Feedback and concerns in regards to Square Appointments account ownership

[andreas]

We decided to start the appointments trial and were happy enough with it to ditch our old software. 

Little did we know that we couldn't pay for just 1 person on appointments or that the future looked bad for any business because of the way appointments is designed. Impending scheduling doom for anyone who purchases appointments because it will happen one day. 

The problem I am trying to solve:

1 user of the 2 is useless to us on the appointments app. I'd like to remove me but can't. .I'm the account owner.

The account owner can't be changed, deleted etc. 

Future proof for when I die/quit/get fired/run over by a bus full of narcoleptic lemurs. Things happen. 

We verified a few things on a support call a few minutes ago, I'm hoping someone can correct me on these observations:

1. I as the helper/it/security person of this company cannot have an account in the POS app if I don't want to pay for an appointments license. It will charge each user. Even though I can run everything just fine with many users in the POS app without being charged extra. There is a double standard here with account usability. I don't want appointments for my user or care what is happening there. 

2. PCI regulations require individual, unique non shared usernames https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/document_library I am curious why the behavior of the app is pushing us toward shared accounts. One solution would be to have a single user called "other" that everyone who doesn't book appointments shares. That way we only waste $20 a month for people who don't book their time. 

3. As designed every front desk person, accountant, anyone who wants access is going to have to pay for an appointments license, needed or not. (if I understood my support fellow correctly) Roles and responsibilities cannot be accurately described or assigned within the app. 

4. I can't change the name of the primary user without deleting the account, starting over and losing the following items:

• calendar appointments cannot be exported and imported into a new user, all calendar appointments will be lost. 
• All items, services, client lists will need to be exported and reimported into the new account

5. If the owner of the business or person who started the account dies, moves, quits, sells the business, you have a few problems:

• It is going to look funny when you want to use that old account "Glenda" and the name should be "Henry," the new Balayage expert. You can't edit the fields on the account owner so that user is stuck forever. Hope you have the password. 
• PCI regulations on business continuity, account maintenance, user verification etc are a good example of what should be happening. I can cite each individual section but it will take too long. 
• You get to pay $20*12 months for the pleasure of an an unused appointments license if you do what I just did. I clicked the subscribe button so our customers start getting notifications again. 

My proposed solutions - 1. The account owner is free under appointments and has its abilities limited. It is only there to manage other users.  This solves the problem of the account owner needing to be deleted or changed. You can have a user that is stored in a safe and not used. Think AD recovery user, root on a linux server. Both are cool under any security standard. 

According to tech support this is an internal "policy" issue. It is not about regulations, technical capabilities etc. How about change the policy? Or explain it? Or pay some attorneys to review this vs the PCI DSS. 

I hope I'm wrong about a bunch of this stuff and misunderstood from my support call. Our rep said he just got done telling the same thing to a business with 18 locations- delete the account and start over because the guy who started the account separated from the business. How about solving that by making that key user something you can change or something you don't need to change because it is like a service account?

Love the POS app. 🙂

[#2]

Thanks for taking the time to write up this post and sharing your thoughts, @andreas. We certainly appreciate posts like these and this a great one to share with our Appointments team. While I won't go point-for-point through here, I'll try to touch on the larger requests you mentioned. 

From what I gather, I think there are two main requests you'd like to see, and it does sounds like you were informed correctly by our Support team in regards to them. One, the ability to transfer of account ownership; and two, not treating the account owner as staff within Appointments. 

First, in regards to account ownership: As a financial institution, we are required by federal law to record the information of every individual who creates a Square account. Each account will always associated with the person who created the account, and it's for that reason we can’t transfer account ownership. That is correct that should the owner of account leave (or meet their demise on account of narcoleptic lemurs) a new account needs to be created. 

To the second request, that is correct that the owner of the Appointments account will be treated as a staff member, in practice and pricing. I've seen a few other examples of this come up with other businesses, and agree that it would be nice if there was a way to edit this. It's not a feature we're currently developing but we'll share updates if this changs in future.

Lastly, as an aside since it's mentioned here a few times, Square meets Level 1 PCI Data Security Standards, and you can read more about our PCI Compliance Checklist for 2017, if you'd like. 

Really, thanks again for sharing your thoughts! If there is anything else I can help with, let me know.

[Spenser]

Thanks for taking the time to write up this post and sharing your thoughts, @andreas. We certainly appreciate posts like these and this a great one to share with our Appointments team. While I won't go point-for-point through here, I'll try to touch on the larger requests you mentioned. 

