What is the minimal hardware needed to get started?

[KarenW2025]

My husband just bought a food trailer. He will be starting out slow and is a bit technologically challenged so we are wondering what hardware would be best for him to use to start out. He will be doing it all, from taking orders to making change and collecting cc payments to cooking and then serving. I assume we can always upgrade or get more if needed.

[TheRealChipA · Accepted solution]

@rtfulk's suggestion is definitely perfect if you want to start slow and grow.  And when/if your husband doesn't want to use his phone (anymore), you can upgrade to the Square Handheld.  

The only thing both of these solutions don't have is a kitchen ticket printer or KDS (kitchen display system).  But if he's only doing one order at a time, that might be manageable at first.  However, once he starts growing, you'd want to look into those, as well.  Square KDS software is pretty much free with a Restaurants subscription, even the free tier.  But for the actual hardware to run it, he would need an inexpensive Android tablet.

[rtfulk]

@KarenW2025 Welcome to the community. If you only take tap to pay, You just need a newer phone and the Square app. The only problem with that is not all cards are tap yet. I would recommend buying the Square chip reader it's 59.99 and can do chip or tap and connects to your phone via Bluetooth.  Below is a link to the reader.

Square Chip Reader 

[TheRealChipA · Accepted solution]

@rtfulk's suggestion is definitely perfect if you want to start slow and grow.  And when/if your husband doesn't want to use his phone (anymore), you can upgrade to the Square Handheld.  

The only thing both of these solutions don't have is a kitchen ticket printer or KDS (kitchen display system).  But if he's only doing one order at a time, that might be manageable at first.  However, once he starts growing, you'd want to look into those, as well.  Square KDS software is pretty much free with a Restaurants subscription, even the free tier.  But for the actual hardware to run it, he would need an inexpensive Android tablet.

[KarenW2025]

Been so busy trying to get this food trailer ready for the road! Thanks for your input. So here is what we purchased or are about to purchase so far:

1) Square Register from Amazon because husband Eric has big, arthritic hands and wanted a larger screen for taking orders.

2) a Volcora cash drawer from Amazon

3) I think we have the free version of Square for Restaurants account.

4) getting ready to buy the Square receipt printer from Square and hoping to be able to use it as ticket for Eric to keep track of orders by printing 2 receipts - 1 for customer and 1 for Eric. Is that possible?

My biggest concern is setting this up to work seamlessly wherever he decides to park for the day. I'm technically challenged myself, but can get it done with good directions. Will we have to connect to Eric's android phone's hot spot for everything to work?

[TheRealChipA · Accepted solution]

Hey there @KarenW2025.. First, if you want to process card transactions in real time, then yes you will need to connect to a phone hot spot, at the very least. However, if you are going to do this, the printer you choose should be either one you can connect via USB.  Otherwise, you'd need to have a WiFi network and you can't do that with phone hotspots -- you'd have to get something like a Verizon mobile hotspot network.  Here's a link to a combo receipt/kitchen printer in the Square store that fits the bill.  But there are others.  And yes, you can configure Square to print multiple receipts as well as only print one, then another when requested by the customer (to save on paper).  That's your choice.

Otherwise, I would recommend this.  Once you have all of your hardware, set it up at home.  Connect everything.  Configure everything.  Test it out BEFORE you actually need it.  That way, when/if you run into issues you can come back here and get assistance.  Just keep posting on this thread because I'm subscribed to it and will receive notifications of new posts.

[KarenW2025]

Yes! That's the exact receipt printer I just ordered today. Things are coming together:) Thanks so much for your help. We will definitely test everything at home before taking it on the road like you suggest. You mentioned "processing credit card transactions in real time". Do you mean versus the offline mode I read about? The way I understand how that works (correct me if I'm wrong) is that the card transactions for the day are "held" somewhere by Square for 24 hours. So at the end of the day, when the food trailer comes home, we get back on our home WiFi  and the transactions will all process then. Am I right? DoI need to do anything special for this to happen?