Mobile Register: iPhone & iPad Point Of Sale Apps & Accessories
August 8, 2012
If you’ve recently set foot in a craft fair, farmers market, or convention center and done some shopping, you’ve probably seen an iPad cleverly acting as a mobile point of sale register. With the help of a wireless connection, your tablet can be used to process and accept credit card transactions wherever you are, just like an established brick and mortar shop. We decided to check out the most popular solutions for making an iPad into a register for ourselves, so read on to see what we found.
Square – For a flat rate of 2.75% per swipe, Square will help you to accept all major credit cards via your iPhone or iPad. Sign up to use their service and grab their free Square Card Reader app, and they’ll mail you a complimentary physical card reader accessory for swiping Visa, Mastercard, American Express or Discover cards straight into your device. Once swiped, the app presents a screen for capturing the card-holder’s signature, and then e-mails or texts them a receipt on the spot. Square promises next-day deposits of all your newly found funds*, and their app will even provide some sales analytics for tracking your business in your iPhone or iPad. A more comprehensive, iPad-only Square Register app takes advantage of the iPad’s extra real estate by packing in additional features for inventory management, custom employee permissions, and the ability to track a cash register as well as taking credit cards. (*Our research turned up some less than stellar reviews of both Square’s customer service and their payment practices, which can include automatic holds placed on payments to you for large charges or charges they deem “suspicious,” an attribute that is hard to define and impossible to control.)
Intuit GoPayment – Like the offering from Square, Intuit will provide you with a physical credit card reader and corresponding GoPayment app for free and charge you a percentage of your sales. Their flat rate is 2.7%-3.7% per swipe, depending on the type of card, but they also offer a lower 1.7%-3.7% rate if you choose to purchase a $12.95/month subscription. They promise a more modest 2-3 delivery of charged funds, but an otherwise similar suite of app functions to Square such as custom employee accounts, signature capture, and receipt e-mailing. There is no iPad specific app (only a universal download), but if you’re a Quickbooks Online user, you can sync your accounts and see your GoPayment sales immediately reflected in your books.
Pay Anywhere – Another option for getting a free card reader, free app, and flat rate for accepting credit card charges is Pay Anwhere. Their Pay Anywhere app offers yet another take on the same set of features as the previous solutions, for 2.69% per swipe (take that, 2.7%!). You can also use the app for cash register functions and access custom online reports made for you based on your sales, and customer support is available online and on the phone around the clock, even on weekends.
Inner Fence – Similar to the other popular iPad point of sale solutions, Inner Fence will give you a physical card swipe accessory and a full-featured Credit Card Terminal app for free, but with some paperwork required. They require that you register your own merchant account, which is $25/month, plus you’ll need to understand and pay various additional fees depending on how exactly you use it. The charge for each swipe is variable, ranging from 1.74%-3.79%+$0.24 per transaction, with a small discount available for registered non-profit organizations. But if you’ve already got a merchant account through one of the popular providers that Inner Fence supports and you can get your own card reader, it’s just $9/month for unlimited transactions. Should you encounter a problem, they provide unlimited phone support, which they proudly proclaim is based in the great state of Ohio.
Alexei Bochenek is a lifelong tech nerd & film buff based in Los Angeles. When he’s not playing with his phone, it’s because the movie has started. Shhhhh!
