Square for Restaurants

order-capture-floor-plan-editor

Graphical floor plan with sections (Dining Room, Bar, Patio) and placed tables; cover counts tie to seats. Multi-layout-per-location not confirmed. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6427-building-your-floor-plan · retrieved 2026-08-01

order-capture-seat-level

Track seating assigns items to individual seats; items assigned to seats auto-split when the check is split. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8583-manage-seats-in-your-restaurant · retrieved 2026-08-01

order-capture-coursing-hold-fire

Group items into courses, hold, then fire; firing prints to station printers and/or displays on KDS. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7748-coursing-with-square-kds · retrieved 2026-08-01

order-capture-split-merge

Article 8165 documents split by item ('select items and move them to a new check so guests can pay by item separately'), split by seat ('any items assigned to a single seat will each move to their own check and items assigned to multiple seats will be evenly split among them'), even N-way ('Tap Split evenly > choose the number of ways you want to split'), and arbitrary amounts twice over - 'Select Split evenly and in how many ways or Customize split. Choose the amount(s) to split by' at item level, and 'When you split a payment, you can only split by amounts' at check level. Merging is in article 8166: 'Select the check you want to merge > Move,' plus drag-to-merge on the floor plan ('If the target table is occupied, you'll be prompted to confirm a merge'). Shortfalls: splitting or merging AFTER a partial payment is not described anywhere in either article; fractional item splitting requires the Plus/Premium 'New order and pay capabilities'; and 8165 enumerates what cannot be split - 'Sell by unit/fractional quantity items' and 'Items that are portions of a previously split item'. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8165-split-a-payment-and-check-with-square-for-restaurants · retrieved 2026-08-09

order-capture-bar-tab-preauth differentiator

Configurable auth amount IS documented, contrary to the earlier note: 'Enable and configure a minimum preauthorization amount for each of your applicable locations. Preauthorization minimums can range from $1.01 to $250,' and at capture 'Square will authorize the minimum preauthorization amount configured in your Square Dashboard or POS device settings, or the value of items in the cart at the time of preauthorization, whichever is greater.' Shortfalls: the authorization is taken once at tab open - there is no incremental re-authorization as the tab grows; the article's only management actions are 'Preauthorize a different card' and 'Remove a preauthorization'; and no end-of-day stale-tab auto-close is described, only that 'Preauthorizations typically last around 36 hours, but may vary depending on the customer's card network and issuing bank.' https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8455-enable-and-configure-preauthorization-for-bar-tabs · retrieved 2026-08-09

order-capture-transfer-audit

Reassign is a first-class check action: 'Check reassignments can happen when one team member ends their shift, leaves in the middle of service, and needs to pass the check to another clocked-in team member,' performed via Actions > Assign > select a team member. Checks also move between tables and merge by drag on the floor plan, and the article states a permission gate: 'If you're moving a check that belongs to another team member, you'll need to enter a passcode or have the appropriate permission.' A team member activity log exists under Advanced Access. Shortfall: no documentation that the transfer itself writes an audit entry naming both the outgoing and incoming employee - the Advanced Access page describes the Activity Log only as 'actions taken by individual team members... such as refunds, discounts, and voided transactions', and does not list transfers. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8166-comp-void-and-reassign-checks-with-square-for-restaurants · retrieved 2026-08-09

order-capture-native-handheld

Square Handheld, $399, first-party 6.2in Android-class device with integrated EMV/NFC reader; sends orders and takes payment tableside. https://squareup.com/us/en/hardware/handheld/specs · retrieved 2026-08-01

order-capture-offline-order-entry

Offline mode is documented in detail with an explicit unavailable-features list, but the docs are payment-centric; offline kitchen routing/KDS behavior is not stated. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7777-process-card-payments-with-offline-mode · retrieved 2026-08-01

order-capture-qr-same-check differentiator

Checked squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7142 (Square Online self-serve QR ordering: says only 'the order will appear on your point of sale, and feed directly to your kitchen ticket printer or kitchen display system' and never says whether it joins an existing check), article/8421 'New order and pay capabilities with Square for Restaurants' (enumerates redesigned Orders tab, Scan to Pay from a printed receipt, bar-tab preauth, House Accounts, split by item/seat -- no guest QR ORDERING onto an open check), and squareup.com/us/en/online-ordering/qr-code-ordering (marketing; 'Guests can order, add notes, and pay immediately', silent on tabs). Square Online is a different product from Square for Restaurants POS, so 7142 cannot answer the claim as worded. Unresolved: no Square page states whether guest-submitted QR items land on the server's open check or open a separate order.

order-capture-kiosk-first-party differentiator

Square Kiosk app ($50/mo/device Plus, $30 Premium) runs the same Square catalog. No ADA/WCAG conformance documentation found. https://squareup.com/us/en/point-of-sale/restaurants/pricing · retrieved 2026-08-01

order-capture-drive-thru

Square enumerates its POS modes (full service, quick service, bar, retail, bookings, catering, standard); drive-thru is not among them and no drive-thru flow is documented. https://squareup.com/us/en/press/releases-food-and-beverage · retrieved 2026-08-01

order-capture-drive-thru-timers

Square release notes: 'Drive-Thru is a dedicated POS configuration for Square for Restaurants that supports the full drive-thru lane flow' with 'Speed-of-service reporting to track service time, throughput, and exceptions by channel, location, and daypart'. Shortfall: the setup article squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8647 enumerates Drive-Thru mode's captured data (vehicle color and type, Drive-Thru fulfillment method, dedicated Drive-Thru tab in Order Manager) and describes no segment timers; the product page squareup.com/us/en/restaurants/drive-thru claims only 'order entry and service time data'. Segmented order / total / window timers tied to individual orders are not documented, and the reporting evidence is a vendor release note, not documentation. https://squareup.com/us/en/release-notes/release-notes-may-21st · retrieved 2026-08-06

order-capture-voice-ai differentiator

No first-party voice agent found. Square does satisfy the alternative limb: a fully public, self-serve Orders API plus an open App Marketplace a voice vendor can build against. https://developer.squareup.com/docs/orders-api/what-it-does · retrieved 2026-08-01

order-capture-throttling differentiator

The online-ordering profile settings enumerate a per-slot capacity control -- order limits per 15-minute window, order-scheduling advance days, cut-off times and 'Scheduled downtime' date ranges -- set independently for the in-house-courier and on-demand delivery channels, so capacity can be capped per channel per time slot. Shortfall: the cap is a fixed configured number; nothing in the settings ties it to kitchen load, and no automatic quote-time extension when a load threshold is exceeded is documented (the only quote control is a static prep time plus an 'automatic vs manual delivery time calculation' toggle). https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8609-set-up-delivery-options-for-your-online-ordering-profile · retrieved 2026-08-06

order-capture-scheduled-orders

Square Online ordering profiles support scheduled pickup/delivery with prep timing. Computed fire-time injection into a make queue is not documented. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8609-set-up-delivery-options-for-your-online-ordering-profile · retrieved 2026-08-01

order-capture-catering

A catering POS mode was announced in the May 13 2025 F&B platform release. Quotes, deposits, balance-due tracking and an event schedule are not documented. https://squareup.com/us/en/press/releases-food-and-beverage · retrieved 2026-08-01

order-capture-order-ready-signal differentiator

DoorDash's developer documentation lists the criteria for the Preferred Integration rating: order failure rate below 1%, merchant cancel rate below 1%, at least 250 DoorDash stores, and support for all of a named feature set that includes 'Order Ready Signal'. DoorDash defines support strictly: 'supporting a high-quality feature means that you've built and launched the feature and that it has been used by at least one DoorDash store.' DoorDash's 18 May 2026 announcement names Square in the 2026 cohort (Checkmate, Chowly, Deliverect, Otter, PAR, Qu, Square, Stream, Toast, UrbanPiper), generated 'based on performance and feature sets as of May 8, 2026'. Shortfalls: the conclusion is an inference from programme membership - Square publishes no documentation of the order-ready callback itself, and neither source says whether the signal is raised from POS or KDS state or from a manual tap. Grade E because the load-bearing step is DoorDash attesting to Square's implementation rather than Square documenting it. https://developer.doordash.com/en-US/docs/marketplace/overview/getting_started/preferred_integrations_new/ · retrieved 2026-08-09

order-capture-void-comp-controls

Reason codes ARE documented, contrary to the earlier note. Every one of the four comp/void flows ends the same way: 'Select a reason for comp and tap Comp' and 'Select a reason for void and tap Void', for an item and for the whole check. The actions are permission-gated ('team members with... the checkout permission to take payments. Set permissions in Square Dashboard') and moving another team member's check needs 'a passcode or... the appropriate permission'. Discounts are gated separately by a 'Require a passcode' toggle in advanced discount settings (article 3955). Shortfalls: no dedicated exception report - comps appear in sales and inventory reporting and voids/discounts in the Advanced Access Activity Log, but nothing joins them into one report; and the reason list itself is not documented as configurable, nor is manager approval documented as a distinct approval step rather than a permission the acting user holds. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8166-comp-void-and-reassign-checks-with-square-for-restaurants · retrieved 2026-08-09

menu-pricing-nested-modifiers

Researcher inferred absence from the Catalog API data model and missed a shipped feature. Square's own release notes (Vol 8, v7.16, July 16 2026) state: 'Modifier sets can be nested under a specific modifier choice, up to three levels deep,' with conditional display (selecting a modifier reveals the follow-up set). Caveat that keeps this short of unqualified: it is gated on the 'Live Check experience' being enabled on Square Point of Sale, and support is enumerated per surface (F&B modes on iOS, Register, Terminal, Ordering Profiles; third-party display varies). Score yes with a rollout-gating https://squareup.com/us/en/release-notes/release-notes-july-16th · retrieved 2026-08-01 adversarially verified

menu-pricing-modifier-price-by-parent-size

Per-item modifier price overrides exist in the catalog model; a price matrix keyed on both parent item and selected size is not documented. https://developer.squareup.com/docs/catalog-api/what-it-does · retrieved 2026-08-01

menu-pricing-fractional-placement differentiator

Attacked directly and found nothing. Square's modifier documentation and its community both still route half-and-half through duplicated 'Side A' / 'Side B' modifier sets with independent pricing — a user-authored workaround, not a portions/fractional-placement feature. Even after the July 2026 nested-modifier release, no fractional placement, no per-fraction price rule, and no sectioned make-line rendering exists. The dependent 'no' scores (half-and-half rule, kitchen-pizza-fractional-display) stand. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5119-create-and-manage-item-modifiers · retrieved 2026-08-01 adversarially verified

menu-pricing-half-and-half-rule differentiator

No fractional placement model exists, so no configurable higher-half / average / fraction-of-full rule is possible.

menu-pricing-topping-quantity-tiers

CatalogModifierList exposes allow_quantities ('When true, allows multiple quantities of the same modifier') and is_conversational, plus min_selected_modifiers / max_selected_modifiers; the help article squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5119 matches, with 'Allow multiple quantities of a single modifier' and 'Use Conversational Modifiers on POS to show operator buttons like Add, No, or Extra on Square Restaurant POS app'. Shortfall: the schema has no per-tier price-multiplier field -- quantity pricing is simply the modifier price times the count, i.e. exactly 'adding the modifier twice', which is what the claim asks to be distinct from. Conversational modifiers give the light/extra vocabulary but carry no separate price, and 5119 states 'Conversational modifiers cannot be used if Allow multiple quantities of a single modifier is toggled on', so the two halves cannot be combined. https://developer.squareup.com/reference/square/objects/CatalogModifierList · retrieved 2026-08-06

menu-pricing-size-style-matrix differentiator

ITEM_OPTION objects define variant axes; the cross product materializes as item variations (up to 250 per item), each carrying its own price. https://developer.squareup.com/docs/catalog-api/what-it-does · retrieved 2026-08-01

menu-pricing-included-allowance differentiator

Read developer.squareup.com/reference/square/objects/CatalogModifierList in full -- fields are name, ordinal, selection_type, modifiers, image_ids, allow_quantities, is_conversational, modifier_type, max_length, text_required, internal_name, min_selected_modifiers, max_selected_modifiers, hidden_from_customer -- with no included-count or overage-pricing field; and squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5119 (create and edit modifiers), which documents only min/max selection counts and per-modifier fixed prices. Unresolved because the claim is about an ITEM defining the allowance, and the item-side link object (CatalogItemModifierListInfo, which carries the per-item overrides) was not retrieved, so the schema evidence is not an exhaustive enumeration for this claim. Note that min/max selected modifiers gate how many may be chosen, not which are free -- charging only for overage is not described anywhere I read.

menu-pricing-combos

Combos shipped in the May 2025 F&B release ('bundle multiple items at discounts'). Component swap with price delta and automatic cart detection of eligible a-la-carte items not documented. https://squareup.com/us/en/press/releases-food-and-beverage · retrieved 2026-08-01

menu-pricing-upsell-prompts differentiator

'Smart Upsells automatically suggests complementary items to buyers on the cart review screen during the self-serve ordering flow on Square Kiosk', up to 3 suggested items shown as cards, enabled at Settings > Device Management > Kiosk > Checkout > Upsells. Shortfalls against the claim: recommendations are 'automatically generated from your catalog data' with no per-item merchant configuration; the feature is documented for Square Kiosk only, not the Square for Restaurants POS or the online-ordering channel, so it is not configurable per channel; and no attach-rate or upsell-performance reporting is described. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8661-manage-smart-upsells-on-square-kiosk · retrieved 2026-08-06

menu-pricing-86-propagation

86ing in Square propagates to Uber Eats and DoorDash and to Square Online. No published propagation latency; kiosk propagation not stated. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8515-set-up-uber-eats-integration-with-square · retrieved 2026-08-01

menu-pricing-countdown-auto-86 differentiator

Stock counts decrement on sale and drive availability sync; scheduled auto-restore of an auto-86'd item is not documented. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8610-manage-ingredient-inventory-with-square-restaurant-inventory · retrieved 2026-08-01

menu-pricing-dayparting

Catalog exposes PRICING_RULE and TIME_PERIOD objects for scheduled automatic price adjustment. Location-timezone handling and per-menu activation windows not explicitly documented. https://developer.squareup.com/docs/catalog-api/what-it-does · retrieved 2026-08-01

menu-pricing-channel-price-books

Per-location price overrides exist and marketplace menus sync from the Square catalog; percentage-markup rules applied per channel to a base price are not documented. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8518-integrate-doordash-with-square · retrieved 2026-08-01

menu-pricing-dual-pricing differentiator

Surcharging (pass credit card fees to customers) shipped May 2025. Item-level dual pricing storing two prices with the card price as base, consistent across POS/kiosk/online, is not documented. https://squareup.com/us/en/press/releases-food-and-beverage · retrieved 2026-08-01

menu-pricing-allergen-nutrition

The 'Prepared food and beverage' item type 'Includes optional nutritional information for buyers with calorie counts, dietary preferences, and allergens' - one of the dynamic item attributes that appear based on item type, surfaced to buyers in the online ordering flow. Shortfalls: the fields are documented at item level only, not per variation; nothing describes deriving nutrition from linked recipe components (Square has no first-party recipe/ingredient costing surface - that is the MarketMan integration); and publication of these fields to third-party marketplace menus (DoorDash, Uber Eats) is not documented. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8335-create-and-edit-items · retrieved 2026-08-09

menu-pricing-recipe-linkage differentiator

Over-generous. The cited article carries four disqualifying limits the note omits: Square Recipes is beta ('may change over time'), Plus/Premium only, items must be the Prepared Food & Beverage type, 'You can't create a recipe for an ingredient that itself has a recipe' (no sub-recipes), and — fatal for pizza and most restaurant menus — 'Items with multiple variations (for example, Small, Medium, Large) can't have recipes.' A recipe layer that cannot cover sized items is partial at best. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8629-beta-track-ingredient-costs-with-square-recipes · retrieved 2026-08-01 adversarially verified

menu-pricing-3p-menu-push

Direct certified integrations to DoorDash and Uber Eats push menus, prices, images and availability from the Square catalog. A dedicated troubleshooting article exists, but per-item sync status and rejection errors surfaced in-product are not documented. Grubhub is not a direct integration. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8517-troubleshoot-doordash-and-uber-eats-integration-with-square · retrieved 2026-08-01

