Square overnight unveiled a completely overhauled version of its Register for iPad. The new interface is tailored towards stores and turns the iPad into a point of sale, with a highly visual interface meant for day-in, day-out use by cashiers. It can integrate tightly with real-world components of a sale, such as printing a receipt or even accessing a cash drawer.
The app is now tied more deeply into Card Case and can post the shop’s profile to the virtual card wallet to help find stores across the country. Card Case’s geofencing is now more proactive and will send notifications to Register if a regular customer stops by or if someone is visiting for the first time.
Shop owners now have access to deep analytic to show trends for sales, refunds, and other common habits. They can break down sales by the transaction type and filter results to only show payments of a certain size, particular times of the day, and other criteria. Owners can visit on the web rather than just the iPad app.
The app should be available now and doesn’t have an immediate Android equivalent. Register potentially undermines the business model of traditional register companies. Many of these charge high up-front prices for the registers. Square gives away both the app and the necessary reader add-in for free, counting instead on a small percentage cut of each transaction for its income.
The approach has so far been successful and saw its current rate of payments go from a predicted $2 billion a year in October to $4 billion as of March.
