How do you reconcile inventory and expense when you join a college card POS program?

[FikaandHygge]

We are new business and in a college town. College has a program where I have to have another POS and the kids get to spend money funded by the college. It's a big marketing tool. I have to pay fees per swipe to this other service which is ok, but how do you all reconcile in the Square POS so you can properly maintain all your revenues, tools, etc? Do you ring it up as cash transaction in Square so you don't get any fees? Or something else? We don't take cash currently.

[TheRealChipA · Accepted solution]

Hi @FikaandHygge Back in the good old days (pre-Uber and DoorDash) I had a delivery contract with a local delivery company.  I just closed their transactions to “other payment type” in my POS and used that ONLY for my deliveries.  That way I could reconcile everything.  Of course, you COULD use cash, but if at any time in the future you decided to take cash then you’d have to punt.  Best to use “other payment type.”

To enable that on your POS devices, to to Settings > Checkout > Payment.  You see a list of all payment types.  Move “Other payment types” up to the Main payment types section to enable it.

You could also use “Other Gift Card or Certificate” or “Check” if you prefer.  They all just record an off-line payment

[Candlestore]

@FikaandHygge ;

With all the different sales channels available to retail businesses now.  I keepp track of my Inventory in my accounting Software.  After importing all my sales from all my sales channels, I am left with Inventory remaining, then Import these quantities back to my other sales channels.  

So in my accounting Software I have my Inventory, lets say its Quickbooks.  Where inventory = 100 for an item

I then Import my Sales from the Schools daily sales, say 10 of that item where sold

Then I import Square's sales where 25 of that item were sold.

Quickbooks now shows 65 of that Item and then I export my Quickbooks inventory Items and counts to update the Quantity in Square and in the Schools POS system.  

This is easy if you have automation or integrations that work with your accounting software and your POS systems.