menu-pricing-dynamic-pricing

Automatic discounts can be scheduled, so effective price varies automatically by time: 'Toggle on/off Set schedule within the Discount schedule section to set the days of the week and times of day this discount is available' and 'Toggle on/off Set date range to set the dates this discount is available' - the documented happy-hour pattern ('use a discount schedule to set up Happy Hour offers'). One guardrail exists: 'You can set a maximum discount value for a discount to limit the total discounted amount applied to a purchase.' Shortfalls: this is a rule that discounts a fixed list price, not a rule that sets the price; there is no demand-based trigger; the only channel lever is an on/off application target ('Square Point of Sale and other integrations' vs 'Online'), not a per-channel price; and there is no price floor, only a discount ceiling. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/3955-create-and-manage-discounts · retrieved 2026-08-09

payments-processor-choice differentiator

Square is the merchant of record and processes all card volume itself. The fees article enumerates the whole payment-acceptance economics with no processor or gateway variable in it: 'you'll always pay one low rate per card payment'; 'Payment processing fees are taken out of the total amount of each transaction, including tax and tip. This fee covers all credit card fees and applies to every card brand at the same rate... and applies to all businesses'; 'Square's processing fees are deducted before funds are transferred to your linked bank account.' The only non-Square tenders it recognises are 'Cash, Check, and Other Tender'. Square's own security page states the structural reason: 'As the merchant of record, we maintain PCI certification so you don't have to individually validate your compliance,' and the Square Trust Center describes Square as 'a PCI DSS 4.0.1 Level 1 Service Provider'. No third-party gateway or processor list exists. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5068-what-are-square-s-fees · retrieved 2026-08-09

payments-published-rates differentiator

Flat rates published per plan: 2.6/2.5/2.4% + 15c card present; 3.3%/2.9% + 30c online; 3.5% + 15c keyed and card-on-file. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5068-what-are-square-s-fees · retrieved 2026-08-01

payments-dual-pricing differentiator

Surcharging shipped May 2025; a two-price-per-item model printing both cash and card totals on the guest check is not documented. https://squareup.com/us/en/press/releases-food-and-beverage · retrieved 2026-08-01

payments-surcharge-guardrails differentiator

'Surcharges only apply to credit card transactions. ACH, debit card transactions, tips, offline payments, and split tender payments can't have surcharges applied', and the supported surfaces 'automatically detect credit cards during checkout and apply your configured surcharge percentage'. Cap: 'Credit card surcharge configurations are capped at 3% of the total transaction in line with regulations.' Per-location: setup instructs you to 'select the applicable locations surcharges will be applied at'. Supported on Square Point of Sale, Square Restaurant POS, Square Retail POS and Square Invoices (web only). Shortfalls: prepaid cards are never mentioned, so prepaid exclusion is unconfirmed, and the article does not say the exclusion works by BIN or card product code -- only that credit cards are 'automatically detected'. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8596-set-up-and-manage-card-surcharges · retrieved 2026-08-06

payments-emv-nfc

Square Handheld and the terminal line accept EMV chip plus NFC including Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay and NFC cards. https://squareup.com/us/en/hardware/handheld/specs · retrieved 2026-08-01

payments-softpos-tap-to-pay differentiator

Tap to Pay on iPhone and Tap to Pay on Android are named Square payment methods (listed among methods unavailable in offline mode, confirming they exist online). https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7777-process-card-payments-with-offline-mode · retrieved 2026-08-01

payments-pay-at-table

Square Handheld takes EMV/NFC payment at the table; splitting by item/seat and tipping are supported on-device. https://squareup.com/us/en/hardware/handheld/specs · retrieved 2026-08-01

payments-qr-guest-pay differentiator

Documented end to end in the help centre, not just claimed in marketing. 'Scan to Pay allows your customers to pay for their meal by scanning a QR code on their printed receipt.' Enabled per device mode (Settings > Device Management > Modes > Checkout > Payment > toggle ON Scan to Pay, then Printed receipt > toggle ON QR code on receipts) and printed from the check itself: 'tap Floor plan > choose the section... Select a table > Print bill.' The payment closes the check automatically: 'Once paid, you'll receive a notification that says "Checks have been paid with a QR code" on your point-of-sale device. Paid orders are moved to the Closed section of the Orders tab and will show as "Paid via QR Code",' and the payments appear in the Sales summary report. Tier note: the article scopes this to Square for Restaurants Plus and Premium subscribers, not the Free plan. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8456-checkout-with-scan-to-pay · retrieved 2026-08-09

payments-tip-adjust

On-device tip prompt is standard across Square hardware. Pre-auth-then-adjust flow, batch/adjust window, and a manager unadjusted-tips screen are not documented.

payments-tip-pooling differentiator

Tip pooling by user-defined percentage split daily or weekly among tip-eligible jobs, allocated by hours worked within a job; feeds Square Payroll. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7654-get-started-with-tip-pooling-for-team-management · retrieved 2026-08-01

payments-offline-store-and-forward differentiator

Configurable max per offline transaction from $1 to $50,000 (defaults to $100 when enabled); Register/Terminal/Handheld accept offline indefinitely, Reader/Stand for 24 hours; 72-hour upload deadline. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7777-process-card-payments-with-offline-mode · retrieved 2026-08-01

payments-offline-decline-liability differentiator

Explicit and unambiguous: 'You're responsible for any expired, declined, or disputed payments accepted while taking offline payments.' A separate View Offline Payments report exists post-reconnect. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8551-view-offline-payments · retrieved 2026-08-01

payments-gift-cards

Square Gift Cards are a first-party stored-value product with real-time balances; named as a Square payment method (excluded offline). https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7777-process-card-payments-with-offline-mode · retrieved 2026-08-01

payments-house-accounts

'You can establish a spending limit for the account and the customer can make purchases within that limit'; 'You can see a running balance of the customer's house account and send an invoice to collect payment at a later time'; and 'An account balance statement that includes transaction details will be attached to the invoice as a PDF', with invoices sendable one-time or on a recurring schedule. Accounts can be limit-set, locked/unlocked and archived from Dashboard or point of sale. Scope confirmed for this product: squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8421 lists Square House Accounts among the order-and-pay capabilities of Square for Restaurants. Exclusion noted in the article: house accounts cannot be charged from Square Virtual Terminal. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8034-create-and-charge-square-house-accounts · retrieved 2026-08-06

payments-split-tender

Multiple tenders on one check are documented: 'You can use multiple forms of tender to complete a payment via the Square apps from a mobile device or Square hardware, as well as via Square Virtual Terminal,' with 'Tap Split Amount and enter the payment amount for the first payment... You can also split the sale into equal payments.' Arbitrary-amount splitting is therefore documented, contrary to the earlier note, and by item, by seat and even N-way splitting are documented in article 8165. Shortfalls, both stated by Square: 'A split tender must be completed within five minutes. If it takes longer than five minutes, it could timeout the bill and void any previously processed payments,' and 'When you connect Square Terminal with Square Point of Sale, split tender is not available if one of the payments is by card.' No maximum number of ways is published either way, so the claim's 'no hard cap below eight' is unverified rather than met. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5097-process-split-tender-payments-with-square · retrieved 2026-08-09

payments-refund-void-controls

Advanced Access provides 'unlimited custom permission sets so you can delegate responsibilities and control what your team can see and do, such as issue refunds or edit orders', and an activity log with individual attribution: 'You can monitor actions taken by individual team members through the Activity Log, such as refunds, discounts, and voided transactions.' Voids and comps additionally require a reason at the point of action and a passcode or permission to act on another team member's check (article 8166). Shortfalls: no-sales are not named among the gated actions; the log is not described as immutable or tamper-evident; and nothing documents a separate approver identity distinct from the acting user. https://squareup.com/us/en/staff/advanced-access · retrieved 2026-08-09

payments-chargeback-tooling differentiator

The researcher simply failed to find the docs. Square publishes a full dispute workflow in the support center: Dashboard > Orders & payments > Disputes, a 7-day response window, evidence-format rules (HEIC/JPEG/PDF/PNG/TIFF, <5MB, <15 pages), per-reason-code response guides, a dispute reports view, and an AI evidence assistant for 'goods not received'. This is product documentation, not marketing. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/3882-payment-disputes-walkthrough · retrieved 2026-08-01 adversarially verified

payments-card-on-file differentiator

Card-on-file is a distinct published pricing category (3.5% + 15c), implying tokenized stored cards reusable across channels with no PAN at the merchant. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5068-what-are-square-s-fees · retrieved 2026-08-01

payments-payout-timing differentiator

Fee schedule documents ACH transfer at 1% ($1 min) and free instant deposit to Square Checking, implying a published instant-funding option; the standard deposit calendar was not re-verified. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5068-what-are-square-s-fees · retrieved 2026-08-01

payments-p2pe-pci4

Square publishes an on-request compliance library. The Trust Center holds 'PCI DSS AOC' (document 'Square PCI DSS 4.0.1 Service Providers AOC 2026'), described as 'Square is certified as a PCI DSS 4.0.1 Level 1 Service Provider, the highest level of PCI DSS validation. We validate this certification on an annual basis'; a 'PCI DSS Merchant Responsibility Matrix' (4.0.1) that 'outlines which PCI DSS requirements are managed by Square and which remain the responsibility of the seller'; and 'End to End Encryption (E2EE)' (document 'Square P2PE-E2EE Statement letter'), stating Square 'protects payment data by encrypting it at the point of capture' and that 'An independent attestation of Square's E2EE architecture is available.' Each is gated behind an NDA request, which is the ordinary 'available to merchants on request' posture the claim describes. The encryption itself is corroborated first-party: 'Our proprietary system ensures no unencrypted payment data touches your device or application... All card-present payments are encrypted from end to end.' Retrieval note: trust.squareup.com is a JavaScript (Vendict) SPA; the item index was read from its public backing API, and the same items render in a browser. https://trust.squareup.com/ · retrieved 2026-08-09 · not refetchable · site policy · graded B when read

kitchen-station-routing

Route specific items to different prep stations; ticket layouts and text size customizable per station. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7959-route-orders-with-your-kds · retrieved 2026-08-01

kitchen-expo-consolidation

Expeditor (Expo) mode gives high-level visibility across prep stations and finalizes orders for delivery to diners. https://squareup.com/us/en/point-of-sale/restaurants/kitchen-display-system · retrieved 2026-08-01

kitchen-course-firing differentiator

Courses can be held and fired; firing releases to printers and KDS. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7748-coursing-with-square-kds · retrieved 2026-08-01

kitchen-prep-time-pacing differentiator

Under Tickets > Prep timing there is a 'Staggered item prep times' toggle (Dashboard: Settings > Device management > Devices > KDS device > Manage > Tickets; or in-app Settings > View all settings > Tickets). 'Items within a ticket will appear on the KDS at staggered times based on their individual prep times, so kitchen staff can start each item at the right moment', and items must have prep times set in the item catalog for it to work. Corroborated by article/8168: 'If you've enabled Staggered item prep times, items within a ticket may appear at different times based on their individual prep times.' Shortfall: the article warns 'Item prep times do not sync across devices. Any staggered prep times for items are limited to one device', so items routed to different prep stations are not co-ordinated to finish together -- the pacing is per-screen, not per-order. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7944-get-started-with-square-kds-android · retrieved 2026-08-06

kitchen-order-throttling differentiator

The online-ordering profile settings include order limits per 15-minute window, order-scheduling advance days, cut-off times, 'Scheduled downtime' date ranges, and large-order item/price limits -- so incoming digital order volume can be paced against a configured order-volume threshold. Shortfall: the threshold is a static per-slot number the operator sets, not a measured kitchen-load or ticket-time signal; nothing feeds KDS ticket times back into intake, and no automatic extension of the quoted prep time on breach is documented (prep time is a fixed configured value). https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8609-set-up-delivery-options-for-your-online-ordering-profile · retrieved 2026-08-06

kitchen-channel-pause-propagation differentiator

86ing in Square makes the item unavailable on Uber Eats; the store can be paused on Uber Eats from Square Dashboard (Channels > Uber Eats > Manage > Pause). https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8515-set-up-uber-eats-integration-with-square · retrieved 2026-08-01

kitchen-order-ready-callback differentiator

Implied by 2026 DoorDash Preferred Integration Partner status: DoorDash's 18 May 2026 announcement names Square among the 2026 cohort, 'generated based on performance and feature sets as of May 8, 2026', and DoorDash's developer documentation makes 'Order Ready Signal' a mandatory feature for that rating, where support means 'you've built and launched the feature and that it has been used by at least one DoorDash store'. Shortfall: neither Square nor DoorDash documents the specific path this claim describes - a KDS bump raising the order-ready event to the marketplace. Square publishes no KDS-to-marketplace callback documentation, and DoorDash's requirement is silent on which POS surface originates the signal. https://about.doordash.com/en-us/news/doordash-preferred-integrations-program-2026 · retrieved 2026-08-09

kitchen-bump-bar-hardware

Read squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7944 (Set up Square KDS) in full: it names compatible Android displays -- MicroTouch 10.1", 15.6", 21.5", VESA-mountable, Android OS 9 or above, at least 3 GB RAM -- and enumerates the app's settings (layout, columns, text size, yellow/red timer thresholds, new-ticket sounds, modifier text colour, item sorting, modifier set order, staggered prep times, Prep vs Expeditor device type) with no accessory or input-peripheral section. Also read article/8171 (complete and recall orders -- describes tapping items or the ticket banner, no hardware input) and squareup.com/us/en/point-of-sale/restaurants/kitchen-display-system (marketing; no bump bar). Unresolved rather than `no` because 7944 is a display-compatibility list, not a supported-peripheral table -- a USB or Bluetooth bump bar presents as a keyboard and would not appear in a list of screens -- and Square nowhere states bump bars are unsupported.

kitchen-all-day-counts

Read squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7944 (KDS setup and full settings list -- no all-day view), article/8171 (complete and recall orders -- Prep and Expo completion, gray-dot indicator, Recall; no aggregation), article/8168 (prioritise orders -- queue order and staggered prep times), article/8169 (filter orders by kitchen routing category, dining option, colour-coded modifiers), and squareup.com/us/en/point-of-sale/restaurants/kitchen-display-system. None documents an all-day aggregate. Square's own community forum and Google's index both refer to a 'Viewing All Day Count' section on some KDS page, but I could not locate that page on squareup.com/help/us/en and will not score off an index summary. Unresolved: the feature plausibly exists but no first-party page I retrieved describes it, and per-modifier aggregation is unaddressed everywhere.

kitchen-sla-alerts

KDS provides 'timers and alerts' for prioritizing orders. Configurable per-station target times with color escalation thresholds not documented. https://squareup.com/us/en/point-of-sale/restaurants/kitchen-display-system · retrieved 2026-08-01

kitchen-printer-fallback differentiator

Read squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7959 (Route orders to the kitchen with Square KDS): routing is expressed as filtering 'which Square POS devices' a screen shows tickets from, and the article contains no backup device, failover, or device-unreachable behaviour. Also read article/7944 (setup and settings -- no failover setting), article/8169 (routing categories and dining-option filters), and article/7777 (offline mode), which addresses card payments and online-order intake only. Unresolved: Square documents neither an automatic fallback to a designated backup printer or screen nor what happens to a ticket routed to a dead device, and no page asserts the absence either.

kitchen-offline-operation differentiator

Read squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7777 (Process card payments with offline mode) in full: it enumerates offline-capable apps (including Square Restaurants POS), payment types unavailable offline (Afterpay, Cash App Pay, Square Gift Cards, Tap to Pay on iPhone/Android, manually-entered cards), apps with no offline support (Invoices, POS services mode, Kiosk), that close-of-day reporting cannot be completed, and that 'Depending on the type of disruption, new online orders received through your Square website or ordering platforms, such as UberEats, won't appear in your POS'. Kitchen tickets, KDS, and POS-to-KDS routing are not mentioned once. Also checked article/7944 and article/7959, neither of which has an offline section. Unresolved: whether a KDS screen keeps receiving tickets from a POS on the same LAN during a cloud outage is simply not addressed by Square.

kitchen-item-build-screens differentiator

Ticket layouts and text sizes are customizable and modifiers display on the ticket; recipe-step or portioning build detail is not documented. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7959-route-orders-with-your-kds · retrieved 2026-08-01

kitchen-pizza-fractional-display differentiator

No fractional placement exists in the menu model, so nothing sectioned can be rendered on the make line.

kitchen-recall-refire

Square KDS supports completing and recalling orders. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8171-complete-orders-with-square-kds · retrieved 2026-08-01

kitchen-order-modification-alerts differentiator

Read squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8171 (Complete and recall orders with Square KDS): the only live-ticket visual state documented is completion -- 'Expo devices show a gray dot next to the item(s) completed' -- plus Recall to reopen a completed ticket. Also read article/8169 (colour-coded modifiers, which colour modifier TEXT by preparation requirement, not by edit state), article/8168 (prioritisation and staggered prep) and article/7944 (settings list: layout, columns, text size, timer thresholds, sounds, modifier text colour, sorting). None describes highlighting an item added, changed or voided after the ticket fired. Unresolved: no Square page states either that edits are flagged or that they are not.

