June 22, 2017 | 2 minute read

Introducing Square Checkout

An out-of-the-box, hosted checkout payment solution for Square developers who are looking for a one-stop integration.

Over a year ago we introduced Build with Square, our online and offline payment platform alongside our reporting APIs. Since then, we’ve worked closely with developers and our sellers to identify how we can make it easier to start selling online while harnessing the power of our APIs. One of the pieces of feedback we keep hearing from sellers is: Both buyers and sellers recognize, trust, and love the Square brand; can Square bring that trust online?

With Square Checkout, we are enabling sellers to leverage the trust consumers have put into Square at a crucial point of the payment flow — entering their credit card details online. By clearly stating that the checkout experience is powered by Square, we are looking to bring the same trust buyers experience in stores to their online purchases.

And now with our hosted checkout solution, developers can focus on building a great buyer experience online, and not worry about the payment processing and complex security and regulation involved since we take care of that (for example, Square Checkout doesn’t require your site to have SSL certification).

Square Checkout beta customer 123ContactForm helps small businesses deal with large amounts of data via online forms. Its customers include companies selling products or services online and nonprofits collecting donations. When 123ContactForm wanted to expand its available payment processing options, it listened to what its customers wanted.

“Our customers asked us to add Square as a payment option because it’s a brand they already trust for mobile payments,” said Alin Tuhut, 123ContactForm Product Owner. “The Square Checkout integration process was smooth, and we already see Square’s usage growing steadily on the platform.”

Square Checkout requires just one integration that gives access to a number of Square capabilities.

Itemization

Square Checkout lets developers pass a full transaction itemization (items, taxes, and discounts) as part of the POST request. To pass an itemized transaction you just need to pass us the order object with the line items you want:

"order": {
  "reference_id": "my-order-{{$randomInt}}",
  "line_items": [
    {
      "name": "Printed T Shirt",
      "quantity": "2",
      "base_price_money": {
        "amount": 1500,
        "currency": "USD"
      },
      "discounts": [
        {
          "name": "7% off previous season item",
          "percentage": "7"
        },
        {
          "name": "$3 off Customer Discount",
          "amount_money": {
            "amount": 300,
            "currency": "USD"
          }
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "name": "Slim Jeans",
      "quantity": "1",
      "base_price_money": {
        "amount": 2500,
        "currency": "USD"
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "Woven Sweater",
      "quantity": "3",
      "base_price_money": {
        "amount": 3500,
        "currency": "USD"
      },
      "discounts": [
        {
          "name": "$11 off Customer Discount",
          "amount_money": {
            "amount": 1100,
            "currency": "USD"
          }
        }
      ],
      "taxes": [
        {
          "name": "Fair Trade Tax",
          "percentage": "5"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "discounts": [
    {
      "name": "Father's day 12% OFF",
      "percentage": "12"
    },
    {
      "name": "Global Sales $55 OFF",
      "amount_money": {
        "amount": 5500,
        "currency": "USD"
      }
    }
  ],
  "taxes": [
    {
      "name": "Sales Tax",
      "percentage": "8.5"
    }
  ]
}

Dashboard reporting

Every time a purchase is made through your hosted checkout page, we record the customer and items sold, track the data over time, and provide access to reports through Square Dashboard. This way sellers can keep track of their customers and the items they’re selling.

Itemized transaction data on Square Dashboard

Customers API

As part of the Square Checkout integration, developers benefit from the Customers API with no extra development. This allows sellers to have buyer data associated with all their sales, providing a full holistic view of sales reporting and shipping information.

Customer data attached to transaction