Manage Your Customer Directory Online
Create and enhance existing customer profiles in your directory so you always have their information on hand, and know exactly how they interact with your business.
Add Customers
Manually Add Customers
When adding customers to your directory, make sure their information stays safe – don’t store sensitive or confidential information in the notes field, such as payment card numbers or sensitive health information.
To add customers to your directory:
Visit Customers in your online Square Dashboard > click Create Customer.
Enter your customer’s information and click Save.
Note: If you’re using custom permission sets for your team, customer contact info such as email address, physical address and phone number will be turned on for your team by default. You can give your team the ability to view and edit this information by enabling this permission when you setup your team.
Clients who book services with your business using Square Appointments, are enrolled in your Square Loyalty programme and are charged using Square Invoices are automatically added to your Customer Directory.
You’re also able to add customers from the Square Point of Sale app. Learn more about managing your Customer Directory from the Square app.
Import Customers
From your online Square Dashboard, you can also upload customer profiles in bulk. Use the preferred data formats listed below to help minimise errors and ensure your data is imported successfully. Read more about the importing customers online guidelines.
| Data | Format |
|---|---|
| Dates | Preferred formats are YYYY-MM-DD, DD-MM-YYYY, and MM-DD-YYYY. |
| Phone number | A country code will be added to all phone numbers without a country code. |
| Birthday | Preferred formats are MM-DD, DD-MM, DD-MM-YYYY, YYYY-MM-DD, and MM-DD-YYYY. |
| Address | All parts of an address must be separated into individual columns, e.g. Street, City, State. | Toggle/Boolean | Preferred format is yes/no or true/false. |
- From the Customers tab of your online Square Dashboard, click Import Customers.
- Download the import template or click Skip to drag and drop your customer CSV file into the upload field or click select it from your computer to upload the file. Click Continue.
- All customers added will be within a new group created for your import. To add customers to an existing group, click the drop-down menu and select a group from the list. To create a new group, enter a name and select create new in the drop-down field. Choose a name that will be easy for you to remember the context of the list, like the source of the list or type of customers included in it.
- Click Continue.
- Confirm your customers’ details are in the correct columns. If there are errors, click the drop-down menu to the right of the field and select the correct field. Use the Notes attribute to keep all the information that doesn’t align with our predefined fields.
- Click Import to move this group to your Customer Directory.
Note: If you need to add customer details that don’t currently fit into the default fields, you can add custom fields to your directory before importing contacts.
- From the Customers tab in your online Square Dashboard, click a customer’s name to view their full profile > click Edit.
- Make any necessary changes > click Save.
- From the Customers tab in your online Square Dashboard, click a customer’s name to view their full profile > click the three-dotted icon on the top right.
- Select Delete Customer at the bottom of the drop-down menu.
- Read the confirmation and click Delete to continue.
Note: Deleting a Customer Profile will not delete previous transactions. You can always view transactions via your online Square Dashboard.
Note: Only send marketing communications to customers who have consented to receive marketing emails from your business. You’re responsible for ensuring the customers on your list have given explicit permission to contact them and for compliance with all applicable laws. Review our terms for additional information.
Duplicates
Your Customer Directory will identify potential duplicate profiles if two or more customers share the same email address and/or phone number. However, if the profile names are dissimilar or if the two profiles have a different email address or phone number, they’ll not be identified as duplicates. In this case, you can still manually merge the profiles if they happen to be the same customer.
Fix Duplicates
After manually adding customers, or importing customer contact information to your directory, you may end up with duplicate records. We recommend you review your directory periodically to ensure no duplicates exist.
To check for duplicates and resolve them:
Visit your Customer Directory from your online Square Dashboard.
Within the All Customers group, if multiple records exist with the same email address or phone number, you’ll receive an alert notifying you there may be duplicate entries.
Click Duplicate Suggestion to review the entries flagged as duplicates.
You can choose to Ignore entries that aren’t duplicates, or click Merge or Merge All to combine confirmed duplicates.