kitchen-guest-ready-notification differentiator

'When the order is marked as complete from the Square KDS app or POS, your guest will receive the order-ready text', with the trigger occurring at an Expeditor KDS station. Available to Square for Restaurants Plus and Premium subscribers (also Square Kiosk and Square KDS subscribers, and Square Plus/Premium with advanced restaurants capabilities), with no additional fee stated -- it is a setting, not a separate SKU. Prerequisite: Square KDS must be set up with at least one Kitchen Display device code using an Expeditor device. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8069-text-customers-order-is-ready-with-square-for-restaurants · retrieved 2026-08-06

kitchen-waste-logging

Waste and loss-trend monitoring is delivered by the Square Restaurant Inventory by MarketMan add-on ($99/mo/location), not natively at the KDS screen. https://squareup.com/us/en/press/square-restaurant-inventory-marketman · retrieved 2026-08-01

kitchen-speed-of-service-reporting

'Kitchen performance reporting shows your completed ticket count and average completed ticket time across all devices and locations', reached at Reports > Operations > Kitchen performance. Shortfalls named on the page itself: 'The kitchen performance report only tracks tickets sent to your Square kitchen displays. Items and tickets sent to printers are not tracked', so any printer-driven station is invisible. The page documents averages only -- no percentile distribution -- and gives no daypart or order-channel slicing (the peer measure, per-station, is approximated only by KDS device name). CSV export is documented on the same page for section sales but not for kitchen performance. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6433-reporting-with-square-for-restaurants · retrieved 2026-08-06

kitchen-prep-forecasting

Read squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6433 (Run restaurant performance reports), which enumerates section sales reporting and kitchen performance reporting and nothing forecast-related; squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7944 (KDS setup and complete settings list, no prep-list view); and squareup.com/us/en/point-of-sale/restaurants/kitchen-display-system, whose strongest claim is 'reports that give you insights on prep times and more'. Item catalog prep times exist but feed KDS display staggering, not a prep task list. Unresolved rather than `no` because 6433 is a restaurant-reporting article rather than a complete inventory of Dashboard tools, and Square's inventory/par surfaces (and the MarketMan integration, which handles purchasing pars rather than prep tasks) were not fully enumerated.

delivery-driver-roster

Square's in-house delivery option is 'use your own staff to deliver local orders' — there is no driver entity, clock state, or per-driver run history in the product. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8438-set-up-delivery-options-with-square-online · retrieved 2026-08-01

delivery-dispatch-board

No dispatch/expo screen, driver availability view, or multi-order run batching is documented anywhere in Square's delivery documentation.

delivery-route-map differentiator

Read squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8609 (delivery options for the online ordering profile) end to end -- for 'My own couriers' the settings are prep time, delivery area by postal code or radius, per-area and distance-tiered fees, out-of-zone on-demand handoff and fee split, ordering hours, automatic vs manual delivery-time calculation, no-contact delivery, minimum order amount, order limits per 15-minute window, scheduling advance days, service fee and ticket-printing timing -- with no dispatch, assignment, map or routing setting. Also read article/6649 (Order Manager fulfilment: statuses New / In Progress / Ready / Completed, pickup subtypes curbside/pickup/digital) and squareup.com/us/en/point-of-sale/restaurants/food-delivery-software, whose delivery content is the DoorDash and Uber Eats integrations. Unresolved rather than `no`: 8609 is a zone-and-fee configuration page, not the dispatch surface, so it cannot enumerate a map view out of existence.

delivery-driver-tracking differentiator

Square ships no driver-facing mobile app, so there is no GPS position to surface. DoorDash Drive tracking is managed in DoorDash's own portal at doordash.com/drive.

delivery-zones-polygon differentiator

Square documents the alternative explicitly: delivery region is set 'either by postal code or radius'. No polygon or drive-time isochrone option. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8438-set-up-delivery-options-with-square-online · retrieved 2026-08-01

delivery-zone-pricing

Distance-based fees, service fees and a minimum order amount are configurable. A per-zone quoted promise time is not documented. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8438-set-up-delivery-options-with-square-online · retrieved 2026-08-01

delivery-address-validation

In-house delivery areas are defined by 'Postal Code' or 'Radius' with distance-based fee tiers and a fallback fee, and the profile carries an explicit rule for addresses outside those areas -- optionally routing them to 'On-demand delivery' with a configurable fee split (customer pays full, merchant pays full, split, or customer pays a set amount) -- so an address is evaluated against the zone before the order is taken. Shortfalls: the page never states that the address is validated or geocoded against a mapping service, does not describe rejecting a malformed or non-existent address, and describes no out-of-zone messaging when the on-demand handoff is not enabled. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8609-set-up-delivery-options-for-your-online-ordering-profile · retrieved 2026-08-06

delivery-driver-comp differentiator

Read squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8609 in full: the complete 'My own couriers' settings list is prep time, delivery area by postal code or radius, per-area and distance-tiered delivery fees plus fallback fee, out-of-zone on-demand handoff and fee split, ordering hours, automatic vs manual delivery-time calculation, no-contact delivery, minimum order amount, order limits per 15-minute window, scheduling advance days, service fee and ticket-printing timing. There is no mileage, per-run reimbursement or driver-tip-attribution field. Also read article/6649 (Order Manager fulfilment) which has no driver concept. Unresolved rather than `no` because the delivery profile is not where wage or reimbursement lines would be configured -- Square Payroll and Team Management were not examined for a delivery-derived reimbursement import, and no page asserts the absence.

delivery-cash-reconcile

Read squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8609 (complete in-house delivery settings: zones, fees, hours, minimums, order limits, scheduling, service fee, ticket printing -- no driver bank, assignment or settlement), article/6649 (Order Manager fulfilment: statuses New / In Progress / Ready / Completed, pickup subtypes; no driver entity), and article/6433 (restaurant reports: section sales and kitchen performance only). Nothing describes assigning cash to a driver or producing a per-driver over/short at settle-up. Unresolved: Square's general cash drawer management and shift reports were not enumerated and could in principle be used per driver, and Square nowhere states that driver settlement is unsupported.

delivery-daas-dispatch

Verified against Square's legal pricing page, and the dossier actually understates it: Square On-Demand Delivery uses three DSPs, not one — Uber ($4.20 + $0.75/km; CA $4.50 + $0.95/km), DoorDash (the quoted $6.99 / $8.99 CA / $9.98 NYC per delivery up to 5 miles + $1/additional mile to 10 miles) and Nash (variable). Page last updated March 16, 2026. The sub-claim that in-house dispatch fees were removed Feb 6 2025 was not visible on the current page and should be treated as unverified. Note this is DaaS handoff only and does not disturb the correct 'no' on native dispatch/driver roster. https://squareup.com/us/en/legal/general/odd-pricing · retrieved 2026-08-01 adversarially verified

delivery-daas-fallback differentiator

With delivery method set to 'My own couriers', the profile offers 'On-demand delivery' for orders outside the defined in-house zones, with a configurable fee split for those out-of-zone orders (customer pays full, merchant pays full, split, or customer pays a set amount). The on-demand leg has a 'Partner preference' of 'DoorDash' or 'Best Available' (Nash-powered). Shortfall: zone membership is the only documented trigger -- there is no rule that overflows to a courier when no in-house driver is available or when a wait-time threshold is exceeded, and Square documents no in-house driver availability state that such a rule could read. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8609-set-up-delivery-options-for-your-online-ordering-profile · retrieved 2026-08-06

delivery-3p-direct-integration differentiator

Direct first-party integrations with DoorDash and Uber Eats. Grubhub is not a direct Square integration and requires middleware (Deliverect, Chowly, Otter, Checkmate). https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8518-integrate-doordash-with-square · retrieved 2026-08-01

delivery-3p-injection

Marketplace orders 'flow through to your Square account, appear on Order Manager, appear on KDS and trigger printers' — no tablet re-keying. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8515-set-up-uber-eats-integration-with-square · retrieved 2026-08-01

delivery-menu-push

Menus, prices, item images and availability sync automatically from Square. Channel-specific price markups are not documented. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8515-set-up-uber-eats-integration-with-square · retrieved 2026-08-01

delivery-86-sync

86ing an item in Square makes it unavailable on Uber Eats; item availability updates sync automatically to DoorDash. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8518-integrate-doordash-with-square · retrieved 2026-08-01

delivery-store-pause

Uber Eats store pause from Square Dashboard is documented. Timed auto-reactivation is not, and equivalent DoorDash pause from Square is not confirmed. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8515-set-up-uber-eats-integration-with-square · retrieved 2026-08-01

delivery-3p-reconciliation differentiator

Read squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8518 (Set up your DoorDash integration with Square): DoorDash orders 'flow through to your Square account' and appear in Square reports, and Square provides 'item- and jurisdiction-level tax breakdowns for orders placed through the DoorDash marketplace' labelled 'Remitted by DoorDash' vs 'Passed to Merchant'. No payout-deposit matching, no commission or marketing-fee itemisation, no refund/adjustment breakdown, no missing-or-unpaid-order detection. Also read article/6433 (restaurant reports: section sales, kitchen performance only). Unresolved rather than `no`: squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8319 (Instant Payouts with delivery partners), which surfaces estimated DoorDash/Uber Eats/Grubhub earnings into Square Checking, was not retrieved in full and is the most likely place a payout-to-sales reconciliation would be described.

delivery-injection-error-visibility differentiator

Square maintains a dedicated DoorDash/Uber Eats troubleshooting article, but an in-product integration-health view with failed-injection alerts is not documented. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8517-troubleshoot-doordash-and-uber-eats-integration-with-square · retrieved 2026-08-01

delivery-tracking-page

Under Communications > Email & Text Alerts you can 'Send order status text messages to customers', covering 'Order status changes (like Ready for Pickup, Order Shipped, etc.)'; for in-house delivery 'customers can sign up for text alerts to receive updates as their items get prepared and dispatched'. Shortfall against the claim's first-party scope: the live map is documented only for ON-DEMAND courier delivery -- 'you can enable text alerts that provide customers with a live map for real-time order tracking and updates' -- while in-house delivery gets prepared/dispatched status texts driven by order state, not driver state. No branded status page served on the restaurant's own domain is documented, and the article is a Square Online setting rather than a Square for Restaurants POS one. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6889-customize-store-emails-with-square-online-store · retrieved 2026-08-06

delivery-promise-time differentiator

Both the in-house-courier and on-demand delivery profiles expose an 'automatic vs manual delivery time calculation' choice, on top of a configured prep time and delivery areas defined by radius with distance-based tiers -- so a quoted time can be system-computed and vary with distance rather than being a single per-store constant. Shortfall: the page does not say what the automatic calculation consumes; no kitchen-load input is described (there is no link between KDS ticket times and the quote), and Square documents no in-house driver availability state that could feed it. The only load-adjacent control is a static order limit per 15-minute window. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8609-set-up-delivery-options-for-your-online-ordering-profile · retrieved 2026-08-06

delivery-offline-behavior

Square states offline delivery-order intake behaviour explicitly: 'Depending on the type of disruption, new online orders received through your Square website or ordering platforms, such as UberEats, won't appear in your POS.' The article also lists which apps support offline payments (including Square Restaurants POS), which tender types do not work offline (Afterpay, Cash App Pay, Square Gift Cards, Tap to Pay, manually-entered cards), and that close-of-day reporting cannot be completed offline. Shortfall: driver assignment and driver settlement during an outage are not addressed anywhere in the article, and cash delivery orders specifically are not called out -- only cash tendering generally is implied by the offline payment scope. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7777-process-card-payments-with-offline-mode · retrieved 2026-08-06

digital-first-party-web

Square Online: rebuilt branded ordering page with commission-free pickup and delivery; Square estimates up to 30% savings versus marketplaces. https://squareup.com/us/en/press/releases-food-and-beverage · retrieved 2026-08-01

digital-menu-single-source

Square Online is generated from the same Square catalog as the POS. The current capabilities page states it twice: 'Sync menus and inventory in real time so diners never order unavailable items,' and, of online ordering, 'Onboard in minutes and manage all your menus and orders from one dashboard with real-time menu syncing to have total control of your business.' Also documented on the item side: article 8335 shows one item library with menus as the grouping surface for prepared food and beverage items. Grade C because the retrieved page is a first-party feature page written to sell, not product documentation. https://squareup.com/us/en/restaurants/capabilities · retrieved 2026-08-09

digital-native-app differentiator

Square offers no branded native iOS/Android ordering app published under the restaurant's own brand; Square Online is a responsive web storefront.

digital-account-saved-payment

Card-on-file tokenization is a published Square capability and Square Online supports customer accounts, but saved addresses plus one-tap reorder across first-party channels is not documented as a combined feature. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5068-what-are-square-s-fees · retrieved 2026-08-01

digital-upsell-engine differentiator

Smart Upsells on Square Kiosk: 'Buyers see complementary item suggestions on the order review screen before they proceed to checkout. Up to 3 suggested items appear as cards,' added or dismissed in one tap. Selection is algorithmic - 'No additional setup is required beyond enabling the feature - recommendations are automatically generated from your catalog data'; items requiring unsatisfied modifiers and combo items are excluded. Requires the Square Kiosk app plus Square Plus or Premium. Shortfalls: no merchant-configurable rules for which items are suggested, no personalisation from an individual guest's order history, no attach-rate or upsell-performance reporting documented, and no equivalent on Square Online checkout (article 6859's checkout options list contains no upsell setting). https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8661-manage-smart-upsells-on-square-kiosk · retrieved 2026-08-06

digital-scheduled-pacing

Scheduled ordering with prep timing is configurable on the online ordering profile; per-daypart capacity limits that auto-close saturated slots are not documented. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8609-set-up-delivery-options-for-your-online-ordering-profile · retrieved 2026-08-01

digital-fulfillment-modes

Orders API defines Pickup, Shipment, Delivery and In-store fulfillments; Square Online exposes pickup, curbside, delivery and no-contact delivery with mode-specific fees. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8438-set-up-delivery-options-with-square-online · retrieved 2026-08-01

digital-qr-table

Scan-to-pay at the table is fully documented and does attach to the existing POS check: the QR prints on the bill from the Floor plan or Orders tab, and on payment the check closes with the notification 'Checks have been paid with a QR code' and is marked 'Paid via QR Code'. Shortfalls: (1) QR scan-to-ORDER exists only as Square Online self-serve ordering, where 'each QR code is connected to a specific ordering station' and the completed order 'will appear on your point of sale' as a new order - nothing describes it joining a check already open on a table (article 7142); (2) neither article documents splitting or tipping inside the guest's QR flow; (3) Scan to Pay is Plus/Premium only. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8456-checkout-with-scan-to-pay · retrieved 2026-08-09

digital-kiosk differentiator

Square Kiosk app runs the same catalog with unattended payment on an iPad-based stand ($149 hardware, $50/$30 per device per month software). Accessibility-compliant UI is not documented. https://squareup.com/us/en/point-of-sale/restaurants/pricing · retrieved 2026-08-01

digital-group-ordering

Square Online checkout setting: 'Group ordering lets multiple people add their individual items to a collective order at the same time, and each participant can use their own device to add to the cart.' The cart owner generates a shareable link; 'Additional guests who use the link will go directly to your site to start adding their own items.' Shortfall: no per-person or total spend cap of any kind, and no split payment - 'the cart owner can submit the order and pay' for the whole cart. Requires Square Online Plus/Premium or Square Plus/Premium, pickup, local delivery or QR ordering only. (Separately, the AU help centre uses 'group ordering' for an unrelated Square for Restaurants bistro-mode pay-separately flow at the counter.) https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6859-checkout-options-with-square-online-store · retrieved 2026-08-06

digital-catering-portal differentiator

A catering POS mode was announced May 2025; a distinct catering ordering portal with minimums, lead-time rules, quotes, deposits and invoice/ACH terms is not documented. https://squareup.com/us/en/press/releases-food-and-beverage · retrieved 2026-08-01

digital-voice-ai-phone differentiator

'Square AI can answer calls to your Square business number and can help you take customer orders.' Orders are 'sent straight to your POS, Order Manager and Kitchen Display System (if set up)' once the guest pays via a texted cart link - no staff transcription. First-party Square, no third-party partner. Escalation exists: 'If Square AI can't address your customer's questions, we will notify you via Square Messages.' Gated on a Square Plus, Square Premium or Square Messages Plus subscription. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8568-take-orders-with-ai-powered-voice-ordering · retrieved 2026-08-06

digital-drivethru-ai

Corrects a false premise: Square DOES have a drive-thru product. squareup.com/us/en/release-notes/release-notes-may-21st documents 'Drive-Thru, a dedicated POS configuration for Square for Restaurants that supports the full drive-thru lane flow - arrival, order entry, prep, payment, and handoff,' with automatic order numbering, Send & Stay to KDS, vehicle descriptors, a Drive-Thru fulfillment type in Order Manager, speed-of-service reporting, and 'live integration with Order Confirmation Systems (OCS) from The Howard Company' - an OCS digital menu board, not a voice agent. Separately squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8568 scopes Square's AI voice ordering to inbound calls on the Square business number and never mentions a drive-thru lane. Neither source is an exhaustive enumeration of drive-thru integrations, so absence of lane AI is not asserted; unresolved.

