Suggestion - issue an invoice rather than request payment

[alansh]

I am pretty sure this can't be done at the moment, so can I make a suggestion for an enhancement for the online store (not POS)?

When a customer places an order, rather than them paying instantly, could the system raise an invoice and send that to the customer as a request for payment? 

I know that I can raise an invoice which gets sent but I have to add all the items and send the invoice and I am not sure when the stock gets reduced (it needs to be reduced when the customer orders it so it is 'reserved').

Thoughts welcomed from the Square team on this suggestion.

Thanks

Alan

[tranguyen · Accepted solution]

Hey @alansh, thank you for sharing this! 

You're right; the ability for customers to place an order and pay at a later date via invoice is a feature request right now, but it's definitely something I can surface with our Product team so they can look into this further! I've moved the thread to the appropriate board as well so we can track these feature requests. 

You can send an invoice manually from either your Dashboard or the Point of Sale app. However, stocks are only reduced once the invoice has been paid. 

[alansh]

Thank you, Tra. 

Having stock reduced only when the invoice is paid doesn't help really. But thank you for passing the idea on to the development team

regards

Alan

[Fairestcape]

I have been building ecommerce websites for 18 years - mostly on opensource platforms. In addition to modifying base-code (php) I have solid experience in online marketing & selling. All I am after is a checkout module that enables a customer to checkout (ie: conclude a transaction) WITHOUT having to pay on a card or paypal. The Weebly-based Square online shop system is unable to do this. When any customer concludes a transaction, the only way checkout can finalise is if they PAY at the same time - either with a card, or with paypal/applepay/googlepay. I have numerous corporate customers who do NOT pay up-front. They need to be able to pay LATER, when we send the invoice. Practically ALL opensource platforms have  module for checkout-without-payment (or pay later). Square needs to develop such a module, or else it is not suitable for my needs. Is this so difficult to understand? I have "reached out to support" on a number of occasions, and as is the case with your own unhelpful answer, nobody has given any indication that square can do what I need. Your developers need to create a checkout option that allows a customer to conclude a purchase, and not have to pay at the time of online order.

[Fairestcape]

for example, I have customers whose order values come to several thousand pounds. In almost all cases, this value is higher than the authorisation limits on their company cards, and they need the payment to be made via offline invoicing at a LATER stage. So... my webshop needs to be able to take that order, and register it as a sale - WITHOUT that customer having to input card data, or use other payment gateways at the time of purchase.

[tranguyen]

I can appreciate your frustration @Fairestcape and thank you for sharing the additional information on what you're looking to achieve with Square Online site. 

At the moment, the feature you are looking for is not available with Square. When customers placed an order through the Square Online site, the only payment option is either PayPal or to pay with Square immediately at the time of purchase. I've merged your post with an existing thread where we are tracking request for this feature for our Product team. We do not have a timeline for when this feature will be rolled out yet, but I'll be updating this thread as I know more, and I would also encourage you to check out our Beta Community to join and potentially get access to new features first when we test them out.

A only workaround for this would be to create specific items on your Square Online site that are marked as unfulfilable online, with a note asking customers to get in touch with you directly so that you can manually raise an invoice from either your Dashboard or the Point of Sale app for these orders.

In addition to the Square Online site, Square also integrates with a number of eCommerce platforms that may be more suitable to your needs. You can find all our supported partners in our App Marketplace. 

Apology for all the inconveniences caused by this and I hope the above information will help. If you've tested the workarounds and feels Square may not be the best platform for your business, you can also contact our Support team directly at 0800 - 098 8008, Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm who can assist with cancelling any paid plans you've purchased.

[Fairestcape]

Thanks for the update - and (AT LAST) for a tangible answer. I do believe, however, that a "pay-later" checkout is fundamental to any online selling platform. Without such a feature, your system is useless to business-to-business ecommerce. MOST companies operate through Purchase Order systems in B2B transactions, and pay later after receiving an invoice... Certainly companies where significant order values are involved will ONLY use Purchase Orders. Right now, the Square/Weebly platform is suitable purely as a rather bland and featureless "one-size-fits-all" for micro-traders selling to private consumers who spend small sums per order. This is fine for traders selling hand-made trinkets for a few dollars/pounds, but is utterly useless for seriously big commercial orders.

Square is missing a trick here... Best chase up your developers to get a "pay-later" facility in place. If their bosses are in the way - fire the bosses. Meaningful money (for Square) is in B2B - not B2C.

[DougMulcahy]

Is this feature now available? or its still in the pipeline?

[DougMulcahy]

I am curious to know this as I really want my customers to checkout without paying. I rather want them to send an invoice/bill of all the items in their shopping cart at checkout and then allow them to pay later directly to me off-site.

[k_atie]

Hey @DougMulcahy, thank you for your post. We don't currently have any updates on the availability of this feature at this time. But we'll be sure to update this thread once the availability of this product changes. 

Let me know if you need anything else! 

[schoolboy]

Don't hold your breath... As Square earns its money from card transaction fees, it is not in their interests to provide a checkout that potentially bypasses a card payment. Typically, when a customer is sent an invoice, they pay via bank deposit (BACS) or some other (non-card) payment option. We regularly send out invoices to big customers for thousands of pounds -and they seldom pay this using a bank card. Almost always, they pay direct into our bank account using BACS or online banking. When they use non-card payments, Square earns nothing.

Square's online shop is designed for B2C organisations - companies that sell to private consumers, and private individuals will always have a card, paypal, apple-pay etc... So when such customers pay, they use  a mechanism that Square gets a cut.

Square's online commerce is not suitable for B2B- for many reasons, not only this one.

We use opensource ecommerce systems, where we can configure a variety of checkout-payment options - including COD, Invoice, Purchase Order, and many others.

If your business is aimed mostly at companies - who usually pay on invoice, don't bother with Square - it can't work for you.

[DougMulcahy]

Do you know any other websites which have this feature? (like shopify, etc).