Square is a financial services company or more specifically a Fintech company and the company behind Cashapp with 30 million active monthly users. Square makes small business happen. You probably have already used Square if you bought food from a food truck or farmers market, I called an exterminator the other day and the guy used Square payment technology. They provide hardware like mag-stripe and chip readers for credit cards that can be attached to any phone. The company also offers equipment like their fully teched-out Square cash registers that can handle contactless tap-to-pay, chip readers, and digital pay terminals that can process things like Apple Pay. Square can also run the entire payment processing and payroll for a business. Their technology can collect data about a store's business metrics, like sales or inventory. This data can then be used to automatize the business operation by providing software that automatically compiles it to run the business more efficiently.
For example, a restaurant that uses Square can have all its online order receipts that are ordered through Doordash, Caviar, Postmates, and so on come straight to one digital location. Traditionally a restaurant had to manually enter all the different orders because the delivery app companies do not work together, but they all work with Square. All of the sales go to one Square tablet and the software analyzes the data and spits out reports that show trends, areas of concerns, and whatever the user wants to see, average daily sales, average sales by hour, average ticket price on a Saturday morning, you name it, front of the house, back of the house doesn’t matter the company does it all.
Square is also licensed to operate as a bank and can give out loans, and because the company already knows the specifics of your business they don’t need your credit report but can just look at the data and give you the perfect loan for your business situation. These loans are unique business loans because they have no interest, instead, they have a one-time fee, there is no late payment fee and the payback is automatic through a percentage of your daily card sales. No need to worry about when to make payments, on a slow day with few sales, you pay less, and the loan is adjusted. Because Square has the data on the business, it can calculate the best way for the business to pay back the money without losing revenue.
All this information is available to the owner of this business to help make the business more productive, more effective, and more profitable. Since 2014 Square extended over $ 6.8 Billion in loans to over 340,000 merchants, and according to Square 95% of these recipients said that as a result, their business grew. Square also participated in the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and their users can apply for the program through them.
Besides payroll, you can use Square technology to offer health benefits, track employee hours, and even let Square automate tax filings! This is a major timesaver for small businesses and can help them focus on ways to grow the business. Square even helps small businesses provide things like, workers comp, and 401(k)’s, things that are usually only available at large corporations. Square is a tech-oriented company that helps make small business happen in America, there is not much they cannot do for the business owner. If small businesses are the backbone of the American economy then Square and companies like it are the vertebrae.
Thanks,
The Punkrock Capitalist
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