digital-sms-ordering

Documented text-a-link ordering: guests 'receive and view your menu via text' and 'will receive a text message with a link to an online cart to complete checkout and pay online,' after which the order goes 'straight to your POS, Order Manager and Kitchen Display System.' Shortfall: this is documented only as a step inside the Square AI inbound-phone-call flow on a Square Plus/Premium/Messages Plus subscription; customer-initiated conversational text-to-order, and text-to-reorder, are not documented. Square Text Message Marketing remains outbound campaigns only. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8568-take-orders-with-ai-powered-voice-ordering · retrieved 2026-08-06

digital-google-order differentiator

Square Online feature, enabled at Square Dashboard > Channels > Square Online > Website settings > Order with Google, with a per-location toggle and auto-sync of future locations. On the Google Business Profile the guest 'can select an ordering button to pick how they want to order, showing them all available options like your website or a third-party app... If they choose the Square option, they order right through your website.' Requires a claimed Google Business Profile, a published site, pickup and/or local delivery, and a food-and-beverage business category. The article does not use or document 'Preferred by Business' placement, so prioritisation over marketplace links is unconfirmed. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7659-use-order-with-google-with-square-online · retrieved 2026-08-06

digital-apple-business-connect

Checked squareup.com/us/en/roadmap and squareup.com/ca/en/roadmap - both returned the release-notes index (release notes dated Apr-Jul 2026), not roadmap cards, so any Apple Maps entry there could not be read. Also checked squareup.com/us/en/point-of-sale/restaurants/features (no Apple Maps or Apple Business Connect), squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7659 (Order with Google; Google only, no Apple equivalent), and squareup.com/help/us/en/article/3844 (GPS/maps, device location services only). Search surfaced only a community thread about an Apple Pay merchant ID for Apple Business Connect, which is payment enablement, not an ordering place-card action. No first-party Square documentation of an 'Order Food' custom action on Apple Maps was retrievable; unresolved.

digital-loyalty-attach

Customers earn points on purchases from Square POS, Square Invoices and the Square Online site under one loyalty program and identity. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/3952-create-a-loyalty-program-with-square · retrieved 2026-08-01

digital-subscriptions

Guest-facing recurring billing exists: any catalogue item can be made subscribable, with a chosen frequency, a billing start ('at the time the subscription starts, the last day of each month, or a billing date of your choice'), continuous or capped billing cycles ('After # of billing cycles'), an optional percentage or fixed 'Subscribe and save' discount, and customer-facing pause with a duration limit. Shortfall the vendor states explicitly: 'subscriptions don't support an entitlement feature. For example, if a gym offers five classes per month as part of a membership package, subscriptions won't keep track of how many classes a subscriber has already redeemed.' So no per-period item entitlement, no delivery-fee waiver and no paid loyalty tier - a recurring charge with a standing discount only. The article publishes a further not-available list: pickup as a fulfilment option, custom billing dates across a book of subscriptions, changing a plan's price after creation, swapping an item on an active subscription, and commitment periods. Availability is scoped to Square Subscriptions users, Square Online Plus/Premium and Square Plus/Premium, iOS and Dashboard only ('Plans and subscriptions cannot be managed from Android devices at this time'), and the article does not name Square for Restaurants. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7627-get-started-with-subscriptions-in-dashboard · retrieved 2026-08-09

digital-promo-parity

Loyalty promotions and catalog discount objects are defined centrally and apply across Square channels; explicit per-channel eligibility controls including kiosk are not documented. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7794-get-started-with-square-loyalty-promotions · retrieved 2026-08-01

digital-guest-data-ownership differentiator

Customer Directory CSV export is self-serve and the Customers API is public, but Square's terms grant Square a perpetual, transferable, sublicensable license to seller Content and promise no post-termination retrieval window. https://squareup.com/us/en/legal/general/ua · retrieved 2026-08-01

digital-checkout-pci-sca

Square is merchant of record and hosts checkout, so card data does not touch the restaurant's page ('no unencrypted payment data touches your device or application'). 3DS is documented and configurable, not merely asserted: 'Square 3D Secure (3DS) is a feature available to all sellers using Risk Manager - it's a standardized way to authenticate electronic card transactions,' enabled by a Risk Manager rule ('Under Select action, set your rule to Require 3D Secure'), with SMS/email one-time passcode, biometric or issuer redirect challenges and fraud-chargeback liability shift. PCI posture is published rather than merely asserted: the Trust Center lists a 'Square PCI DSS 4.0.1 Service Providers AOC 2026' and states 'Square is certified as a PCI DSS 4.0.1 Level 1 Service Provider... validated annually', plus a 4.0.1 Merchant Responsibility Matrix delineating which requirements are Square's and which the seller's. Caveats: the AOC and matrix are NDA-gated rather than freely downloadable, and 4.0.1 requirements 6.4.3/11.6.1 are covered by the scope of that attestation rather than called out by name; API card-on-file payments are excluded from 3DS. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7623-risk-manager-3d-secure-3ds · retrieved 2026-08-09

digital-surcharge-transparency differentiator

Two different fee types diverge across channels. Service charges do carry: 'When creating a service charge, you can automatically apply the service charge to online orders. This only applies to orders fulfilled through pickup, delivery, QR code ordering, and orders placed through an online ordering profile' (article 7625). Card surcharging does not: the surcharge article's supported list is Square Point of Sale, Square Restaurant POS, Square Retail POS and Square Invoices (web only), with Square Kiosk, Virtual Terminal, Connected Terminal, Square Appointments and 'Square Website transactions' listed as unsupported - 'Card surcharges only work for in-person transactions.' Jurisdiction and brand handling is real but partly manual: surcharging is blocked in Connecticut, Maine and Puerto Rico, cannot apply to ACH, debit, tips, offline or split-tender payments, printed receipts carry an automatic surcharge notice, and the seller must post entrance/counter signage and verify other state rules themselves. Shortfall: the digital channels (Square Online, Kiosk) cannot surcharge at all, so the POS configuration does not carry identically. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8596-set-up-and-manage-card-surcharges · retrieved 2026-08-06

guest-loyalty-unified-profile

A single loyalty/customer identity accrues across Square POS, Square Invoices and Square Online. Documented dedup/merge behavior on phone-or-email collision is not published. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/3952-create-a-loyalty-program-with-square · retrieved 2026-08-01

guest-loyalty-thirdparty-identity-attach differentiator

Read squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8518 (DoorDash setup), 8515 (Uber Eats setup) and 8517 (troubleshooting). All three cover account linking, menu sync, pricing and order management; none states whether an incoming marketplace order creates or matches a Square Customer Directory profile, and none names the guest fields transmitted. The only adjacent line is 8518's 'To communicate with a customer, you will have to go through DoorDash,' which describes message routing rather than profile creation and is too thin to assert absence of identity attach. Also checked squareup.com/us/en/point-of-sale/restaurants/features, which lists the DoorDash/Uber Eats integrations and the Customer Directory as separate items without connecting them. Unresolved.

guest-loyalty-accrual-models

Points can be earned per visit, per amount spent, per item, or by category — three of the required models as plain configuration. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/3952-create-a-loyalty-program-with-square · retrieved 2026-08-01

guest-loyalty-tiers differentiator

Up to six tiers including the base tier, with points multipliers and tier benefits; customers get SMS on tier upgrade and downgrade, confirming automatic promotion and demotion. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8077-create-square-loyalty-tiers · retrieved 2026-08-01

guest-loyalty-offline-behavior differentiator

Explicitly documented as blocked: loyalty point accrual is in the list of features unavailable during offline mode. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7777-process-card-payments-with-offline-mode · retrieved 2026-08-01

guest-loyalty-offer-stacking-rules differentiator

The create/edit-discount configuration surface is enumerated in full at the merged article: name; amount type (Amount, Percentage, Variable amount, Variable percentage); applicable locations; item or category targeting; quantity rules (Exact quantity, Minimum quantity, Buy One Get One); customer group; minimum spend; schedule (days/times and date range); the 'Apply automatically' toggle and its channel targets (point of sale vs online); 'Set maximum discount value'; and under Advanced Settings, 'Require a passcode' and 'Apply discount after taxes'. Square states outright that this is the whole surface: 'Advanced rules (category targeting, BOGO, quantity, customer group, scheduling, and minimum spend) are available for both manual and automatic discounts. The difference between manual and automatic discounts is only how the discount is applied - not what rules it can have.' There is no exclusive-vs-combinable flag, no stacking permission and no precedence or order-of-application setting in that list. Stacking is presumed rather than configured: 'If your customer is applying multiple discounts, the limited time discounts will only be valid within their specified time frames' and 'the maximum discount value will only apply to the discounts with a set maximum discount value.' https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/3955-create-and-manage-discounts · retrieved 2026-08-09

guest-loyalty-targeted-offers differentiator

Loyalty promotions can be created and Square Marketing campaigns targeted at customer groups; rules over recency/frequency/spend/items as an audience builder are not documented in detail. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7794-get-started-with-square-loyalty-promotions · retrieved 2026-08-01

guest-loyalty-rfm-segmentation differentiator

Square Customer Directory automatic groups (e.g. loyal, casual, lapsed) are long-standing but I could not verify a current documentation URL in this pass.

guest-loyalty-lifecycle-automation

Square Marketing automations (birthday, win-back) are marketed but no current support-doc URL verified here; loyalty does ship automated tier-change and points-expiry SMS. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8077-create-square-loyalty-tiers · retrieved 2026-08-01

guest-loyalty-native-email-sms differentiator

Square Loyalty integrates directly with Square Email Marketing and text message campaigns sent natively from the platform. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/3952-create-a-loyalty-program-with-square · retrieved 2026-08-01

guest-loyalty-consent-management

Consent is captured per channel and gated: 'Before your customers can receive text message campaigns, they will need to consent to receiving SMS marketing text messages, which they can do through your point of sale after a transaction,' and 'To comply with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), Square requires prior express written consent from every customer who enrolls in your loyalty program. This is done when a customer enters their phone number and click to join your loyalty program after reading the SMS and marketing disclosure provided.' Shortfalls: neither article documents a stored timestamp or source-of-consent field on the customer record; revocation handling is not described beyond channel unsubscribe, so honouring revocation received 'by any reasonable means' across all channels is unevidenced. One asymmetry worth flagging - article 5498 states 'A customer is automatically opted into email marketing if you manually input their email into their profile,' though 'You'll be unable to subscribe previously unsubscribed customers into email marketing using the import tool.' https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7199-get-started-with-text-message-marketing · retrieved 2026-08-09

guest-loyalty-10dlc-registration

Square handles carrier messaging registration for the seller: 'Each paid location receives a dedicated toll-free business number, subject to a mandatory industry-wide verification process,' and 'We request and submit the necessary business information to complete the verification process on your behalf,' which 'usually takes up to seven business days to complete.' Shortfalls: the setup article documents toll-free verification only - it never uses the terms A2P 10DLC, brand registration or campaign registration, does not list the business information submitted, and does not state what happens on rejection. 10DLC appears only in the Additional Point of Sale Terms of Service, which mentions 'a dedicated Toll-Free Number (TFN) or a 10-Digit Long Code (10DLC) number' for Square Messages Plus without describing any registration process. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8494-set-up-and-manage-your-dedicated-business-number · retrieved 2026-08-06

guest-loyalty-campaign-attribution differentiator

Square publishes loyalty metrics reporting; tying redeemed offers to actual check totals as incremental-sales attribution per campaign is not documented. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6467-view-your-square-loyalty-metrics · retrieved 2026-08-01

guest-loyalty-data-export-portability differentiator

Customer records are exportable via CSV and the public Customers API with no fee. Whether the loyalty point ledger itself exports cleanly is not documented. https://developer.squareup.com/reference/square · retrieved 2026-08-01

guest-loyalty-review-capture-routing differentiator

Square Feedback routes private customer feedback from digital receipts; score-based routing to public review sites is not documented.

guest-loyalty-referral-program

squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5209 and squareup.com/us/en/referral-program are Square's own seller-acquisition programme - a merchant refers another business to Square and both receive processing credit (up to $1,000 in free processing for 180 days, or $20 off a Square Reader), tracked in Dashboard under Account & settings > Get free processing. That is Square's referral of sellers, not a mechanic the restaurant can run on its own guests, so it does not answer this claim. Read squareup.com/help/us/en/article/3952 (create a loyalty program), which enumerates the programme configuration - spend/visit/item/category earn rules, up to 15 tiered rewards, discount / specific item / category / free item / combo reward types, point expiry with a 14-day SMS warning, custom point terminology, item and category exclusions, per-location participation - and contains no per-guest referral code or link and no two-sided reward. A referral mechanic could live in Square Marketing rather than Loyalty, and the loyalty configuration list is not an exhaustive enumeration of the marketing suite, so no absence is asserted. Unresolved.

guest-loyalty-wallet-pass differentiator

'Once a buyer taps the notification on their smartphone and verifies their personal information, they can add a digital loyalty pass for your business to their device,' and 'Digital loyalty pass details will reflect your business name and logo and the buyer's name, phone number, point balance, reward status, and start date.' No branded app download is involved. Shortfalls: 'This feature is only available for Apple Wallet on iOS devices at this time' - Google Wallet is not supported - and the article documents the pass as displaying the balance without describing a push-update mechanism, so 'push-updatable' is unconfirmed in first-party documentation. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6469-enroll-to-square-loyalty-using-square-point-of-sale · retrieved 2026-08-06

guest-loyalty-privacy-rights-tooling

A documented request channel exists: a seller 'can submit an access, deletion, or correction request by phone at 1-844-213-7377. You can also contact the Privacy Team via our portal,' after which 'we'll verify it by requesting that you confirm certain personal information associated with your account.' Buyers use profile.squareup.com or privacy.block.xyz for their own data. Shortfalls: there is no in-Dashboard access/deletion tool for a seller to fulfil a guest's request - it is a manual ticket to Square's privacy team - and the article states no propagation guarantee, only instructing the seller to 'delete the customer's personal information and direct any of your service providers that also maintain that information to delete it from their records', i.e. propagation to loyalty and marketing records is the seller's responsibility, not an automated behaviour. Square also notes it may retain transaction data as a regulated financial institution. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6753-ccpa-faqs · retrieved 2026-08-06

guest-loyalty-redemption-fraud-controls

Two of the claim's controls are partly present. Manual adjustments are permission-gated - only 'Account owners or team members with the loyalty permission to edit customer loyalty account information' can adjust - and the adjustment flow (Customers > Customer directory > customer > Loyalty > Manage > Adjust status) requires the operator to 'Click Add or Remove to enter a value and reason', so a reason is captured. Shortfalls: no redemption velocity or frequency limit, no manager-approval step on a manual adjustment (permission is a role, not an approval workflow), no flagging of employee self-redemption, and the article does not document an audit log or adjustment history view. Separately article 6130 covers voiding issued rewards and coupons. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8407-update-customer-loyalty-profiles · retrieved 2026-08-06

guest-loyalty-ai-offer-recommendation differentiator

Shipped, not roadmap, but only one of the claim's three branches and only at marketing grade. The Square AI page states it can 'Create professional content in seconds for item descriptions, marketing campaigns, team announcements, product images, and more' - AI-generated offer content. The Square AI help article (8516) confirms the assistant can 'Create and run email campaigns for promotions, items or announcements', which is execution rather than recommendation. Shortfalls: the content generator has no help-centre documentation of its own (this is a first-party marketing page, grade D), and neither source documents AI/ML-recommended target audiences or AI-recommended send timing, which are the other two branches of the claim. https://squareup.com/us/en/ai · retrieved 2026-08-06

guest-loyalty-stored-value-gift

Square Gift Cards are native stored value tied to the Square customer/loyalty ecosystem and redeemable across the seller's locations. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7777-process-card-payments-with-offline-mode · retrieved 2026-08-01

labor-clock-in-at-pos

Team members clock in and out at the Square POS; timecards feed Shifts and Payroll with no separate time clock hardware. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6140-employee-timecard-reporting · retrieved 2026-08-01

labor-photo-punch-verification differentiator

Re-read squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8389 (set up time tracking) and article/8395 (clock in and out for team members) on 2026-08-06. 8389 documents four time-tracking toggles (track team member time; clock in/out from Team app; block early or unscheduled clock-ins; automatically clock out at end of shift) and 8395 documents three clock-in routes (Square Point of Sale app, Square Team app, team member badge tap) with passcode, email sign-in or badge as authentication. Neither page claims to list every option, and 8389 is provably incomplete for this question: clock-in geofencing - the one punch-verification control Square does ship - is documented on a different page entirely, so the punch-verification surface is spread across articles. No photo, camera, selfie, face or biometric reference appears on either page, and searches of squareup.com surfaced no photo-at-punch feature; but absence from two non-exhaustive how-to pages is not positive evidence of absence. Unresolved. adversarially verified

labor-offline-time-punch differentiator

Read squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7777, whose 'Restrictions and unsupported features with offline payments' section is organised by category - Square hardware models, payment types (Afterpay, Cash App Pay), Square apps (Invoices, Services mode, Kiosk), Square Loyalty, and close-of-day reports - and never mentions time tracking, clock in/out or timecards, so it neither excludes nor confirms punches offline; the section also does not assert its own completeness, so its silence cannot carry a no. Also read squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8389 (time tracking settings: track time, Team app clock-in, block early clock-ins, auto clock-out) and 8395 (clock-in methods), neither of which states any connectivity requirement or describes reconciliation on reconnect. The claim additionally requires documented no-loss, no-duplicate reconciliation behaviour, and nothing on either host addresses it. Unresolved.

