square online stores for Australian users is absolutely mind boggling. It has been more than 2 years since this thread started and we ourselves have asked for this to be a feature for so long. Surely somebody at Square knows how to make this happen!? The ipads/terminals are able to feature the toggle ON/OFF for taxes and service charges so why is it so difficult to make this happen for online stores!?

It's extremely frustrating and after reading all the comments from this thread of the past 2 years, it's a common request with many of us frustrated by this.

Square, you're making a lot of money from us businesses, so please let some of that money pay for an update which allows us to toggle ON/OFF a tax/surcharge just like we can on the app/terminal. 

[mlaforest]

I just can't understand why Square wouldn't be racing to get this enhancement done.

A simple date sensitive option to automatically add a XX% surcharge would make the life of my beloved local coffee shop so much easier.

Today they had to keep a calculator next to their Square terminal at the counter to work out the 15% to add as a Miscellaneous item.

But those customers who use the online ordering system got around the surcharge anyway! Not only did they skip the queue but they also skipped the surcharge.

Surely, the pay back for Square is the 2.2% commission they would earn on the surcharge transaction they are currently not getting online?!

Who is the CIO of Square? With the greatest respect he needs a wakeup call me thinks.

[Slixx]

Another vote....

[Smithward]

We use Square For Restaurants to add items to a bill, and a Square Terminal device to accept payments.  Is there now a way to add a card processing fee to card transactions?

I have seen old recommendations from Square to just add this overhead into overall item costs, but that a) penalises customers who choose to pay cash;  b) gives the impression we are more expensive than comparable businesses who can charge a fee so don't have to increase menu prices; and less importantly c) require irregular pricing of items e.g. a table buys 4 glasses of wine currently listed as $16 each, we would have to show a menu price of $16.32, or round down (lose money) round up (overcharge/inflate prices).

Adding a surcharge via Restaurants is not suitable either, as until the moment of payment we don't know if a customer will pay by card or cash. Also, if a bill is split between card-payer and cash-payer we shouldn't be charging the latter a processing fee.

I hope there's a simple solution.....?

[Laurie_]

Hey there @Smithward,

Thanks for taking the time to reach out to us to pass on your feedback and raise this question with us.

From what you have described it sounds like you're looking for an option to add an automatic surcharge to your transactions to cover the card processing fee, is that correct?

Adding the ability to apply automatic surcharges to your card transactions is a popular feature request here in Australia. We're continuing to advocate for this feature request based on the feedback we receive on the Seller Community platform. 

While there isn't an elegant workaround I can offer you at this time, we discuss available workarounds and recommendations in this thread where we continue to track this feedback.

Let me know if I've misunderstood your question, otherwise, I'll go ahead and move your post to this thread so that you'll be included in any updates we have to share on this moving forward.

[Smithward]

Hi @Laurie_  yes, we're looking to add an automatic surcharge to transactions to cover the card processing fee. It looks like this has been a feature request for about 5 years now and it seems Square is the only remaining POS that doesn't offer this.

It's become a standard practice in Australia - I paid a cc transaction fee on a takeaway coffee I bought this morning, and this evening I paid a card fee on a beer at the pub. With Square I would have to publicly price a $15 glass of wine on my menu at ~$15.30 to do the same. 

[Laurie_]

Thanks for clarifying, @Smithward.

I've gone ahead and merged your post with the existing thread where we continue to track this feedback. This way, you will receive a notification as soon as we have any news to share regarding changes to surcharges.

[Madame_and_Yves]

Square's AU blog has been claiming since August 2021 that the surcharge is enabled: "Square’s system allows you to easily add your surcharges by payment type, which means you should never be caught over-charging." Square has even defined/distinguished between the terms "service" and "surcharge" to specify adding a fee for processing cards even. I need to make sure my busy staff don't have to manually uncheck a "Service fee" for every cash paying transaction, and a POS that understands when to add a surcharge and when not to because a customer is paying cash. This continued hurdle has me looking for other providers because it's been a constant feature request. Please fix!

https://squareup.com/au/en/townsquare/credit-card-surcharge

[Cafeownersyd]

omg i cant believe after yrs this still havent had any updates... so close to ditch sqaure as there are so many options out there with migration assistance.

[Slixx]

@Cafeownersyd Please let me know what options there are so I can assess migrating

Thanks