5 Best Square Integrations for Coffee Shops

Everyone has a different reason why they chose to open a coffee shop.

They love sharing the experience of a good cup of coffee. They want to create welcoming third spaces in their communities. They want to fill a coffee niche they don’t see enough of. 

The “why” is unique to everyone… but there’s one universal truth for owners and operators across the board.

Nobody opens a coffee shop because they love staying late to work on scheduling or fixing inventory tracking errors that threw the numbers off this week. 

So, how can you spend less time on the busy work and more time on what you love?

You streamline your process with integrations that do the busy work for you — a feat that becomes much easier with Square. 

In this blog, we’ll explore five Square integrations that can help you ditch the boring tasks, improve day-to-day efficiencies, and improve the customer experience, all on the Square platform you know and love.

Why Coffee Shops Need Square Integrations

As mentioned above, Square integrations can help coffee shop owners and operators make their day-to-day operations smoother and easier… but what does that really mean? 

Here are a few different ways Square integrations can transform how you run your business.

• They can save you time — Think of the business task that takes you the most time (and that you hate doing). There’s probably a Square integration that can do those tasks for you, so you get time back to focus on what you love. 

• They can save you money — There are a million different ways integrations can save you money, from KDS integrations that help reduce food waste to staffing integrations that help you optimize your scheduling. 

• They can streamline your operations — No matter how skilled you are as a business owner, there’s always room to improve how efficiently you run things. Integrations can help you pinpoint those areas and make them happen.  

• They can improve the customer experience — When your coffee shop is running smoothly, your customers have a better experience. Plus, loyalty integrations unlock a whole new realm of possibility for customer enjoyment! 

• They can improve your team’s experience — Easier operations, better scheduling, simpler back-of-house operations, and happier guests all make for a less stressful, more fun work experience for your staff members . 

So, now that you know why Square integrations are such a game-changer, let’s dive in to the different kinds of integrations you can explore (and then we’ll tell you our top five). 

The Different Kinds of Integrations for Coffee Shops

Square Marketplace offers close to 1,000 different integrations across 16 different categories — many of which can be incredibly helpful to coffee shop business owners.

Here’s a quick overview of the different kinds of integrations for coffee shops and what they’re best used for. 

Integration Category	What It Is	Examples
Accounting & Tax	“Automatically import your Square sales, refunds, and transfers into your accounting software”	Intuit QuickBooks Online, DAVO, Zoho Books
Booking & Scheduling	“Allow customers to view availability, book, and pay directly from your website”	Wix Bookings, Acuity Scheduling, Homebase
Delivery & Orders	“Offer delivery and order fulfillment from your business to reach more customers and grow your sales”	DoorDash, Uber Eats, Fresh KDS
eCommerce	“Start selling online with these solutions that provide a variety of design templates, order fulfillment options, and CRM tools”	Wix, WordPress, Linktree
Field Services	“Manage your service business with scheduling, dispatching, inventory management, billing, and more”	Breezeworks, Simpro, Knowify
Form Builders	“Create online forms to easily gather contacts, generate leads, register attendees, and more”	Jotform, WP EasyPay, Gravity Forms
Invoicing & Services	“In the office or out in the field, you need to be able to track work orders, issue invoices, and get paid”	17hats, Zoho Invoice, PandaDoc
Items & Inventory	“Sync, manage, and track your inventory across all your sales channels to make informed purchasing decisions”	MarginEdge, Google Business Profile, Printful
Loyalty & Rewards	“Encourage customers to make repeat visits with loyalty incentives and rewards”	Craver, eCard Gift Cards, KINCHAKU
Marketing & Analytics	“Find new ways to reach people, engage with customers, and showcase your business with automated reporting that helps you make better decisions”	Zapier, Mailchimp, Trustpilot
Payroll	Manage income and get your staff paid	Online Check Writer, Push Operations
Points of Sale	“Process card payments simply and securely with Square with specialized point of sale software for a seamless register experience”	TochBistro, GRUBBRR, INFI
Restaurants	“Manage everything from food preparation to vendor deliveries with software that tracks exactly what comes into and out of your kitchen”	7shifts, KioskBuddy, MarginEdge
Team Management	“Easily build shift schedules, manage staff and timecards, and simplify your payroll prep processes with these tracking apps”	Homebase, Deputy, Workfeed
Ticketing & Events	“Create and sell event tickets or registrations online and manage your events with access, fee control, marketing, data analysis, and more”	SimpleTix, Brushfire Ticketing, EventOffice

Now, without further ado… here are our top five Square integrations, the features we love most about them, and what makes them the best of the best.

#1 — Homebase: The Best Square Integration for Scheduling

Homebase is an app for owners and operators running businesses on hourly schedules — like cafes and coffee shops. They call themselves “the everything app” because of the tool’s range of capabilities, from payroll and scheduling to time tracking and HR. 

Homebase Square integration features

• Scheduling — Homebase offers scheduling capabilities like instant publishing and updates, text reminders, automatic availability updates, and labor cost optimization.