labor-granular-rbac

Square Advanced Access provides 'multiple levels of access across all Square products with unlimited custom permission sets so you can delegate responsibilities and control what your team can see and do, such as issue refunds or edit orders', with per-team-member passcodes optionally paired to badges. Price re-verified against the live page: 'Included with Square Plus ($49/mo. per location) or Square Premium ($149/mo. per location)', so no separate add-on charge. Individual-action granularity is corroborated by the discrete gates in the product documentation - a per-discount 'Require a passcode' toggle (article 3955) and a passcode or permission requirement to act on another team member's check (article 8166). https://squareup.com/us/en/staff/advanced-access · retrieved 2026-08-09

labor-manager-override-audit

Individual attribution IS documented, contrary to the earlier note: 'With Advanced Access, you get advanced team member level reporting... You can monitor actions taken by individual team members through the Activity Log, such as refunds, discounts, and voided transactions.' Badges paired to personal passcodes give 'faster logins, clock ins, and overrides with just one tap', so overrides are tied to an identified person. Shortfalls: the log attributes the actor, not a separate approving manager - no override-approval record naming an approver distinct from the acting user is documented; and nothing states the log is immutable, tamper-evident or retention-bounded. https://squareup.com/us/en/staff/advanced-access · retrieved 2026-08-09

labor-native-scheduling differentiator

Support-centre article documents Staff > Scheduling > Schedule in Square Dashboard: select + on a team member's row to open Add shift, set Start Time/End Time with a Repeat shift drop-down, Save, then Publish; the publish summary shows total team members scheduled, shift count and hour count, and offers 'Notify only affected team members' or 'Notify all team members', with team members receiving the schedule by email and in the Square Team app. Scheduling ships in Square Shifts, the same module that records timecards (article 8392). https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7155-scheduling-with-team-management · retrieved 2026-08-06

labor-demand-labor-forecast differentiator

Read squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6140, which enumerates the labor reports - timecard reports, workday summary reports, labor vs sales reports, and labor performance metrics in the Dashboard app. Labor vs sales is explicitly backward-looking: it lets the operator 'compare your hourly labor costs to your net sales... to ensure that the right number of team members are scheduled for peak times' (Shifts Plus, wages required on team profiles), which is a comparison the manager interprets, not a generated staffing recommendation. Also checked squareup.com/us/en/staff/shifts/features, which names 21 Shifts features (time clock, scheduling, open shifts, shift reviews, availability, labor-cost and labor-vs-sales reporting, tip pooling, payroll sync) with no forecasting entry, and squareup.com/us/en/ai, which lists no labor or staffing recommendation among Square AI's capabilities. A features roundup is not an exhaustive enumeration, so absence is not asserted. Unresolved.

labor-realtime-labor-percent differentiator

Total labor cost for a date range with break and overtime tracking against labor-cost limits; live labor-as-percent-of-sales during service is not documented. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6140-employee-timecard-reporting · retrieved 2026-08-01

labor-overtime-prevention differentiator

Overtime rules and tracking exist to avoid exceeding labor-cost limits; a block or warning at clock-in before OT is incurred is not documented. https://squareup.com/us/en/staff/shifts/features · retrieved 2026-08-01

labor-break-compliance-by-state differentiator

Break tracking and work-period/overtime rule configuration exist; per-state meal/rest rule templates, attestation prompts and missed-break premium flagging are not documented. https://squareup.com/us/en/staff/shifts/features · retrieved 2026-08-01

labor-minor-labor-rules

Square disclaims it directly: 'The default meal break settings are based on our understanding of the generally applicable state requirements as of September 1, 2025. These defaults do not account for industry-specific rules, including but not limited to child labor laws.' The adjoining labor-rules settings screen (article 8390) is enumerated in full - start of workweek, workday hours, and toggles for daily overtime, weekly overtime, daily double time and 7th-day overtime, each with an 'After Working (hours)' threshold - and contains no age band, no prohibited time window, no school-day limit and no minor classification on a team member. So neither the scheduling side nor the clock-in side enforces minor-labor restrictions. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8391-set-up-breaks · retrieved 2026-08-06

labor-tip-pooling-rules

Tip pooling by user-defined percentage, split daily or weekly among tip-eligible jobs, allocated within a job by hours worked. Shifts Plus feature. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7654-get-started-with-tip-pooling-for-team-management · retrieved 2026-08-01

labor-tip-distribution-audit-trail

Timecard and tip reporting is exportable per team member; a per-shift record of contributed-vs-distributed pool amounts as a distinct audit artifact is not documented. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6140-employee-timecard-reporting · retrieved 2026-08-01

labor-qualified-tips-w2-reporting differentiator

Read squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5445 (verify and distribute Form W-2 with Square Payroll), which walks Boxes a, b, c, e, f, 1-7 and 10-20 and lists the Box 12 codes Square populates - D, E, G, S, W, AA, BB, DD, EE. Code TP is not among them, there is no reference to qualified tips, Box 14b, a Treasury tipped-occupation code or the 2026 tip deduction, and the article does not separate cash tips from charged tips. That enumeration is of the codes Square supports today, but the article is not dated to tax year 2026 and Square publishes W-2 guidance per filing season, so its silence is not evidence that the 2026 forms will lack the fields. Also checked squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6480 (tip importing into Square Payroll), which covers importing tip amounts from the POS without any occupation-code or W-2 box mapping. Unresolved pending Square's tax-year-2026 payroll guidance.

labor-native-payroll differentiator

Setup documentation requires the employer to authorize Square Payroll as Reporting Agent and grant Power of Attorney where the state requires it, which 'authorizes us to pay and file taxes on your behalf'; a bank account is linked via Plaid instant verification or manual entry, and is required for tax debits as well as direct-deposit debits from Square Balance. Square warns it 'may be unable to make tax payments or filings' if employer details do not match IRS/state agency records. Companion article 5683 documents Square filing federal Form 941 or 944 on the employer's filing frequency. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5605-sign-up-for-square-payroll · retrieved 2026-08-06

labor-payroll-export-formats

Square Payroll is native and a QuickBooks Online sync is documented. Direct integrations with two named third-party payroll providers were not verified. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/topic/staff-and-payroll · retrieved 2026-08-01

labor-shift-swap-workflow differentiator

Partial - the approval workflow is documented but overtime is not enforced within it. Documented: team members request a shift trade or a shift cover from the Square Team App under Shifts > Schedule; the counterparty gets an email/push notification and can accept or decline; an open shift 'becomes visible to any team member with a matching job title not already scheduled to work during that specific timeframe', so role eligibility and double-booking are enforced; managers approve or decline the requests from Square Dashboard (Staff > Scheduling > Schedule > ... > Requests) or the Team app. Named shortfalls: (1) overtime appears only as an alert type alongside break and shift violations, with no documented rule preventing an approved swap from creating overtime; (2) shift swapping is restricted to the paid Square Shifts Plus / Team Plus subscription, not the base plan. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8394-manage-your-schedule-for-team-members · retrieved 2026-08-06

labor-server-performance-metrics differentiator

Per-employee sales reporting exists: 'Track and monitor your team's performance with team member activity log and team sales report,' and 'With Team sales report, you can run team member level reporting to see how much your team is selling.' The Activity Log separately records per-person refunds, discounts and voided transactions, which is the closest thing to a void/comp rate. Shortfalls: the reported metric is sales volume per team member; average check, items or category attachment rate, and a computed void/comp rate per server are not documented as reported metrics anywhere on this page or in the restaurants help articles. https://squareup.com/us/en/staff/advanced-access · retrieved 2026-08-09

inventory-recipe-bom-costing

Square Recipes (beta) builds recipes from ingredients and recalculates COGS from ingredient unit costs. Sub-recipes / multi-level prep items are not documented natively; MarketMan add-on covers deeper recipe management. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8629-beta-track-ingredient-costs-with-square-recipes · retrieved 2026-08-01

inventory-unit-conversion-yields

Square Recipes (beta; Square for Restaurants Plus/Premium) gives each ingredient a unit chosen at creation - the article names ounces, pounds and litres - and supports more than one: 'If you plan to receive or use this ingredient in more than one unit, select Sell by multiple units', which is where stock conversion and sell-by units are set up. Recipes then attach ingredients to menu items and decrement ingredient stock on sale. Shortfalls: no yield or waste percentage field exists anywhere in the ingredient or recipe setup, so raw-to-usable conversion cannot be modelled; and the article defines a stock unit and sell-by units rather than three distinct purchase / recipe / count unit roles each with an explicit conversion factor. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8629-beta-track-ingredient-costs-with-square-recipes · retrieved 2026-08-06

inventory-theoretical-vs-actual differentiator

Delivered only by the paid add-on: Square Restaurant Inventory by MarketMan 'pulls sales data to calculate theoretical usage, track variances, and update recipe costs' at $99/mo/location on Plus or Premium. https://squareup.com/us/en/press/square-restaurant-inventory-marketman · retrieved 2026-08-01

inventory-realtime-depletion differentiator

It IS stated, and the answer is no: 'Modifiers don't track inventory or costs.' Depletion also cannot cover multi-variation (sized) items at all, and the whole feature is beta on Plus/Premium. Real-time ingredient depletion exists only for single-variation prepared-food items with no modifier contribution — partial, not yes. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8629-beta-track-ingredient-costs-with-square-recipes · retrieved 2026-08-01 adversarially verified

inventory-86-auto-sync differentiator

Contradicted by the very Recipes article the researcher cited elsewhere: 'If any tracked ingredient in a recipe runs out of stock, the menu item is automatically marked as sold out.' Combined with the documented availability sync to Square Online / DoorDash / Uber Eats, ingredient-driven auto-86 with channel propagation is documented. (Still beta and Plus/Premium-gated.) https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8629-beta-track-ingredient-costs-with-square-recipes · retrieved 2026-08-01 adversarially verified

inventory-count-modes

Counting is documented as two ad-hoc operations from Dashboard or the POS Inventory applet: 'Receive stock for new deliveries, or Adjust stock for count corrections'. History is retained per adjustment and is now reason-coded - the 2026-07-02 release note adds built-in adjustment reasons (Spoilage, Samples/Promo, Internal Use, Vendor Return, Production Waste) plus seller-created custom reasons, managed on an Adjustment Reasons settings page, and 'Inventory History is filterable by reason, so sellers can isolate specific causes of stock loss across items and time periods' (all sellers with inventory tracking, Free tier and above, on Square POS iOS/Android and Dashboard). Shortfalls: no distinct full physical inventory mode, no spot-count-of-a-subset mode, no scheduled recurring cycle counts, and no count session that records its own variance against expected on-hand - the retained history is of individual adjustments, not of counts. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8629-beta-track-ingredient-costs-with-square-recipes · retrieved 2026-08-06

inventory-mobile-count-offline

Read squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8629, which places ingredient stock operations in Square Dashboard or the Inventory applet on the POS (a tablet/handheld surface) via Receive stock and Adjust stock, and the 2026-07-02 release note, which extends adjustment reasons to Square Point of Sale on iOS and Android - so counting on a mobile device is real. Neither documents a barcode or QR scan step in the count flow, and neither states any behaviour when the device has no network connectivity or how counts entered offline would sync on reconnect. squareup.com/us/en/hardware/handheld/specs confirms Square Handheld carries a 1D/2D scanner, but that is a hardware capability, not documentation that it drives an offline count. squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7777's offline restrictions list does not mention inventory counting either way. Unresolved.

inventory-vendor-catalogs-edi differentiator

Read squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8610, Square's help page for Square Restaurant Inventory, which documents no feature detail: it states 'Square Restaurant Inventory is a third-party integration' (MarketMan), summarises it as 'Real-time ingredient tracking, Streamlined purchase orders, Robust menu costing, Advanced analytics', and directs the reader to their Account Manager rather than describing vendor catalogues, EDI or order transmission. squareup.com/us/en/inventory-management/restaurants returned only navigation chrome on fetch, so its feature list could not be read. squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8629 (Square Recipes, the native path) has no purchasing or vendor module at all. No Square page names Sysco, US Foods or Performance Food Group as an electronic catalogue or PO/invoice integration; the existing Sysco relationship is a commercial grocery-subsidy partnership, not EDI. Because Square documents the product only by referral to an account manager, this is an absence of documentation rather than evidence of absence. Unresolved.

inventory-invoice-ocr differentiator

Add-on only: MarketMan lets you 'snap a photo of invoices to automatically update inventory and costs'. Not native to the base POS. https://squareup.com/us/en/press/square-restaurant-inventory-marketman · retrieved 2026-08-01

inventory-price-change-alerts differentiator

Add-on only: MarketMan provides automatic vendor price comparisons and supplier price history. Threshold-based alerting is not explicitly documented. https://squareup.com/us/en/press/square-restaurant-inventory-marketman · retrieved 2026-08-01

inventory-par-auto-suggest differentiator

Add-on only: MarketMan generates orders based on par levels and real-time usage. A forecast-driven par mode is not documented. https://squareup.com/us/en/press/square-restaurant-inventory-marketman · retrieved 2026-08-01

inventory-waste-logging

Add-on only: MarketMan monitors waste and identifies loss trends. Native structured waste logging with reason codes in the base POS is not documented. https://squareup.com/us/en/press/square-restaurant-inventory-marketman · retrieved 2026-08-01

inventory-shelf-life-expiry

Read squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8629, which walks ingredient creation - name, unit, multi-unit 'Sell by multiple units' stock conversion, unit cost, stock level, recipe attachment - with no expiration, use-by, received-date or lot field, and no expiring-soon report or alert; the only stock alert documented is auto-marking a menu item sold out when a tracked ingredient runs out. The 2026-07-02 release note adds 'Spoilage' and 'Production Waste' as inventory adjustment reasons, which record loss after the fact rather than warn before it. squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8610 documents no feature detail for Square Restaurant Inventory (third-party MarketMan integration, referred to an account manager), so any date tracking there could not be assessed. Neither source is an exhaustive field list of the whole inventory product, so no absence is asserted. Unresolved.

inventory-bar-partial-bottle

Relevant new fact the prior bare assertion missed: the 2026-05-21 release note (squareup.com/us/en/release-notes/release-notes-may-21st) states 'Scale integration now works across all POS modes for sellers in the US and Canada - regardless of whether they are running Retail or Restaurant modes.' That is a scale at the point of sale for weighing items being sold, and the note does not connect it to inventory counting, to liquor, or to deducting a partial bottle. squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8629 lets an ingredient be stocked in a volume unit (litres) and decremented by recipe, which handles pours by recipe deduction but is not a physical partial-bottle count; there is no bottle-fraction entry (tenths, fill level) and no scale-driven count flow documented. squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8610 documents no feature detail for Square Restaurant Inventory. Unresolved.

