Send instant payments with Square Payroll
About instant payments with Square Payroll
With Square Payroll, you don’t have to submit payroll four days in advance. By using instant payments, you can store and use the funds in your Square balance to pay your team faster.
You can also choose to hold on to your funds longer and run payroll as little as one business day prior to your employees’ pay date. With instant payments, your team can receive their pay on the next business day with direct deposit or instantly when they use Cash App, even on weekends.
If you use a Square Checking account to store and access your funds from processing payments, you can choose to have your team member’s direct deposit debits come directly from your stored checking balance.
Your team member’s pay date will be five business days after the end of your pay period. However, if using your Square balance to pay your team, you can wait until the business day before pay day to process payroll. If your team members have a traditional bank account linked, they will receive their pay by the next business day, or instantly if they use Cash App.
If you are paying employees by instant payments, your due dates for submitting payroll are not impacted by holidays and there is no need to process payroll early. Your employees will be paid on their expected pay date or the pay date will be moved one business day earlier if the pay date is scheduled on a holiday.
Before you begin
You cannot send instant payments for your first run.
You cannot pay taxes with your Square checking balance
You can complete all steps to send instant payments from your Square Dashboard.
Step 1: Set your transfer method to manual
If you already process credit card payments with Square, you can start storing funds in your Square balance by switching to a manual transfer schedule. If your transfer schedule is set to automatic, funds automatically transfer out of your Square balance each day and you can’t use your Square balance as a funding source for payroll.
Learn how to set up and edit transfer options.
Step 2: Select your Square balance as your payment source
To select a payment source for your payroll:
Sign in to your Square Dashboard and select Staff & payroll > Payroll > Bank Account.
For Team Payments, select Square Balance as your payment source.
Select Save.
Only direct deposit net pay amounts can be debited from your Square balance. You still need to have a traditional bank account linked for other debits including payroll taxes and benefits. Learn more about how to link or edit your bank account.
Step 3: Run payroll
Once your Square balance is set up as your payment source, you have the option to send payments immediately or on the scheduled pay date when you run payroll. If you choose to process immediately, team members paid via direct deposit will receive their pay on the next business day. Team members that use Cash App will receive their pay instantly, even on weekends.
If you choose to process payroll immediately, you will not have the option to cancel the pay run once it has been confirmed. Learn more about how to run payroll.
If you run payroll and the total net pay for your team is more than your available Square balance, you can add funds to your Square balance via a debit card, pay your team members by manual payment, or revert to your linked bank account.