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Create and manage Square house accounts

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Who is this article for?
  • Sellers with the House Accounts permission to create, edit and invoice house accounts can manage house accounts.
  • Sellers with the House Accounts permission to view and check out a house account can charge to a house account. Set permissions in Square Dashboard.

About Square house accounts

Square house accounts allow you to check out an order to a customer’s house account and collect payment by invoice or card on file as agreed between you and your customer.

With Square house accounts, you can allow customers to receive products and services without having to pay for them immediately. 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.

House accounts are ideal to build loyalty with your customers and encourage repeat business. At checkout, you can charge a payment to a customer’s house account so the sale gets recorded and inventory gets updated automatically – all without needing to collect a payment every time they visit. You can also streamline billing by applying discounts to wholesale or bulk orders, and schedule recurring invoices so customers can settle their accounts online.

Before you begin

  • You can charge to a customer’s house account on all Square payment hardware and mobile devices, as well as the latest versions of your Point of Sale app.

  • Similar to Card on File transactions, a digital receipt will be sent to the customer email specified during the house account setup process. If your customers want to receive a duplicate receipt, they can choose an option at the end of the checkout process.

Since house accounts separate the time of service from the time of payment, we recommend maintaining clear records of all deliveries and services provided. This documentation helps protect your business if payment disputes arise later. While Square processes the payment, as the merchant you are responsible for managing payment-related risks such as unpaid transactions by customers.

Additionally, you’re not able to use house accounts to extend loans, impose finance charges or accept repayment in instalments.

You should consult independent legal counsel before offering house accounts.

Create and manage house accounts

Create a house account

To create individual house accounts for your customers from Square Dashboard:

  1. Sign in to Square Dashboard and go to Customers > House Accounts > Overview.
  2. Click Create account.
  3. Select the customer for the account and the business location.
  4. Optionally add an account name and notes.
  5. Enter a spending limit.
  6. Select the customer’s reporting location and preferred billing method.
  7. Click Save.

Add a house account as a payment option

To configure the display order of Square House Accounts as a payment option on the checkout screen:

  1. Open the app and tap ≡ More > Settings > Checkout > Payment.
  2. Tap Payment types.
  3. Next to House Account, hold down the (⋮⋮) icon and drag and drop it within the list to reorder your payment options.

To disable House Accounts as a payment type, tap (X).

Edit a house account

To edit customer house accounts from Square Dashboard:

  1. Sign in to Square Dashboard and go to Customers > House Accounts > Overview.
  2. Select the house account you want to edit.
  3. Click (•••) > Edit account details.
  4. Make any changes and click Save.

To edit customer house accounts from your Point of Sale:

  1. Open the app and tap ☰ More > Customers.
  2. Select a customer.
  3. Under the house account, tap (•••) > Edit account details.
  4. Make any changes and tap Save.

Lock a house account

You can lock a customer’s house account so they can no longer charge to their account. To lock a house account from Square Dashboard:

  1. Sign in to Square Dashboard and go to Customers > House Accounts > Overview.
  2. Select the house account you want to lock.
  3. Click (•••) > Lock account.

To lock a house account from your Point of Sale:

  1. Open the app and tap ☰ More > Customers.
  2. Select a customer.
  3. Under the house account, tap (•••) > Lock account.

Close a house account

To close a house account from Square Dashboard:

  1. Sign in to Square Dashboard and go to Customers > House Accounts > Overview.
  2. Select the house account you want to close.
  3. Click (•••) > Close account.

Manually adjust a house account

Manual adjustments allow you to modify a customer’s house account balance. You can increase the balance up to the account’s spending limit; or you can decrease the balance if there’s an outstanding balance.

Adjustments can only be done from Square Dashboard.

To make an adjustment:

  1. Sign in to Square Dashboard and go to Customers > House Accounts > Overview.
  2. Select the house account you want to adjust.
  3. Click (•••) > Make an adjustment.
  4. Follow the prompts, then click Apply.

Adjustments are only recorded in house accounts and will not appear in transactions or reporting.

Creating or closing house accounts cannot be actioned from the Square Point of Sale app at this time. However, after creating your first house account in Square Dashboard, you can create subsequent house accounts directly from your Square Point of Sale app under Customers.

Check out with house accounts

At this time, the ability to split a charge to a Square house account between two different payment types is not available. You are also not able to charge house accounts when using Square Virtual Terminal.

Charge to a house account

Once you’ve made at least one house account, you can start charging purchases to it.

To charge purchases to a house account from Square Point of Sale:

  1. When completing a transaction, tap Charge.
  2. Tap House Account as the payment type.
  3. Tap Confirm > Charge.

Refund a charge to a house account

To refund a charge that was made to a customer’s house account, follow the steps to refund a payment as you would for any other transaction. Once the payment has been refunded, the customer’s account balance will be adjusted automatically.

Send invoices for house accounts

You can set up recurring Square Invoices and automatic payments via a card on file to settle your customers’ accounts. You can also collect individual payments for a house account by manually creating an invoice and sending it to your customer.

In order to collect payment through a Square Invoice, a customer’s house account must have purchases charged to it and have a negative balance. You cannot collect prepayments or accept ACH payments using house accounts at this time.

To make sure payments are properly associated with the right house account, a house account invoice must be created via the House Account payment-collection flow in Square Dashboard or Square Point of Sale. The invoice should not be created or duplicated via the Invoices tab in Square POS. Once created, invoices for house accounts can be updated by going through the Invoices tab.

Create recurring invoices from Square Dashboard

  1. Sign in to Square Dashboard and go to Customers > House accounts.
  2. Select the house account you want to charge.
  3. Make sure the ‘Billing method’ is Recurring invoice.
  4. Click Collect Payment.
  5. Choose the delivery option. Select Manually to create a shareable link.
  6. Select the invoice send date and due date.
  7. Optionally add a note to the invoice.
  8. Click Send.

An account balance statement that includes transaction details will be attached to the invoice as a PDF.

Create recurring invoices from Square Point of Sale

  1. Open the app and tap ≡ More > Customers.
  2. Search for the customer you want to charge and find their house account.
  3. Tap (•••) > Collect Payment.
  4. Fill in the associated invoice information as needed.

Manually collect a payment for an invoice

If a house account doesn’t submit payment independently, you can manually collect a payment on an invoice from Square Dashboard. To start:

  1. Sign in to Square Dashboard and go to Orders & payments (or Invoices & Payments or Payments) > Invoices.
  2. Click Invoices.
  3. Select the invoice you want to manually collect payment on.
  4. Tap Add payment to select the customer’s house account.
  5. Select Charge card or Record payment to record a payment with cash, cheque or other tender from the customer’s house account.
  6. Tap Confirm.

View reports for house accounts

House account transactions report

To view a report of your house account transactions:

  1. Sign in to Square Dashboard and go to Customers > House accounts > Reports.
  2. Click Date to adjust the date range.
  3. Optionally, click Export CSV to download your report.

Sales using house accounts report

To view the total amount of sales using house accounts as a payment method:

  1. Sign in to Square Dashboard and go to Customers > House accounts > Reports.
  2. Go to Reports > Payment methods to view all house account-related transactions.

Payments made to pay off a house account balance aren’t counted towards total sales to avoid double counting. You can view payments on the Square Invoices and Square House Accounts tabs, as well as the Payment methods page of the Reports tab on Square Dashboard.

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