Want to gain an edge over your competitors while making life simpler for you and your employees? The right technology can automate time-consuming processes and serve your customers more efficiently — giving you more time to grow your business. Here’s our go-to list:
Mobile credit card readers help you make more sales.
With credit card payments now accounting for most sales in Canada, cash-only businesses may miss out on potential business. Mobile payment systems such as Square Reader offer the fastest and most convenient way to accept credit cards, with the money deposited into your account within two working days. They also give your business greater mobility by allowing you to record transactions, send digital receipts, and manage your inventory and staff directly from a mobile device through Square Point of Sale. The cloud-based system means there’s no need for a clunky register and you have the flexibility to run your business from anywhere, whether it’s a pop-up event or an established brick-and-mortar business.
E-invoicing tools save you time.
Time is money. Save precious hours by creating and sending invoices using the Square Invoices function to quickly send requests for payment through the Square app. E-invoicing tools typically see people get paid up to 80 percent faster than traditional invoicing processes (goodbye Excel spreadsheets!).
Cloud-based apps make accounting easier.
Integrating your point of sale with cloud-based accounting software means your transaction data flows seamlessly between platforms, improving accuracy and reducing the need for manual data entry. Square Point of Sale syncs with integrated cloud-based apps such as Intuit QuickBooks and Xero to make number crunching as painless as possible.
Software makes staff management a breeze.
Square’s employee management features enable you to clock staff in and out directly from the Square Point of Sale app, and Square App Marketplace has several other tools (such as Deputy and Humanity) to help you schedule and communicate with your staff, track employee hours, approve paid time off and manage timesheets and overtime.
Integrated apps help you manage cross-channel inventory.
Administrative tasks can eat into your time, but automating labour-intensive tasks like inventory control can be a game-changer — especially if you run a business with both an online and brick-and-mortar presence. Integrated apps such as Shopventory, Stitch Labs, Intrakr Inventory, DEAR and Shopseen in Square App Marketplace take the hassle (and guesswork) out of omnichannel inventory management.
Harness the power of data with reporting tools.
Get smart about your growth by looking at last year’s business performance data to help you plan everything from staffing to promotional and marketing activities. Square Analytics captures your POS data to give you an ongoing view of comparative sales reports, the busiest times of day, customer frequency and feedback, sales by employee, and much more. And best of all, it’s free to access all of these reporting and analytics tools directly from Square Dashboard. You should review this information regularly to adjust your strategies and stay competitive.
E-commerce tools help you master online sales.
E-commerce sales in Canada are growing faster than brick-and-mortar sales, and a mobile-optimized website is the best way to make it easy for customers to buy your products online (it also also helps with Google search rankings). Square for E-Commerce enables you to accept payments online with Square and your web shopfront powered by the world’s most popular website builders: BigCommerce, Weebly, Ecwid, WooCommerce and Wix. Blended businesses can view sales and track inventory using Square Dashboard to get a 360-degree view of both your online and offline outlets.