Egift Cards and Other Products w/Virtual Terminal & Desktop Appointments, Function and Confusion

[Doveydoo]

I am using Virtual Terminal and Appointments, only. I would like to offer egift cards.

Egift cards are perplexing me. I thought I saw somewhere that they weren't available at all at this time, and yet there's a big box on my dashboard that says they are. Instructions are muddy as to how they work in the various areas, and none of them mention Virtual Terminal. So, I am confused. I would love some clarification.

Also, I wish desktop Appointments would function like mobile Appointments, so that I can check my clients out within Appointments, discounts and adjustments and all. When I finally realized that I had to exit the calendar, go to the dashboard, and use Virtual Terminal and have no way to connect the payment to the Customer's appointments, that caused a great deal of confusion. With Freelancing skyrocketing, for those of us who work from home and whose clients come to us, it is vital to have full payment functioning on the desktop and in the appointment calendar. Because I work from home, I don't have or use an expensive smartphone or tablet. Even if I had a mobile product, desktop is both necessary and preferred. 

And while I'm here: I see other products on my dashboard, like Point of Sale, in messages, and in emails that do not pertain to the two parts of Square I am using, and it's quite confusing to a newcomer (or anyone with memory problems.) It would be nice if only the products we are signed up for and able to use with those products were on the dashboard and desktop and emails, along with more clarification in the support center articles as to what applications each function does and does not work for. Kind of like system specs placed up-top when you go to buy or download an app at the app store, so that you can be sure where that app works, first. 

Thank you for your time, and sorry so much was put in one request, but they really are all related.

[Helen]

Thanks for your post @Doveydoo, there's a lot in it!

eGift Cards can be purchased by customers online from a free website that you can enable (or disable) from your Dashboard. You can sell eGift Cards from the iOS app only, you can't sell an eGift Card from the Android version of the app yet or using Virtual Terminal. You wouldn't be able to redeem an eGift Card from Virtual Terminal either (again, yet!) - so it sounds like they won't be suitable for your business today. There's more information about eGift Cards in this thread.

I agree that being able to take payments online from your Appointments Dashboard would be very useful! The Virtual Terminal is a new feature and hasn't been integrated with other features like Appointments, eGift Cards or the Item Library. We are still working to add more functionality and we'll share updates here in the Community. 

We do try to call out when a feature isn't available on a particular device but I'll let our Content team know we should make this clearer!  

There isn't a way to remove a particular section of your Dashboard but it might help to know you can rearrange the menu on the left hand-side. Drag and drop a widget to move it around, or drag it to the menu below. Or click on an 'item' from the menu and drag it up to the top to make it a widget.

 

I hope this is helpful! If you haven't already I also recommend subscribing to the Product Update page here in the Community and you'll automatically receive an email when we announce a new product/feature!

[Doveydoo]

Thank you for the specific and applicable reply, Helen! 🙂

(Yeah, I tend to be thorough.) 

I did know/learn that I could shuttle those dashboard widgets and that appointments was new by comparison and that you'll be building and connecting as time goes on. I guess I just wanted to be sure that we work-at-home freelances using a desktop will eventually get the same functionality as mobile. For now, I'm trying to remember to put the name and session purchased in the note when I swipe, because ... there's no connection between the payment and the customer record and that makes me nervous, because I don't want to lose track. But ... I can be patient.

I am quite pleased with how happy my clients are, btw, so Kudos!

After I've been on the system long enough to have a rhythm down, I might look at the other payment options - but I don't really want more stuff on my desk. Time will tell.

Thank you again!

[Helen]

You're welcome @Doveydoo! I wasn't sure if you new about the Dashboard widgets - that's also relatively new. The goal is to have the same features available on all devices but it's a work in progress. I'm glad Appointments and Virtual Terminal are working well for you in the meantime.

Another other feature you might find useful in future, I think, would be Square Invoices for recurring payments. Just something to consider!