From what I gather, I think there are two main requests you'd like to see, and it does sounds like you were informed correctly by our Support team in regards to them. One, the ability to transfer of account ownership; and two, not treating the account owner as staff within Appointments. 

First, in regards to account ownership: As a financial institution, we are required by federal law to record the information of every individual who creates a Square account. Each account will always associated with the person who created the account, and it's for that reason we can’t transfer account ownership. That is correct that should the owner of account leave (or meet their demise on account of narcoleptic lemurs) a new account needs to be created. 

To the second request, that is correct that the owner of the Appointments account will be treated as a staff member, in practice and pricing. I've seen a few other examples of this come up with other businesses, and agree that it would be nice if there was a way to edit this. It's not a feature we're currently developing but we'll share updates if this changs in future.

Lastly, as an aside since it's mentioned here a few times, Square meets Level 1 PCI Data Security Standards, and you can read more about our PCI Compliance Checklist for 2017, if you'd like. 

Really, thanks again for sharing your thoughts! If there is anything else I can help with, let me know.

[andreas]

Excellent response Spenser. We are happy to hear there is a law behind this and not an internal policy. I think that is probably the only thing that was not quite right. I understand that this is a fairly new addition to the Square family of products and new features will take time to make it onto a project list. I hope folks over in dev land understand that I'm not too happy that I have to pay for a license I'm not using but at the moment I'll do it. I'll also make sure I educate anyone I come across as far as the real costs of running Appointments. Hopefully this is still competitive as I'd like to see our userbase grow here so that you have more money to fund development. We will be at the next 2 big hair shows in Vegas in a few months, I'll follow up with whoever you send out there. 

Yeah as for PCI compliance, you must have business continuity plans, it is under 12.10.1 and 12.10.1.a. Square looks like they are handling it on their end, the burden is on us as the user. The sad thing I suppose is that the plan is to be ready to rebuild all booked appointments manually when recreating your account under a new primary user. And do a ton of import/export. Either way we should probably do regular manual exports as a backup plan under the same set of specs. I would guess that the best strategy is to do what we accidentally did. Make a primary user that can be passed on to the next person. One that doesn't have appointments. Honestly, it is cheap to do this at $20/month vs other typical insurance. It doesn't quite follow the intent of a law but it will work in a pinch until the right thing can be scheduled. 

I suppose my primary request at this point would be to allow export of appointments and map those to new user as the next step if needed. Second, let us change the name of the user or come up with a way to legally change that name or inform the feds there is a change of ownership/creditworthiness. I don't know what that entails. I'm a big fan of changing the rules if they need changing. If it needs to be changed, let the public know. We can all leverage the power of our own professional organizations to effect that change. These are exciting times with disruptive products like Square. I'm in if you want us to help you help us. 

Thank you for the timely and thoughtful response. Hmm maybe I should sell some narcoleptic lemur repellant at our salon. Organic, gluten free, vegan, cruelty free of course. 

[Spenser]

You're welcome, @andreas!

We're definitely aware it's lot to ask for business owners to have to switch accounts. Our Support team is happy to help when this occurs as well, and can assist with exporting/importing your client lists, as well as Point of Sale items, customers, settings. 

Thanks again for your post! Hope to see you around the Community. 

[fletcherandco]

My account is set up just like this thread. I am the account owner, but have nothing to do with staff appointments. I do not need or want to pay Square anymore than I have to. I am wasting money without any benefit. I just sent an inquire regarding how to fix this, but it sounds like there is no solution. If that is the case, I will be forced to cancel my appointments subscription all together. Seems a bit silly that Square has no solution for this... Guess you are willing to lose all $50 a month instead of just $20.

[katieand]

Hi @fletcherandco - Just curious, is there someone else who could be the account owner? We definitely don't want you paying for something you don't need. Were you historically the one in charge of this part of your business? 

[fletcherandco]

The business is officially in my name and I started the Square account. My wife and business partner will handle the 'staff' appointments. I run a different division of the company that does not need appointments. I simply would like my name removed from the staff section of appointments. Without my name attached, it will kick the subscription back to one person, not two, and I will only be charged for what is actually being used. It appears that this cannot be done. It also appears that it is very difficult, or impossible, to change the account owner to my wife. Best I can tell, I would need to cancel the account and start over.

[puka]

Hi @fletcherandco - Unfortunately, you're correct in that the account is not able to be transferred over to your wife since it is tied to your SSN. Because you are the account owner, you would not be able to take yourself off of the staff list since your role requires you to have access to all things related to the account. If you would like the Appointments portion of your business to be completely separate and under your wife's ownership, you would need to cancel the subscription on your end and have your wife open a new account under her SSN.

Please let us know if you have any other questions.