inventory-cogs-gl-export

Period COGS exists natively: 'When a menu item with a recipe is sold, Square decrements ingredient stock and calculates cost of goods sold (COGS) and profit margins based on your ingredient unit costs', surfaced at Square Dashboard > Reports > Inventory reports > Cost of goods sold with columns for quantity sold, COGS, total revenue, profit and profit margin (Square for Restaurants Plus/Premium, beta). Shortfalls: Square Recipes has no supplier-invoice or accounts-payable capture at all, so AP invoice detail cannot be exported; the article documents no export into a named accounting system's import format and no GL account mapping, per item category or otherwise. Accounting sync is delivered by third-party App Marketplace connectors (QuickBooks Online via Amaka, Commerce Sync, Synder) rather than by a first-party export, and per-category GL mapping is a property of those apps, not of Square. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8629-beta-track-ingredient-costs-with-square-recipes · retrieved 2026-08-06

inventory-native-not-partner differentiator

The honest read: light recipe costing is native (Square Recipes, beta), but real restaurant inventory — purchasing, variance, invoices, waste — is Square Restaurant Inventory by MarketMan, a $99/mo/location partner-powered add-on. https://squareup.com/us/en/inventory-management/restaurants · retrieved 2026-08-01

inventory-menu-margin-linkage differentiator

Square Recipes computes COGS and profit margins per item from ingredient unit costs. Threshold-based flagging when margin falls after a cost change is not documented. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8629-beta-track-ingredient-costs-with-square-recipes · retrieved 2026-08-01

reporting-realtime-dashboard

Square Dashboard app provides mobile back-office with real-time alerts, plus browser Dashboard. https://squareup.com/us/en/press/releases-food-and-beverage · retrieved 2026-08-01

reporting-eod-closeout

A close-of-day report exists — it is named in the offline documentation as one of the features unavailable while offline. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7777-process-card-payments-with-offline-mode · retrieved 2026-08-01

reporting-pmix-modifier-level

Item sales reporting exists across all Square plans; explicit modifier-level PMIX with net sales filterable by daypart and revenue center is not documented.

reporting-comps-voids-audit

Reasons are captured at the moment of the action ('Select a reason for comp and tap Comp'; 'Select a reason for void and tap Void'), and comps are reported: 'A comped item will show in sales reports as well as inventory reporting.' Attribution to the acting individual is documented on the Advanced Access page: 'You can monitor actions taken by individual team members through the Activity Log, such as refunds, discounts, and voided transactions.' Shortfalls: those are two separate surfaces, not one exception report joining employee, reason and timestamp; price overrides are not named in either; and nothing documents recording a separate approving manager alongside the employee who applied the comp or void. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8166-comp-void-and-reassign-checks-with-square-for-restaurants · retrieved 2026-08-09

reporting-cash-over-short

Square cash drawer reports are long-standing across the POS line but I could not verify a current documentation URL for per-shift, per-employee over/short in this pass.

reporting-labor-productivity

Timecard and labor cost reporting uses actual clocked hours. Sales per labor hour and labor percent by hour/department/employee are not documented as named reports. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6140-employee-timecard-reporting · retrieved 2026-08-01

reporting-server-scorecards differentiator

Team sales report is included with Advanced Access and is described only as sales volume by person: 'With Team sales report, you can run team member level reporting to see how much your team is selling.' Shortfall: the specific scorecard metric set the claim names - average check, items per check, attachment rate for named categories, and tips as a percentage of sales - is not enumerated on the product page or in the restaurants help centre. Tip data is captured (tips are included in the amount processing fees are taken from) but no per-server tip-percentage report is documented. https://squareup.com/us/en/staff/advanced-access · retrieved 2026-08-09

reporting-channel-profitability differentiator

Channel dimensioning is documented: on the Sales Summary report 'You can select one grouping by none, location, device, device nickname, source, channel, or collected by' and 'You can apply one or more filters to narrow the focus of your report. Choose between timeframe, channel, device, device nickname, source, or collected by.' A 'Third-party fees' metric exists. Shortfalls: the article does not enumerate the channel values, so separate lines for dine-in, direct online, first-party delivery and each marketplace are unverified; and no report is documented that nets marketplace commission out of channel revenue or reports margin by channel - third-party fees appear as their own metric rather than as a deduction against channel sales. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5381-in-app-summaries-and-reports · retrieved 2026-08-06

reporting-scheduled-delivery

Recurring emailed reporting exists but only in canned form: the configurable notification types are 'Account emails, like daily or monthly sales summaries', 'Product or feature emails, for notifications about low inventory or Square Loans payments' and 'Transactional emails for payments, refunds, or transfers', and article 5072 confirms the operator can 'configure email notifications for your daily sales summary as well as your monthly and annual sales summary'. Shortfalls: no arbitrary report can be scheduled - only the sales summary; cadence is limited to the daily/monthly/annual presets rather than a defined schedule; and recipients are not a list - notifications go 'to the email address of full access team members by default' and 'Transactional notifications can't be sent to multiple email addresses'. Only account owners can configure them. No shared-destination (SFTP, drive, webhook) delivery is documented. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/3843-email-notifications-from-square · retrieved 2026-08-06

reporting-public-api differentiator

Public REST and GraphQL APIs covering orders, payments, catalog, customers, inventory and labor, with self-serve credentials and no partner agreement. https://developer.squareup.com/reference/square · retrieved 2026-08-01

reporting-webhooks differentiator

HMAC-SHA-256-signed webhooks with 11-attempt exponential backoff over 24 hours plus Events API replay. https://developer.squareup.com/docs/webhooks/overview · retrieved 2026-08-01

reporting-api-not-upcharged differentiator

Developer account, sandbox and API access are free and self-serve; no per-location API fee or plan gate is published. https://developer.squareup.com/docs/build-basics/general-considerations/using-rest-api · retrieved 2026-08-01

reporting-tier-paywall differentiator

Advanced reporting is called out as a Square Premium ($149/mo) capability, so the deeper reporting set is not on the entry-level paid plan. Basic sales reporting is on Free. https://squareup.com/us/en/press/unified-pricing-and-packaging · retrieved 2026-08-01

reporting-history-retention differentiator

Read squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5381, which does address reporting reach but not in the form the claim needs: account owners 'view sales summary for the past 90 days' in the point of sale app, while team members 'with the reports permission to view detailed sales reporting can view full historical data' in Square Dashboard. 'Full historical data' asserts no truncation but is not a stated window, and no page on squareup.com/help/us/en that I retrieved (5381, 5072 analytics and reporting setup, 5145 transaction search) publishes a retention period in months, an archive tier or a retrieval fee. The claim requires a DOCUMENTED window of at least 24 months, and Square documents no number at all - so it can be neither confirmed nor refuted, and the community threads that discuss two-year limits are not evidence. Unresolved.

reporting-anomaly-alerts differentiator

The Square Dashboard app is marketed with 'real-time alerts'; operator-configurable metric thresholds and pattern-deviation detection are not documented. https://squareup.com/us/en/press/releases-food-and-beverage · retrieved 2026-08-01

reporting-nl-query

RE-POINTED 2026-08-10; value and grade unchanged. The cited article 8516 'Use Ask AI to get insights about your business' NO LONGER EXISTS: Square retired the id and 301s it onto article 8617, a DIFFERENT article about a RENAMED product, which resolves 200 with a real title so no status, size or title test could see the substitution. Square AI is now Managerbot, 'an artificial intelligence (AI) business partner that proactively surfaces important insights and suggestions about your business'. The natural-language query surface the claim turns on is intact and the load-bearing quotation survives verbatim on the successor: 'Business snapshot: Quickly pull up a view of key performance metrics across sales, orders, items, and customer trends', alongside 'Data exploration: Go deeper into your data by answering questions about business performance, like filtering and breaking down results by time period, location, channel, items, or customers', and it now also drafts schedules, receives inventory, runs email campaigns and bulk-updates catalogues. Availability is unchanged - 'Account owners or team members with full access permissions'. WITHDRAWN with the old article, because none of it appears on the successor: the example prompt 'What were my net sales by day of the week as a bar chart', the answer-as-table-or-chart framing, chart-type follow-ups, pin-to-auto-update, CSV download, and the open-beta caveat. The successor's own hedge replaces the last of those: 'Managerbot currently supports certain data and workflows and can't answer every question or take on every type of action within your Square account', and it is Dashboard-only - not available on Square POS apps or devices. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8617-use-managerbot-to-manage-business-tasks-and-insights · retrieved 2026-08-10

reporting-guest-cohorts differentiator

Loyalty metrics reporting exists and customer records are identifiable; new-vs-returning counts, visit frequency and lifetime spend cohorts are not documented as a report. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6467-view-your-square-loyalty-metrics · retrieved 2026-08-01

reporting-sales-forecast differentiator

Read squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8516 (Square AI), which describes answering questions over historical sales, orders, items, customers and staffing and makes no mention of forecasting or prediction; squareup.com/us/en/ai, whose eleven named capabilities include ad-hoc data questions, local web-trend lookup, pinned metrics, voice ordering, content generation and an ingredient-price Order Guide but no sales forecast; squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8142 (live sales data on Square for Restaurants POS), which shows 'details about open checks, as well as total sales that includes an overview of closed checks' with no projection; and squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5381, whose Sales Summary groupings and filters are all historical dimensions. Article 6140's labor-vs-sales report is likewise a comparison of actuals. No daypart or hourly forward projection surfaced on either host, but none of these pages enumerates Square's report catalogue exhaustively, so absence is not asserted. Unresolved.

reporting-tip-tax-compliance

Tip pooling produces per-employee allocations feeding Square Payroll, and cash tip tracking exists in Shifts Plus. Declared-vs-charged tips and a jurisdiction tax liability summary are not documented. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7654-get-started-with-tip-pooling-for-team-management · retrieved 2026-08-01

multi-location-org-hierarchy

Locations are first-class and Square for Franchises adds a corporate level above them; a named three-level enterprise > region > location object that reporting and permissions scope to is not documented. https://squareup.com/us/en/franchises · retrieved 2026-08-01

multi-location-central-menu-publish

Square for Franchises is described as a central hub controlling what franchisees can change. A one-action publish to a chosen set of locations with publish/version history is not documented. https://squareup.com/us/en/franchises · retrieved 2026-08-01

multi-location-price-zones

Per-location price variation is supported via the catalog's location-scoped pricing. Price tiers by location GROUP, by channel and by daypart on one item record are not documented. https://developer.squareup.com/docs/catalog-api/what-it-does · retrieved 2026-08-01

multi-location-consolidated-reporting

I could not find consolidated above-store reporting described anywhere in the fetched content of the franchises page beyond the page's own framing; there is no quote supporting it and no help-center documentation for Square for Franchises reporting. Cross-location reporting in the standard Dashboard is real, but the claim as scored (franchise-level consolidated reporting) rests on a sales page. https://squareup.com/us/en/franchises · retrieved 2026-08-01 adversarially verified

multi-location-cross-location-giftcard

Correct conclusion, wrong evidence: the offline-payments article only establishes that Square Gift Cards exist as a payment method, nothing about cross-location redemption. Square's gift card documentation does support redemption across all locations under one Square account — but with a limit the dossier should carry: gift cards are NOT redeemable across separate Square accounts, which is exactly how independently-owned franchisees are structured. So the franchise-relevant version of this capability is materially weaker than 'yes' implies. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8404-accept-gift-cards · retrieved 2026-08-01 adversarially verified

multi-location-cross-location-loyalty

A Square Loyalty program is defined at the account level and points accrue across the seller's POS, Invoices and Online channels under one profile. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/3952-create-a-loyalty-program-with-square · retrieved 2026-08-01

multi-location-multi-brand differentiator

Each location has its own 'Location business name' which 'appears on your customers' card statements and digital receipts', its own brand logo and colour 'reflected across Square', its own menus and location-specific reporting, so two brands can be run from one account on the same hardware. Shortfall: a device serves one location at a time - you switch via More > Switch location - and the article states 'you cannot switch locations if you're signed in to Square Register with the use of a device code'. There is no virtual-brand construct inside a single location, so two brands cannot be rung concurrently into one drawer session; the offline-payments article also warns that switching locations destroys pending offline payments. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5580-manage-multiple-locations-with-square · retrieved 2026-08-06

multi-location-multi-tax-jurisdiction

Tax settings are location-scoped in Square, but multiple simultaneous rates, prepared-food vs grocery rules, inclusive/exclusive handling and per-location exemptions are not documented as a set.

multi-location-central-labor-policy

Staff > Settings > Breaks lets you define mandatory meal/rest breaks (multiple-times-per-shift or once-per-shift eligibility), toggle 'Block Ending Breaks Early' to 'prevent team members from ending their breaks early', and convert paid break overages to unpaid - each with an 'Only This Location' / 'All Locations' scope toggle; defaults are seeded from the location's state rules, and 'A missed mandatory break creates a Missed break alert on the timecard at clock out'. Shortfalls: overtime rules (Staff > Settings > Overtime - daily, weekly, daily double-time, 7th-day) are documented with no per-location scope control at https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8390-set-your-work-period-and-overtime-rules; the scope control is a location-vs-all toggle, not location groups; and no predictive-scheduling / fair-workweek compliance enforcement is documented. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8391-set-up-breaks · retrieved 2026-08-06

hardware-commodity-devices differentiator

Square Stand ($149) and Square Kiosk ($149) turn a customer-supplied iPad into the POS; Square KDS runs on Android tablets. Proprietary Square hardware is optional, not required. https://squareup.com/us/en/hardware · retrieved 2026-08-01

hardware-os-platforms

Square publishes per-device technical specs (e.g. Handheld: Wi-Fi 6E, 25 Mbps down / 3 Mbps up recommended, 0-40C operating range) but a consolidated client-OS support matrix with minimum iOS/Android versions was not found. https://squareup.com/us/en/hardware/handheld/specs · retrieved 2026-08-01

hardware-handheld-purpose-built

Square Handheld is purpose-built with an integrated reader and publishes an IP54 ingress rating, but publishes no drop rating — it names Gorilla Glass Victus and an optional Belkin case instead. https://squareup.com/us/en/hardware/handheld/specs · retrieved 2026-08-01

hardware-handheld-battery-swap differentiator

Square states 'a battery designed to last through a shift' but publishes no rated hours, and the battery is not documented as field-replaceable or hot-swappable. https://squareup.com/us/en/hardware/handheld/specs · retrieved 2026-08-01

hardware-handheld-lte

The published spec sheet enumerates connectivity as Wi-Fi 6E only. No cellular option is listed for Square Handheld. https://squareup.com/us/en/hardware/handheld/specs · retrieved 2026-08-01

hardware-offline-mode

Offline mode is supported across Register, Terminal, Handheld, Stand and Readers, and Square publishes an explicit list of what degrades. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7777-process-card-payments-with-offline-mode · retrieved 2026-08-01

hardware-kds

Square KDS is a first-party Android kitchen display with station routing, expo mode, timers and alerts; $30/mo/device on Plus, $20 on Premium. https://squareup.com/us/en/point-of-sale/restaurants/kitchen-display-system · retrieved 2026-08-01

hardware-kiosk differentiator

Square Kiosk is an iPad-based self-service stand at $149 with $50/$30 per-device monthly software. Freestanding form factor and documented ADA conformance not found. https://squareup.com/us/en/hardware · retrieved 2026-08-01

hardware-drive-thru

No outdoor menu boards, order confirmation displays, headset integration or speed-of-service timers appear anywhere in Square's hardware line.

