I received my Square a few days ago. Haven’t heard of it? It’s a great little device you can use to receive credit/debit card payments. Let me give you a closer look.
These devices are just plain interesting. All you need is a device running iOS (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch) or Android, and you’re good to go.
To set it up you first download the app onto your device. From inside the app, you enter in your routing number, your bank account number, and that’s it. Really. From there, anytime you’re ready to receive a payment, you enter in the amount, swipe the card, have the person sign for it, and that’s it.
I’ve heard of many “mom and pop” coffee shops and stores that will use an iPad and a Square as their primary device to receive payments from customers. I’ve heard of students using it to receive rent payment from their roommates. People are using it to sell their stuff in garage sales or craigslist. The uses are seemingly endless.
Churches, of course, need to really take advantage of this. We’re doing a Charity Water campaign to build a well, and we’re going to be using the device to help raise funds. We’ll be selling pizzas, water, and possibly other stuff. And how easy would it be, if people don’t have cash, to offer to accept credit/debit card payments. It’s a no-brainer. It’s easy to set up an account for an organization, so there’s no real excuse.
I encourage you to check it out and get one for your church. I think it will make things much easier.
At the bottom are two great videos that help you to see it in action:
So what do you think? Do you think you’ll get one for your church? How will you use it?
Where do you find these things? This is so very cool. Sending your blog entry to our church treasurer this evening. Thanks!!!
Hey Melissa. Are you asking how I found out about the Square, or how to get one? 😉
To actually receive your own square, you just have to download the app, and fill in the information. The company will then send you one automatically. As far as how I found out about it, just around Twitter and different tech blogs I follow. Let me know how it goes for you all!
This is a sweet idea! I wonder with it being so easy take payments how secure it is especially from the sellers perspective ie fraudulent activity, and weather or not one would have I get a business license I sell their car, couch, or computer for over U$600?
That’s a neat little app there. Great find Rodlie 🙂
Let me know if you end up getting one. Would love to hear about your experience in using it.
This is amazing! Exactly fills a need that we have at our church! Would love to hear how it goes?
Yeah for sure. We’ll be testing it out for the first time at our superbowl party. We’ll be selling pizzas for the Charity:Water project we’re doing. We’ll see how it goes.
We are a 501c3 non profit Rotary club, we picked up a Square last night and have tried to sign up and activate it. Problems with needing a non PO Box address for activation, we have a PO Box and meet at a restaraunt,like most Rotary clubs AND they want a SS# to activate this as well, our club has a Fed Tax ID# but no SS# and we’re reluctant to associate a members SS# with the square acct/bank information due to tax liabilities. I haven’t been able to get any clarification back from the Square people via email and they don’t have a phone #, ridiculous. SO how did you get your unit activated for fundraising?
Sue, that seems like a significant issue. We actually never used it for the even mentioned. I think for most churches it would not be an issue, but I could see how if you don’t have an address there’d be a problem.
Please consider adding our online fundraising into your fundraiser line up. No costs. We donate to your organization.
http://www.ShopForStudents.com
1-877-980-7467
Thank you!!!
Would love to know about this, since our costs for merchant account is so ridiculous. They keep charging and I keep paying. Can this be adapted for online merchant processing?? It could be fantastic when people want to hold onto their card and its info.
Please send me info thanks.
I don’t think it could be used for online processing. It’s to process them with a mobile phone. See the site: https://squareup.com/
Nice! Thanks for posting. I’ll love to have one of them my self.
I wonder if I Can get it to work with Danish creditcards?
Could be. Send them an email to find out. Cheers.
The issue that we’ve found with this product is that there is no way for a church to track donations to provide the donor with a year-end contribution statement.
Interesting. Yeah, that would be an issue. Not sure what to say about that one. Have you moved to use anything else?
Really a great idea to make fundraising easy for charity. I also like to donate for charity and make online fundraising. Thanks to share this nice post.
Nicole Martin
You’re welcome!