Craft Fair Day and a Review

I 'did' the Ives Park Craft Fair today, part of Potsdam's Summer Festival. The weather was perfect, mid-80s and clear, enough of a breeze off the river to be comfortable as long as I stayed in the shade of my fair shelter. Sales were not so hot. I didn't go in the red but I didn't net anywhere near minimum wage for my time either. But that isn't the review.

The review is of my new Square, a device and service to accept credit & debit cards via a smart phone. The review is a short one because there isn't much to tell. It's simple and it works great. I had to slide the first card twice to get it to register but when it did read the second slide, the rest couldn't have been easier. Put in the dollar amount, the software figured the sales tax and added it for me (I had to set that up ahead of time but it was easy), I had the customer sign the screen with her finger and enter her email address, then it sent a confirmation email to both of us. It couldn't be easier.

The reader attachment for your phone is sent free when you sign up for the service. You download the software on your smart phone and set up the bank account you want the money deposited to. No monthly fees. A 2¾% transaction fee on credit debit transactions (more if you manually process a card, read their terms on their site at the link below). If you want you can also enter your cash sales (no fee on cash sales entries) so that they will appear on the on-line spreadsheet they provide. You can import that spreadsheet into your bookkeeping software if you want. I'll add to this when I see how long it takes them to transfer the money to my bank account but my initial rating of Square is 5 stars. If you are selling art, crafts or anything at fairs or any location away from a fixed business location but that has cell phone access, Square rocks, totally.

Disclaimer: This review was not requested. They don't even know I'm doing it. I received nothing for my opinion. I am a satisfied customer. If the link doesn't work for you just type in "squareup.com".

Update Tues. July 19: The money from the Squareup transaction is in my bank account this morning, the second business day after the transaction was made.