hardware-printer-compatibility

Score survives but the citation is wrong and does not support it. I fetched /hardware/compare: it compares only Square-branded devices (Handheld, Terminal, Stand, Register, Kiosk, Reader) and names no third-party printers, drawers, scanners or displays. The supporting evidence is elsewhere — Square's printer compatibility page and hardware-compatibility-by-device article, which name Star and Epson USB/Bluetooth/Wi-Fi/Ethernet receipt and impact kitchen printers (e.g. Star SP742ML/SP742ME). https://squareup.com/us/en/compatibility/accessories/printers · retrieved 2026-08-01 adversarially verified

hardware-peripherals

Square's Accessory Compatibility page (formerly help article 6334, which now redirects here) enumerates supported third-party models by category — Printers, Cash drawers, Barcode scanners, Scales and Other — with connection types and setup notes per device. Note it does NOT carry a customer-display category, so this cell rests on the four enumerated peripheral classes. https://squareup.com/us/en/compatibility/accessories · retrieved 2026-08-09 adversarially verified

hardware-p2pe-terminal

PCI-listed devices are now verifiable: Square's Trust Center links its PCI PTS approvals ('S8, S8-1; SPC1-01; SPC2; SPD1-01-A; SPD2; SPD3; SPG1-01, SPH1; SPG1-02, SPH1-02; SPS4; SPS5') and its PCI MPoC listing, reference 2025-01254.001, whose PCI SSC record names 'Square Point of Sale (SPOS) / Square for Appointments (APOS) / Square for Restaurants (RST)...' and lists PTS POI approvals 4-10253 (S8, S8-1), 4-30355 (SPC1-01) and others alongside 'PTS POI contactless (with COTS-native PIN support)'. Encryption is stated first-party: 'All card-present payments are encrypted from end to end.' Shortfalls: what Square holds is an E2EE architecture attestation ('Square P2PE-E2EE Statement letter', NDA-gated), not a PCI-listed validated P2PE solution; and Square nowhere states the merchant's applicable SAQ type - the closest artefact is the NDA-gated 'PCI DSS Merchant Responsibility Matrix 4.0.1', whose published description does not name an SAQ. https://trust.squareup.com/ · retrieved 2026-08-09 · not refetchable · site policy · graded B when read

hardware-tap-to-phone differentiator

Tap to Pay on iPhone and Tap to Pay on Android are supported Square acceptance methods requiring no separate reader. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7777-process-card-payments-with-offline-mode · retrieved 2026-08-01

hardware-pricing-transparency differentiator

Every SKU is priced publicly: Register $899, Handheld $399, Terminal $299, Stand $149, Kiosk $149. https://squareup.com/us/en/hardware · retrieved 2026-08-01

hardware-ownership-vs-lease differentiator

Outright purchase is the headline price for every SKU, with optional 12- or 24-month installment financing as an alternative. No mandatory lease. https://squareup.com/us/en/hardware · retrieved 2026-08-01

hardware-usable-after-churn differentiator

Square Register, Terminal and Handheld run only Square's software; no documentation supports repurposing them with third-party POS software after cancellation. Square does not affirmatively state this either way.

hardware-rma-sla differentiator

Warranty terms are published per device: one year from shipping date for Square Terminal, Square Kiosk, Square Handheld, Square Stand (1st/2nd gen), Reader for contactless and chip and power adapters/hubs; two years for Square Register, its Customer Display and Hub; six months for Reader for magstripe. Exchange is advance-ship: Square sends the replacement first and 'within 14 days of receiving your replacement hardware, send us your old hardware', with a card on file charged only if the defective unit is not returned in that window. Shortfall: no turnaround SLA is stated - neither this article nor the legal Hardware Policies page (squareup.com/us/en/legal/general/hardware) commits to next-business-day or any other despatch/delivery time for the replacement, and no purchasable extended-warranty or depot-swap plan is offered. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5148-square-hardware-limited-warranty-and-returns · retrieved 2026-08-06

hardware-byod

Staff run the POS app on their own phone and take card payments with no Square hardware: 'Accept contactless payments anywhere on-the-go with just your iPhone - no card reader needed.' The permission and rollout model is documented: the article is scoped to 'team members with the checkout permission to take payments', and 'Once the account owner enables Tap to Pay... all team members under the same account with an eligible device will automatically be able to use Tap to Pay on iPhone.' Device security requirements are stated (iPhone XS or newer, current iOS, automatic date and time, and a device passcode must be set), and there is a dedicated 'Security practices for Tap to Pay on iPhone' section. The equivalent Android article is 7960. Independently listed: PCI SSC MPoC solution 2025-01254.001 covers 'Square for Restaurants (RST)' for COTS-native contactless with PIN on glass. Limits worth noting: no offline payments on Tap to Pay, and it is unavailable in the Square Point of Sale app when signed in with a device code. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7786-get-started-with-tap-to-pay-on-iphone · retrieved 2026-08-09

hardware-remote-device-management differentiator

RE-POINTED 2026-08-10; value and grade unchanged. The cited article 8098 'Add and manage devices remotely' NO LONGER EXISTS: Square retired the id and 301s it onto article 8339 'Set up device codes', which resolves 200 with a real title. Both load-bearing quotations survive verbatim on the successor: 'you can view all of your device specific information like locations, connectivity, applications used, and more' and 'You can also view errors and status for peripherals connected to your devices', with a View-and-filter-devices step and a Remove-devices step, and Kiosk still a first-class device type at enrolment. The cited filter list ('Status, Location, Device type, Installed apps and Mode') and the Modes cross-reference are re-worded on the successor and are withdrawn as quotations; modes are still described as a companion feature ('while setting up a mode is not a requirement for using device codes, it is beneficial to use both features together'). Shortfalls unchanged: no remote reboot - the nightly reboot time is changed on the device itself under Settings > Hardware > General; no software version in the console's documented columns; and no staged or phased rollout - per https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8346-update-software-on-square-terminal-and-square-register 'software updates are released every 2 weeks' and run automatically overnight, with only a per-device Defer Update option. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8339-set-up-device-codes · retrieved 2026-08-10

hardware-selfpour-scales

iPourIt's own integration page states its self-pour platform integrates 'directly with your POS system, whether it is GoTab, Toast, Clover, Square, or others', so a self-pour tap-wall integration for Square exists. Shortfalls: this is the hardware partner's own marketing page, not independent reporting and not Square documentation; Square publishes nothing on self-pour walls, flow meters or liquor pour spouts in its help centre and no such app was located in the Square App Marketplace restaurants category (squareup.com/us/en/app-marketplace/category/restaurants, which renders client-side and returned an empty shell to a Googlebot fetch); and neither source documents that pours post automatically to an open Square tab, which is what this claim asks. iPourIt separately describes POS integration as a collaborative per-deployment project rather than a self-serve connector. https://ipouritinc.com/streamlining-operations-integrating-ipourit-with-your-pos-system/ · retrieved 2026-08-06

hardware-callerid-integration

Checked squareup.com/help (no article on caller ID, phone-order screen pop or telephony/CTI in the restaurants topic), squareup.com/us/en/point-of-sale/restaurants/integrations, and the Square App Marketplace restaurants category at squareup.com/us/en/app-marketplace/category/restaurants - the category page renders client-side and returned only a shell to a Googlebot fetch. The two telephony listings surfaced, ReachifyAI for Restaurants and SoundHound for Restaurants, are AI voice agents that answer the phone, take the order and inject it into Square as an online order; the ReachifyAI listing describes menu/availability sync and SMS payment links and says nothing about identifying an inbound caller or displaying a customer record or order history on the POS. No caller-ID hardware support is documented on developer.squareup.com either. App directories are not exhaustive, so this remains unresolved rather than negative.

extensibility-public-api-docs

Full REST and GraphQL reference is public with no NDA, partner agreement or sales call. https://developer.squareup.com/reference/square · retrieved 2026-08-01

extensibility-api-access-cost differentiator

No per-location API fee, surcharge or plan upgrade is published as a condition of API access. https://developer.squareup.com/docs/build-basics/general-considerations/using-rest-api · retrieved 2026-08-01

extensibility-free-sandbox differentiator

Free Sandbox environment at https://connect.squareupsandbox.com/v2, available without a paid production account. https://developer.squareup.com/docs/build-basics/general-considerations/using-rest-api · retrieved 2026-08-01

extensibility-oauth-partner-apps

OAuth 2.0 is the documented path for third parties: 'use OAuth to ask the account owner for resource permissions so that you can work on their behalf' — scoped and seller-revocable, distinct from a personal access token. https://developer.squareup.com/docs/build-basics/general-considerations/using-rest-api · retrieved 2026-08-01

extensibility-webhooks-push

Push webhooks for order, payment, refund, inventory and customer lifecycle events; polling is not required. https://developer.squareup.com/docs/webhooks/overview · retrieved 2026-08-01

extensibility-webhook-reliability differentiator

HMAC-SHA-256 signature over signature key + notification URL + raw body; 11 retry attempts over 24 hours with exponential backoff and square-retry-number headers; Events API for replaying missed deliveries. https://developer.squareup.com/docs/webhooks/step3validate · retrieved 2026-08-01

extensibility-order-injection-api

Real limitation: only 'Orders with fulfillment that have been fully paid are pushed to the Square Point of Sale and Square Dashboard Order Manager'. An unpaid external order is not a first-class open ticket. https://developer.squareup.com/docs/orders-api/what-it-does · retrieved 2026-08-01

extensibility-menu-write-api differentiator

Catalog API supports upsert of items, variations, modifier lists, modifiers, categories, item options, pricing rules, time periods and images. https://developer.squareup.com/docs/catalog-api/what-it-does · retrieved 2026-08-01

extensibility-doordash-preferred differentiator

Substance verified, citation is broken and the date is wrong. That URL 404s (host moved to merchants.doordash.com). DoorDash's own newsroom confirms the 2026 cohort — Checkmate, Chowly, Deliverect, Otter, PAR, Qu, Square, Stream, Toast, UrbanPiper — 'based on performance and feature sets as of May 8, 2026', with qualification criteria including sub-1% order/error rates, self-serve onboarding, real-time menu sync, live item availability and order-ready notifications. The two cells that infer an order-ready callback from this (order-capture-order-ready-signal, kitchen-order-ready-callback) are c https://about.doordash.com/en-us/news/doordash-preferred-integrations-program-2026 · retrieved 2026-08-01 adversarially verified

extensibility-first-party-delivery-integrations differentiator

DoorDash and Uber Eats are direct, vendor-maintained integrations managed from Square Dashboard. Grubhub is not — it requires paid middleware. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8518-integrate-doordash-with-square · retrieved 2026-08-01

extensibility-middleware-compatibility

Deliverect is a listed Square App Marketplace app; Chowly, Otter and Checkmate also support Square as an endpoint. https://squareup.com/us/en/app-marketplace/app/deliverect · retrieved 2026-08-01

extensibility-accounting-connectors

QuickBooks Online sync is documented (including payroll sync). A second GL system with mapped journal entries rather than CSV was not verified. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/topic/staff-and-payroll · retrieved 2026-08-01

extensibility-payroll-export

Square Payroll is native and QuickBooks Online sync exists; two named third-party payroll provider integrations were not verified. https://squareup.com/us/en/payroll/pricing · retrieved 2026-08-01

extensibility-app-marketplace

Square App Marketplace is public and browsable with self-install of named third-party apps. https://squareup.com/us/en/app-marketplace/app/doordash · retrieved 2026-08-01

extensibility-headless-embedded

Orders API plus Terminal API and the Mobile Payments SDK let a third-party UI drive Square's transaction engine, but full open-check headless control is constrained by the fully-paid push requirement. https://developer.squareup.com/docs/orders-api/what-it-does · retrieved 2026-08-01

extensibility-data-portability-exit differentiator

While the account is live, CSV export plus full API read is available at no cost. At contract end there is no documented complete-export process and no guaranteed retention window — Square 'may (but have no obligation to) delete' account data. https://squareup.com/us/en/legal/general/ua · retrieved 2026-08-01

reliability-offline-order-entry

Offline acceptance continues on Register/Terminal/Handheld indefinitely (24 hours on Reader/Stand), but Square documents the offline path in payment terms and does not confirm ticket routing or check printing behavior. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7777-process-card-payments-with-offline-mode · retrieved 2026-08-01

reliability-offline-card-auth differentiator

Held to the highest bar and it survives: Square documents merchant-set per-transaction limits 'between $1 and $50,000', offline acceptance on Register/Terminal/Handheld/Stand/Readers (Stand and Reader capped at 24 hours of acceptance), a hard 72-hour upload expiry, and unambiguous merchant liability: 'You're responsible for any expired, declined, or disputed payments accepted while taking offline payments.' One correction: the dossier's '$100 default' and 'accept offline indefinitely' phrasing were not confirmed in the fetched text — the durable documented facts are the 24-hour acceptance wind https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7777-process-card-payments-with-offline-mode · retrieved 2026-08-01 adversarially verified

reliability-offline-decline-liability differentiator

Square states plainly that the seller bears the loss on expired, declined or disputed offline payments, publishes the per-transaction cap, and sets a 72-hour expiry after which payments cannot be retrieved or reprocessed. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7777-process-card-payments-with-offline-mode · retrieved 2026-08-01

reliability-lan-degraded-multi-terminal differentiator

Re-read squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8348 on 2026-08-06: it is a firewall-configuration page whose operative sentence is 'Square devices require the following protocols and their corresponding ports to be allowed through your firewall' (NTP; HTTPS on port 443), with network printer ports flagged as not requiring internet access. It makes no completeness claim and, being a perimeter allowlist, does not describe device-to-device traffic on the local network, so it cannot establish that terminals stop sharing a check over the LAN. Also read article/6429 (manage checks), which says nothing about offline behaviour, syncing or multiple devices, and article/7777, whose explicit 'Restrictions and unsupported features with offline payments' section enumerates unsupported hardware, payment types and apps plus close-of-day reporting - and does not list open checks or table state. Square's own statement that 'Offline payments are securely stored in your point of sale app while your device is offline' is about stored payments, not check state. Unresolved: no Square page states whether a shared check remains visible on a second terminal during an internet outage. adversarially verified

reliability-local-transaction-engine differentiator

Square is a purely cloud request/response architecture; no on-premise edge server or local transaction engine appears anywhere in its hardware or developer documentation.

reliability-offline-kds-printing

Square's network requirements article states affirmatively that the ports used for network printers - 'UDP: 22222, 3289' and 'TCP: 9100:9109' - 'do not require access to the internet', i.e. POS-to-kitchen-printer ticket traffic is a local-network path independent of Square's cloud. (An earlier version of this note also argued that the offline-payments article's 'Restrictions and unsupported features' list does not name kitchen printing; that leg is withdrawn - article 7777's list enumerates hardware, payment types, apps, Loyalty and close-of-day reporting and does not claim to be exhaustive of device behaviour, so its silence establishes nothing.) On the Square Community thread 'Can you use an ethernet kitchen printer when in offline mode' the only stated limitation is from a Square Champion, 2023-09-13: 'you can not use network printers in offline mode IF you have to force offline mode by disconnecting from your WiFi network' - i.e. the LAN itself must stay up, which is the normal internet-outage case. Shortfall: Square KDS is cloud-routed and has no offline mode - on the Square Community thread 'KDS Offline Mode' (https://community.squareup.com/t5/Food-and-Beverage/KDS-Offline-Mode/td-p/709200) nika, a Square Community Program Manager, answered on 2025-09-26 that offline mode for KDS 'IS IN DEVELOPMENT! Looking at 2026 but not certain at what point in the year'. So printers can keep printing over the LAN while KDS screens stop receiving orders during an internet or Square outage. Square publishes no article that says in so many words 'kitchen printing continues during an outage'; the printer half rests on the internet-independence sentence above. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8348-set-up-network-requirements-for-square-hardware · retrieved 2026-08-06

reliability-printer-fallback

The printer profiles article enumerates the entire printer configuration surface (creation from Square Dashboard > Settings > Device management > Profiles > Printer profiles, from the POS app, or from Square KDS) and every setting for every job type - Receipts, In-person order tickets, Online & kiosk order tickets, Order ticket stubs, Void tickets, Barcode Labels - covering font size, single item per ticket, ticket margins, footer, Categories to Print, Include future categories, kitchen names, combine identical items, sorting and compact tickets. No backup-printer, failover, retry or print-failure alert option appears anywhere in it. Routing is described as unconditional fan-out: 'When an order includes an item that belongs to multiple categories, it triggers printing of the order ticket on each printer linked to a printer profile matching any of those categories' - there is no conditional 'if unreachable' semantics. The only failure signalling documented is passive: on iOS an unconfigured printer raises a warning in the Hardware Hub status bar, and Dashboard > Device Management shows 'errors and status for peripherals connected to your devices' - neither is an automatic failover. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8245-set-up-printer-profiles · retrieved 2026-08-06

reliability-sync-conflict-handling

Checked squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7777 (offline payments - describes device-local storage and expiry but says nothing about concurrent edits), article 8348 (network requirements), article 8098 (device management), article 8103 (KDS missing orders) and article 6429 (check management), plus developer.squareup.com/docs/orders-api/how-it-works and the UpdateOrder reference. The Orders API carries an order 'version' field and UpdateOrder requires 'the latest version of the order to update', which implies optimistic concurrency, but the reference does not state what happens on a version mismatch and none of these pages describe last-write-wins, merge or operator-prompt behaviour for two POS devices editing the same check during a network partition. Since Square's model is cloud-mediated the situation may not arise in the same form, but the vendor has not documented the behaviour either way, so this stays unresolved rather than negative.

