Square for Restaurants Mobile POS: Get Started Guide

Focus on a better experience for your staff and guests when you take your POS on the go. Square for Restaurants mobile POS helps your staff take orders and payments tableside, at the bar or in queue. 

Benefits of Restaurants Mobile POS

• Help turn tables faster and increase staff efficiency with intuitive tableside ordering and payments.

• Reduce the time it takes to turn a table by speeding up order entry and guest checkout.

• Give your staff more time to interact with diners and provide best-in-class service.

• Keep tabs on your VIPs with up-to-the-minute diner preferences, order history and staff notes.

• Keep service running smoothly with your staff always in the know of what’s selling and what’s about to sell out.

• Keep diners safe with the flexibility to order and pay how they want.

• Get orders out quickly and accurately with tableside, curbside, online and delivery orders streamlined on one powerful handheld device.

• Keep your kitchen efficient and your line cooks and expeditors in sync with the ability to course, away, sequence and throttle orders accurately based on prep time and order source.

• Keep queues moving, and empower your staff to take orders on the go. Completely eliminate the back and forth from the table to the countertop POS.

Compatible Hardware 

Our powerful Square for Restaurants mobile POS comes with a handheld option to match your workflows:

• Square Terminal with a built-in physical receipt printer

• The pocketable Restaurant Mobile POS kit

Visit the Square Shop to find additional countertop and mountable hardware options for your restaurant.

Pricing

You will need a paid subscription of Square for Restaurants Plus or Premium to use Restaurants mobile POS. The Square for Restaurants Free plan does not allow you to use the mobile POS. Try the free 30-day trial for Square for Restaurants Plus.

Square for Restaurants Mobile is available on unlimited handheld POS devices at $50 per month, per location (in addition to the Square for Restaurants Plus subscription).

If you need additional handheld devices for your team, visit the Square Shop to order more Square Terminals or the Mobile POS kit.

Sign Up 

If you’re ready to get started, the first step is to sign up for your free 30-day trial of Square for Restaurants Plus. If you’re just getting started with Square, you’ll need to create a new account. 

If you already have an existing account, click Sign in with your Square account. Visit the Square for Restaurants Landing page and click on Get started to upgrade to Square for Restaurants Plus. When you upgrade to Square for Restaurants Plus, all of your existing account information will be available with Square for Restaurants – including your items, customers, team members and bank account information.

Device Code Creation

Create a device code from your online Square Dashboard. You’ll use this to configure payment and device settings and sign in to your Restaurants mobile POS. 

Note: Under ‘Point of Sale Details’, ensure your device’s POS type is set to Restaurants Mobile.

Create Menus

Create menus for each location and service – add drinks, entrées and mains item categories, as well as inventory counts. Start setting up your menus from your Square Dashboard. 

Set Up Hardware

Visit our Square for Restaurants mobile POS Setup Instructions to begin. Select your device and walk through the setup instructions. 

Table and Floor Management

After you’ve set up your Square for Restaurants account, you’re ready to start seating tables and accepting payments.

• Build your floor plan: Map out your restaurant and customise the Square for Restaurants app by creating a floor plan from your online Square Square Dashboard.

• Accept payments with Square for Restaurants: Process payments, split bills, accept tips and finalise bills.

• Bill Management: View ticket actions – including how to move, assign or void tickets from the Restaurants app.

• Coursing with Square for Restaurants: set up multiple courses and choose to hold, away or create straight away item categories.

Tableside and In-Queue Orders and Payments

Once you subscribe to Square for Restaurants Plus, you can use Square Terminal and our Mobile POS kit for Android to take orders and payments tableside or in-queue. 

Supported features include: 

• Conversational modifiers: All modifiers and conversational modifiers, like Add, Extra and Side, are supported. 

• Coursing: Items added to a bill from mobile POS will support the same custom-named courses created in Square Dashboard and shared across any countertop devices using Square for Restaurants.

• Seat Tracking: Set and edit cover counts from mobile POS as well as add items to a specific seat during order entry. These settings can be adjusted from your Dashboard device settings. You can assign a cover count to a table and a seat position to specific items at that table from any Square for Restaurants device. If there are any changes to the number of guests at a table, you can easily edit the number of seats on the open ticket.

• Floor Plans: Effortlessly manage sections across your restaurant between the checklist and floor plans. Check table status at a glance with colour timing indicators created in Device Settings.

• Bill Management: Process payments, split bills, accept tips and finalise bills.

Mobile POS FAQ