Dive Brief:
- Square rolled out nearly 100 new features across its platform Wednesday, including an integration with OpenTable and other tools for restaurants, the company wrote in an email to Restaurant Dive.
- Additionally, the company integrated with Facebook and Instagram to allow operators to add “Order Food” buttons to their social media profiles. These buttons redirect consumers to the operator’s Square Online site.
- The payments platform enhanced its Square for Restaurants offerings with the addition of online ordering site templates, photo studio, improved shift reports and variable service charges.
Dive Insight:
Square has continually enhanced its products over the last few years. Last year, it added a mobile POS to provide servers with the ability to take orders and payments tableside. It also partnered with Raydiant to allow restaurant clients to automatically update digital signs and menus. Square teamed with Cartwheel last year as well, giving Square restaurants access to Cartwheel’s Hybrid Delivery model so they can control in-house delivery alongside third-party delivery.
Competition in the restaurant payments industry has only heated up within the past few years as other companies like Toast and Shift4 target bigger customers, and the new products could help Square stay competitive.
Square’s OpenTable integration will allow restaurants additional insights to help them manage their dining rooms, the company said. Floor plans, tables and coursing information are shared between the apps, allowing hosts to track coursing and spend while servers input information into Square’s POS system. Reservations with OpenTable will be automatically turned into a new ticket once that diner is seated if this setting is enabled.
Hosts will also be able to view customer preferences and allergies. To participate in this integration, restaurants can link their existing OpenTable account with Square for Restaurants or sign up for OpenTable and then link accounts.
Additional products to help better manage dine-in operations include improvements to Square’s shift reports. Previously, staff members needed to clock out before declaring cash tips and had to run a shift report before heading home. If they needed to do other non-essential tasks, they would need to clock in again. Now, managers can declare cash tips without a staff member needing to clock out.
Square’s service charges allow restaurants the ability to enable fixed percentage charges or a manual amount applied to bills manually, automatically or based on group size, the company said. For example, a gratuity could be automatically added for parties of six or more. These charges can be set up from the Square Dashboard.