Manually Merge Duplicate Customer Profiles
If our system has not recognised a duplicate, you can manually merge two profiles. To do so:
Select the duplicate Customer Profile.
Click the three-dotted Actions menu > Merge with another customer > search and select the profile you’d like to merge.
Carefully review the profiles being combined, as a merge can’t be undone > click Merge.
Note: From the drop-down menu on the main Customers screen of your Square App, you can create a new profile, filter customers, manage groups, add customers to groups, resolve duplicates, merge customers, bulk-delete and view feedback from virtually any screen.
Upload File Attachments
Add file attachments to your customers’ profiles to keep records, contracts, documents or photos. A customer profile can contain up to 100 files. Merging two customer profiles also merges any files attached to them.
To upload a file:
Select a customer from your directory.
Click the three-dotted icon at the top-right of the profile > Upload File.
Drag and drop or select a file from your computer. Note: Only upload files you have the rights to use. Files can’t be larger than 20 MB. Supported file types: PDF, JPEG, JPG, GIF or PNG.
Click Upload File.
Once uploaded, click the three-dotted actions menu to the right of the file to Download, Rename, Preview or Delete.
Note: Do not use this feature to upload files containing illegal content or sensitive confidential information, including personal health information or payment card information.
Learn how to upload files to customer profiles from the Square Point of Sale app
Notes and Reminders
Your Customer Directory lets you add timestamped notes to your customers’ profiles and reminders to revisit those notes in the future.
Add a Note
Select a customer from your directory > click Add Note in the Notes section or from the three-dotted icon at the bottom of the profile.
Add your note to the field.
If you’d like, set a reminder using the default times or by adding a custom date and time.
Click Save.
If you’ve set a reminder, you’ll receive a push notification on your mobile device via the Square app and an email notification at the address associated with your Square account.
To delete a note, select it from the customer’s profile and click Delete.
Save Payment Cards Online with Card on File
Collecting payment from your customers is even easier when their payment cards are saved to your directory. Here’s how to link a payment card to a customer profile:
Select a customer from your directory > click Add Card in the Cards on File section or from the three-dotted icon at the bottom of the profile.
Enter the card details and your customer’s email address.
You must have written authorisation from your customer to save their payment card. Use the provided template form by clicking Download Form and send it to your customer.
Click Save.
Note: Make sure to keep authorisation forms on file and store them securely.
Learn more about charging a customer’s payment card on file to collect payment for a Square Invoice or for card on file payments from the Square app.
From your Team list, you can assign roles and permissions to your team members so they can take action in your Customer Directory and help manage customer profiles. You can learn how to get started with Square Staff and view which custom permission sets you can assign your team.
Now that you have an understanding of how you can create and update customer profiles, learn how to enhance them with information relevant to your business using custom fields in your directory.
Customer Filters
Your Customer Directory stores customer information and provides ways to view how customers interact with your business. By applying filters, you can view in-depth information about your customers, such as the business locations they visit, payment amounts, items purchased and more. To apply filters:
Log in to your online Square Dashboard > Customers.
Click on the Directory tab > select Filters.
Apply filters for the customer data that you wish to view.
Click View Customers to view the customer data.
Once you have a new list of customers, click Save as group and create a Group Name to save the filters as a Smart Group.
If you use Square Marketing, you can send email or text message campaigns to that group of customers.
Note: You can apply filters through both your online Square Dashboard and your Square app. However, not all filters are available through your app at this time. A more comprehensive list of customer filters are available through your online Square dashboard.
Customer QR Codes
You can increase your queue speeds and reduce cashier mistakes by adding a customer to a sale with a QR code. All you need are the items listed below:
Customer reference ID in Directory.
A supported barcode scanner that can scan QR codes on screens (e.g. Honeywell Xenon 1900). Note: Test your scanner for on-screen scanning first.
Square hardware (e.g. Square POS on iOS & Android devices, Terminal, Register, etc.) Learn more about barcode scanner and device compatibility.
Note: This feature is not available on Square for Restaurants, Square for Retail or Square Appointments at this time.
Learn more about identifying customers at your counter with QR codes.