Happy Hour and Discounts with Square for Restaurants
If you need to trigger discounts automatically for happy hour, or maybe a dinner special, just head to your online Square Dashboard to get started. You can create discounts that will automatically apply to bills for specified items or categories, days and times of the week or for a limited date range.
For example, let’s say you offer 20% off drinks for a weekend happy hour (Saturday – Sunday, 9 a.m. – 12 p.m.). If a team member adds a mimosa to a bill on Sunday at 11 a.m., your 20% discount will automatically apply – so your team can check out customers quickly and easily, without needing to manually apply running discounts.
Create a discount via Square Dashboard
- Head to the Items tab in your online Square Dashboard > Discounts.
- Click Create a Discount.
- Enter the discount details, including name, amount, and appliclable locations.
- Under Automatic discount, toggle on Discount rules to apply this discount automatically to specific times, quantities, items or categories.
- Click Edit purchase rule > Item or category > Done.
- Click Add eligibile items or categories to select the items or categories to apply discounts automatically.
- Click Done.
Create a discount that will automatically apply when you add items or categories and a specified quantity to a sale.
You can set up three types of quantity discounts:
- Exact Quantity: When you add an exact item quantity to your cart, the discount will automatically trigger and apply to the item cost.
- Minimum Purchase Quantity: When you add a minimum quantity of an item to your cart, a discount will apply to a purchase.
- Buy One, Get One: When a customer buys a specified quantity of an item or category, a discount will apply towards additions of the same item or towards different item(s) added to the cart. For example, you can create a BOGO discount so that when a customer purchases 2 cocktails, they’ll receive 50% off the cost of an appetiser.
Note: If you’d like to set up a buy one, get one free discount, just make sure to set the discount percentage amount to 100%.
To get started:
- Visit Items > Discounts in your online Square Dashboard.
- Click Create a Discount.
- Under Automatic discount, toggle on Discount rules.
- Click Quantity > Done > click Add discount rule to set your Discount Rule. You’ll have three options for setting up your quantity discount:
- Exact Quantity
- Minimum Purchase Quantity
- Buy One, Get One
- Once selected, add the required quantity for the discount to apply, click Save.
Note: You can update an existing discount at any time by clicking Edit Purchase Rule from the Discount details page.
- Visit Items in your online Square Dashboard > Discounts.
- Click Create a Discount to add a new discount.
- Enter the discount details.
- Under Automatic discount, toggle on Discount rules.
- Under Discount schedule, toggle on Set Schedule to select the days of the week and times of day this discount is available. For example: Happy Hour between 4pm to 5pm on Fridays.
- Click Save.
- Head to the Items tab in your online Square Dashboard > Discounts.
- Click Create a Discount.
- Enter the discount details, including the name, amount, and applicable locations.
- Under Automatic discount, toggle on Discount rules.
- Click Item or category to apply discounts to certain items or categories automatically.
- Under Discount schedule, toggle on Set Date Range and select date ranges and times to create a limited time discount.
- Click Save.
Discount Advanced Settings
Under the discount details, click Show Settings.
You have the option to require a passcode to apply discounts on the Restaurants Point of Sale app or if you want to apply the discount after tax.
Applying discounts on Square for Restaurants
Once you’ve created a discount from your online Square Dashboard, you can apply it to a single item or the entire bill.
From the Square for Restaurants app:
1. Open an existing or create a new bill.
2. Under the Actions tab, tap the Discounts tile.
3. Select the Discount to apply to the bill.
Note: Only fixed-percentage discounts can be applied to a single item at this time.
If you’d like to apply a discount to the entire bill, you’ll first need to add a discount function to your item grid. You can then select the discount from your menu and add it to the bill.
Review answers to frequently asked questions about using discounts with Square. Check out the full comparison of features between Square POS, the Square for Restaurants Free Plan and Plus Plan.
Create a Customer Based Discount
Customer-based discounts allow you to create and link discounts to Customer Groups from your online Square Dashboard. The discounts will automatically apply when a customer from the Customer Group is added to a transaction. Also, any customer added to a Customer Group with an associated discount will automatically receive the discount during a transaction. To get started:
From your online Square Dashboard, go to Items & Orders > Items > Discounts.
Click Create a Discount.
Enter the discount details, including the discount name, amount and location. Note: If a discount is connected to a specific location, the customers will only get the discount if they make a purchase from that location.
Select the Customer Group you want to apply the discount to.
Note: if the customer associated with the discount is removed from the transaction, the discount will also be removed from that transaction. If you add the customer back to the transaction, the discount will reapply automatically.