reliability-offline-feature-matrix

Square publishes an explicit unavailable-offline list: Afterpay, Cash App Pay, Square Gift Cards, Tap to Pay on iPhone/Android, manually-keyed cards, Square Invoices, POS services mode, the Kiosk app, loyalty point accrual, and close-of-day reporting. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7777-process-card-payments-with-offline-mode · retrieved 2026-08-01

reliability-public-status-page

issquareup.com is Square's official public status hub (incident.io), reachable without a login. https://www.issquareup.com/ · retrieved 2026-08-01

reliability-247-live-support

24/7 phone support is explicitly a Square Premium ($149/mo/location) entitlement, not included in the Free or $49 Plus base subscription. https://squareup.com/us/en/press/unified-pricing-and-packaging · retrieved 2026-08-01

reliability-onsite-install differentiator

Square's own post announcing Premium Networking Solutions has a section 'Professional installers for hands-off setup': 'we've built a network of certified installers who follow the same configuration guidelines we recommend. This is especially useful for larger or more complex spaces... Connect with your Sales rep to understand if you are eligible for site assessment and installation of networking equipment.' The restaurants product page likewise says 'Square Support is here to help you with everything from migrating gift cards to onsite networking installation'. Shortfalls: this is a certified third-party installer network for networking equipment only, not POS installation or go-live support; it is eligibility-gated through a sales rep rather than offered as a purchasable service; no first-party on-site POS install or go-live programme is documented; and the documented default path is self-install with step-by-step guides. Evidence is a vendor blog post, not documentation. https://squareup.com/us/en/the-bottom-line/inside-square/professionalgrade-network-connectivity · retrieved 2026-08-06

reliability-menu-build-service differentiator

Square Dashboard > Menus > Create a Menu offers 'Upload a file, photo, or URL of your existing menu' (PDF, JPG or PNG, or a link) via the WoFlow integration: you name the menu, pick the location, and 'Square will send you an email when your menu is ready. Most menu builds take under 24 hours.' A second path, 'Import your menu from another platform', transfers menu data from an existing platform such as Toast or DoorDash by signing in to that platform or sharing a public URL, after which the operator reviews and clicks Approve. The build is done for the operator rather than left to them. Caveat on scope: what is built is the item/price menu - the operator still configures modifiers, kitchen routing categories, floor plan and printer profiles - and the pipeline is automated (WoFlow) rather than a staffed onboarding consultant. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6424-create-menus-with-square-for-restaurants · retrieved 2026-08-06

reliability-hardware-replacement-sla

A no-cost advance-exchange programme is included with every unit's warranty: Square ships the replacement first and 'within 14 days of receiving your replacement hardware, send us your old hardware, including all original cables and accessories', with a prepaid label emailed after the claim and a card charged only if the old unit is not returned in that window. Warranty coverage is one year from shipping date for most hardware, two years for Square Register and its Customer Display and Hub, six months for Reader for magstripe. Shortfall: no turnaround time is stated - neither this article nor the legal Hardware Policies page commits to a despatch or delivery timeframe for the replacement - and no purchasable upgrade (expedited swap, depot service or extended protection plan) is offered. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5148-square-hardware-limited-warranty-and-returns · retrieved 2026-08-06

reliability-pci-dss-4-attestation

The Square Trust Center publishes 'PCI DSS AOC', document 'Square PCI DSS 4.0.1 Service Providers AOC 2026', described as: 'Square is certified as a PCI DSS 4.0.1 Level 1 Service Provider, the highest level of PCI DSS validation. We validate this certification on an annual basis.' It is accompanied by a 'PCI DSS Merchant Responsibility Matrix' at 4.0.1 and a 'PCI PIN' AOC, and by two public PCI SSC listings - PCI PTS approvals and an MPoC solution listing (reference 2025-01254.001) that names Square for Restaurants. A 4.0.1 attestation dated 2026 necessarily covers the requirements that became effective 31 March 2025. The AOC itself is released on an NDA request through the portal, which is the standard posture and is precisely the obtaining route the previous note said did not exist. Retrieval note: trust.squareup.com is a Vendict SPA; the index was read from its public backing API. https://trust.squareup.com/ · retrieved 2026-08-09 · not refetchable · site policy · graded B when read

reliability-mfa-role-based-access

MFA is documented and enforceable business-wide, not merely available: under 'Business two-step verification, toggle on Two-step verification for team members', after which 'Each time they sign in, they need their passcode and a verification code'; 'If team members don't enable two-step verification after reading the email, they'll be required to do so the next time they sign in to their Square account,' and new team members see the setup when their account is created. Three factors are supported - SMS, voice call, or an authenticator app (Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, Authy) - and it covers both surfaces the claim names: 'every time you sign in to the Square app or Square Dashboard'. Role-based permissions are the Advanced Access custom permission sets. Weakening detail worth recording: 'Remember this device for 90 days' suppresses the code between re-challenges. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5593-2-step-verification · retrieved 2026-08-09

reliability-self-serve-training

Square University is a free public training library with restaurant-specific courses (e.g. 'Square Terminal: Table Maps & Coursing'). A terminal training/practice mode is not documented. https://squareup.com/us/en/square-university/restaurants/square-terminal-table-maps-coursing · retrieved 2026-08-01

reliability-failover-terminal-role differentiator

Re-read squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8348 on 2026-08-06. The page says 'Square devices require the following protocols and their corresponding ports to be allowed through your firewall' and lists NTP and HTTPS on port 443 plus network-printer ports that do not require internet access. It makes no completeness claim and describes perimeter firewall configuration, not the product's device architecture, so the absence of a peer-coordination or local-server port on it does not establish that Square for Restaurants has no master/server terminal role. The device-management enrolment surface (per-device codes, and filters for Status, Location, Device type, Installed apps, Mode) likewise shows no primary/secondary designation, but a device-list filter set is not an architectural statement. No Square page asserts either that a controller/primary terminal exists or that none does, and no failover behaviour is described anywhere. Unresolved. adversarially verified

reliability-cellular-backup

Square Handheld's published connectivity spec is Wi-Fi 6E only, with no cellular option. No first-party LTE failover product is documented. https://squareup.com/us/en/hardware/handheld/specs · retrieved 2026-08-01

commercial-month-to-month-contract differentiator

Terms state subscription fees are 'charged on the first of every month until canceled' and cancellation is self-serve from account settings; the pricing page states 'no locked-in contracts.' https://squareup.com/us/en/legal/general/ua · retrieved 2026-08-01

commercial-no-early-termination-fee differentiator

No ETF or liquidated damages appear in the General Terms; the only stated consequence is no refund or credit for a fee already due or paid. https://squareup.com/us/en/legal/general/ua · retrieved 2026-08-01

commercial-autorenew-terms-published

Monthly auto-charge until cancellation is stated in public terms, with cancellation available at any time from account settings — no notice window required. https://squareup.com/us/en/legal/general/ua · retrieved 2026-08-01

commercial-processing-not-bundled differentiator

Square is the merchant of record for all card volume and the POS cannot be operated with a third-party processor. Square's fee article enumerates acceptance economics with no processor selection in it: 'you'll always pay one low rate per card payment'; 'This fee covers all credit card fees and applies to every card brand at the same rate... and applies to all businesses'; 'Square's processing fees are deducted before funds are transferred to your linked bank account'; and the only non-Square tenders recognised are 'Cash, Check, and Other Tender'. The security page states the structural reason - 'As the merchant of record, we maintain PCI certification so you don't have to individually validate your compliance' - and the Trust Center describes Square as a 'PCI DSS 4.0.1 Level 1 Service Provider', i.e. the processor itself. This is the platform's hardest lock-in. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5068-what-are-square-s-fees · retrieved 2026-08-09

commercial-interchange-plus-published differentiator

Square publishes only blended flat rates (2.6/2.5/2.4% + 15c card present). Volume pricing exists as quote-only 'Square Pro'; no bps + per-transaction markup is published. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5068-what-are-square-s-fees · retrieved 2026-08-01

commercial-rate-increase-clause differentiator

Square's General Terms contain no cap and no prohibition on unilateral increases: 'We reserve the right to change any Subscription Fee upon reasonable advance notice. Your continued use of Subscription Services after notice of a change to our Subscription Fee will automatically establish your agreement to such changes.' No definition of 'reasonable' notice is given and no clause ties an increase to a special exit right. What partly satisfies the claim is the absence of lock-in rather than a rate clause: 'You may cancel a Subscription Service at any time from your Square Account settings', with no termination fee, and the restaurants pricing page markets 'No long-term contracts required'. Shortfalls: the exit right is general, not granted on increase; a cancelling seller keeps access only through the current billing period and 'will not be entitled to a refund or credit for any Subscription Fee already due or paid', so an increase cannot be escaped mid-period; and the terms contain no cap on changes to card-processing rates either, only pass-through language. https://squareup.com/us/en/legal/general/ua · retrieved 2026-08-06

commercial-pricing-published

$0 / $49 / $149 per location per month published, plus per-device add-on pricing (KDS $30 or $20; Kiosk $50 or $30) and the $99/location MarketMan inventory add-on. Only Square Pro is contact-sales. https://squareup.com/us/en/point-of-sale/restaurants/pricing · retrieved 2026-08-01

commercial-module-unbundling differentiator

The October 2025 reset moved the OPPOSITE way — 18 a-la-carte subscriptions collapsed into three bundles, so online ordering, loyalty, marketing and staff are no longer separately cancellable. Only KDS, Kiosk, Restaurant Inventory, Payroll and Franchises remain independently priced add-ons. https://squareup.com/us/en/press/unified-pricing-and-packaging · retrieved 2026-08-01

commercial-hardware-purchase-outright

Every terminal, stand, kiosk and register is purchasable outright at a published price; financing is optional. Printers and drawers are third-party purchasable. https://squareup.com/us/en/hardware · retrieved 2026-08-01

commercial-hardware-not-locked differentiator

Support documentation covers receipt and kitchen printers connected over Ethernet, Wi-Fi, USB, Bluetooth and AirPrint, states 'AirPrint support helps the integration with any printer that uses AirPrint protocol', and names non-Square models (Brother QL-1110, Star TSP847II) as popular AirPrint printers; it also documents the POS app running on customer-supplied iOS and Android devices (Android needing a USB OTG adapter), and notes the limitation that connecting a printer directly to an iOS device via Lightning or USB-C is not supported. Article 7103 gives per-brand Epson and Star procedures for reading the printer's IP (hold Feed while powering on) and assigning a static IP for kitchen printing; article 8354 documents USB and printer-driven cash drawers including the Star mPOP. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8246-connect-a-printer-to-square · retrieved 2026-08-06

commercial-data-export-self-serve

Transaction, item, customer and labor data are exportable to CSV from Dashboard and readable in full via the free public API, with no support ticket or fee. https://developer.squareup.com/reference/square · retrieved 2026-08-01

commercial-export-customer-and-loyalty differentiator

Customer records export via Customer Directory CSV and the Customers API. Loyalty point ledger and gift-card outstanding-liability balances are not documented as exportable artifacts. https://developer.squareup.com/reference/square · retrieved 2026-08-01

commercial-post-termination-export-window differentiator

Explicitly absent: on termination Square 'may (but have no obligation to) delete your information and account data stored on our servers.' No defined retrieval window. https://squareup.com/us/en/legal/general/ua · retrieved 2026-08-01

commercial-data-ownership-clause differentiator

Section 5 says you 'retain all rights in your Content' but simultaneously grants Square a 'worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully-paid, transferable, irrevocable, perpetual, and sub-licensable' license to use it. Ownership is nominal; the license is broad and not constrained to aggregated or de-identified use. https://squareup.com/us/en/legal/general/ua · retrieved 2026-08-01

commercial-pci-p2pe-tokenization

Hardware-encrypted card entry is documented and independently listed: the PCI SSC MPoC listing (reference 2025-01254.001) names Square for Restaurants and records PTS POI contact and contactless entry with COTS-native PIN, backed by PTS approvals 4-10253 (S8, S8-1), 4-30355 (SPC1-01) and others; Square states 'no unencrypted payment data touches your device or application... All card-present payments are encrypted from end to end.' Card-on-file tokenization is a documented product. Shortfalls: what Square holds is an E2EE architecture attestation letter, not a PCI-listed validated P2PE solution; and Square does not name the seller's applicable SAQ type anywhere - the nearest artefact, the NDA-gated 'PCI DSS Merchant Responsibility Matrix 4.0.1', is described as delineating requirement ownership, not as assigning an SAQ. https://trust.squareup.com/ · retrieved 2026-08-09 · not refetchable · site policy · graded B when read

commercial-pci-dss-4-controls

Checked squareup.com/us/en/security/details (credentials section lists only 'ISO 27001 certified' and 'PCI Data Security Standard, Level 1' - no version, no v4.0.1 future-dated controls), help article 3796 'Understand Square's privacy and security measures' (states Square handles PCI on the seller's behalf so 'we don't require account holders to validate PCI compliance', and redirects compliance-document requests to the Square Trust Center), help article 3797 on data encryption, and the network requirements article 8348. Square's editorial PCI explainers on The Bottom Line discuss v4.0.1 generically as industry guidance, not as controls Square documents for its own product, and cannot be read as a product claim. The Trust Center at trust.squareup.com returns HTTP 200 but is a client-rendered Vendict portal whose body is only a 'Loading...' shell to an unauthenticated Googlebot fetch, so any AOC or PCI DSS v4.0.1 attestation is gated behind a request/NDA flow. Nothing on squareup.com or developer.squareup.com addresses MFA into the cardholder data environment for POS or back-office logins, or Req 6.4.3 / 11.6.1 payment-page script integrity monitoring for hosted ordering pages.

commercial-privacy-dsar-tooling

In-app GDPR tooling is documented: 'If you receive a data request under GDPR from one of your Square customers, you can use our GDPR Dashboard Tool to fulfil your customer's requests and download a report to document your compliance', with 'most of the information you need available directly from your online Square Dashboard', plus a DeleteCustomer API endpoint for data held by app integrations and in-app edit/merge/delete of customer profiles. A DPA the operator can rely on is published at https://squareup.com/us/en/legal/general/data-processing, covering Square as processor and as controller, the CCPA service-provider undertakings, subprocessor notification and standard contractual clauses for transfers. Shortfalls: there is no equivalent in-app CCPA/CPRA request tool - help article 6753 gives sellers procedural guidance and a phone number/portal for submitting the seller's own request to Square, not a per-guest workflow; the GDPR tool 'can only fulfil requests made by your customers' and employee requests must be routed to Square's Customer Success team; and for data held on Square's side the US GDPR FAQ tells sellers to 'contact Square to obtain any personal data stored on our end' rather than exporting it themselves. https://squareup.com/help/gb/en/article/6419-gdpr-on-how-to-handle-a-data-request-from-your-customers-or-employees · retrieved 2026-08-06

commercial-wcag-kiosk-accessibility differentiator

A documented audio non-visual access mode exists on buyer-facing hardware: 'TalkBack is automatically enabled on the Square Terminal, Square Handheld, and on the customer display for Square Register when headphones are inserted into the audio jack', with Square Terminal and the Square Register customer display carrying audio jacks and Square Handheld shipping a USB-C audio jack adapter; VoiceOver is supported on iOS and Square Stand, and a documented limitation is that VoiceOver/TalkBack are unavailable when a Reader for magstripe (headset jack, v1) occupies the jack without a splitter. Shortfalls: no accessibility conformance report is published - squareup.com/us/en/legal/general/accessibility returns 404, the security pages claim only ISO 27001 and PCI DSS Level 1, and the Trust Center at trust.squareup.com is a client-rendered Vendict portal that serves no document list to an unauthenticated fetch; no WCAG 2.1 AA conformance claim appears for any Square surface; the accessibility article does not mention the Square Kiosk product at all, and Square Online's web-accessibility article (7131) offers site-owner guidance plus third-party marketplace widgets rather than a conformance claim for Square's own checkout. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8337-set-up-accessibility-features · retrieved 2026-08-06

commercial-dual-pricing-compliant differentiator

Surcharging shipped in the May 2025 F&B release as 'pass credit card fees to customers'. Automatic debit/prepaid exclusion, network cap enforcement, and required receipt/menu-board disclosure are not documented. https://squareup.com/us/en/press/releases-food-and-beverage · retrieved 2026-08-01