• Time clock — With Homebase, you can track time from almost any smart device, manage your team’s time clocks remotely, and send update reminders to your staff. 
• Payroll — Homebase’s app lets you auto-calculate your staff’s hours, store time cards and payroll records to stay compliant, and automatically track time-off accruals. 

Why it’s one of the best Square integrations

Without the right number of staff working, your coffee shop can’t run on all cylinders — or run on any cylinders, really. That’s why scheduling staff efficiently (and accurately) is crucial to your coffee shop’s day-to-day operations… 

Which is where Homebase’s Square integration comes into play. 

Owners and operators can combine “Square Register data with Homebase’s employee scheduling and time-tracking features,” automatically syncing employee data, wages, sales, and time cards across your devices. This makes it easier (and faster) for your staff to view their schedules, clock in and out during a shift, and stay in touch with other employees through Homebase’s built-in messaging. 

You can also view your Square sales data in Homebase, with “near real-time” updates on both the dashboard and mobile app. Then, using your up-to-date labor cost and sales data, you can start scheduling smarter and optimizing your staffing, saving yourself time on manual scheduling efforts and money on labor costs. Plus, the integration means you can run payroll remotely, too! 

#2 — Craver: The Best Square Integration for Mobile Ordering & Loyalty

Craver is an online ordering and loyalty platform designed to help your guests order more (and more often). Through their custom-branded mobile coffee shop apps and online ordering site, Craver helps coffee shops and cafes deliver a frictionless ordering experience that optimizes the customer experience from beginning to end. 

Craver Square integration features

• Mobile ordering — Craver’s apps make mobile ordering (and re-ordering) fast and seamless. Plus, app features like push notifications help keep your brand top-of-mind, too. 
• Loyalty rewards — With Craver, you can create a loyalty program that rewards your most profitable customers while incentivizing them to order more (and more often). 
• Brand customization — Craver’s customization capabilities mean that your app and online ordering platform perfectly reflect your coffee shop or cafe. Colors, logos, images… all you. 

Why it’s one of the best Square integrations

Today’s consumers expect Starbucks-level speed, efficiency, and personalization options from the coffee shops they frequent. But how can small, locally-owned spots compete with the multi-million-dollar capabilities of multinational chains? 

Easy — Craver’s Square integration. 

Craver’s industry-leading integration with Square offers coffee shops a wide range of customer engagement and payment options powered by other Square tools. Their integration with Square Loyalty, for example, allows your guests to earn points in-store, track and redeem them in the app, and stay fully synced across all Craver and Square platforms. They also support Square Gift Cards, meaning your customers can pay on Craver with your existing Gift Card system. 

Coffee shops with Craver apps are some of the highest-rated on Square Marketplace, too, thanks to their intuitive (and completely customizable) app designs, ease of use, and personalized features like saved orders. 

Craver’s Square integration can also help streamline in-house operations. With integration capabilities like Square’s mobile payment processing, menu auto-syncing, real-time inventory syncing, and order status notifications, your coffee shop can process more orders at peak times. And, unlike third-party Square integrations, Craver lets you own all your customer data, so you know exactly when, how, and what your guests order most (and how to keep them coming back for more).

#3 — Fresh KDS: The Best Square Integration for Back-of-House Operations

Fresh KDS is a smart kitchen display system that helps cafes and coffee shops improve order fulfillment and optimize the order-to-POS process. Whether customers are dining in or ordering online, Fresh KDS is the key to “[reducing] clutter and [keeping] orders moving smoothly.” 

Fresh KDS Square integration features

• Digital order tracking — Fresh KDS’s digital order tracking screen shows customers ongoing updates about their order, from when it’s being prepared to when it’s ready to pick up. 
• Real-time SMS updates — With Fresh KDS, you can send automatic, customizable text messages to customers when their order is received and when it’s ready. No guessing! 
• Automatic order holds —  Fresh KDS’s “Order Holds” feature lets you pause orders and resume them at a scheduled time, keeping your kitchen focused and your screens clean. 

Why it’s one of the best Square integrations

If your coffee shop is used to calling out orders or jotting them down on paper, you’re probably no stranger to the hang-ups these “traditional” order-taking methods can cause. Wrong orders, misplaced chits, orders going cold — and the list can go on.

Until you start using Fresh KDS’s Square integration. 

Fresh KDS digitalizes the order-taking process, sending orders directly from your Square POS system to your kitchen. Then, once orders reach your back-of-house display, you get to control how they’re organized to maximize efficiency and reduce errors. Customize your order display with the details you need, “organize, bump, edit, hold, and recall orders” as needed, and keep everyone in the loop on where customers’ orders are (and where they’ll be next). 

You can also analyze your coffee shop’s sales performance in real-time with Fresh KDS’s Square integration. Guided by sales data from your Square POS, Fresh KDS displays performance data on-screen in 15- and 30-minute intervals, including average time to clear orders, late order breakdowns, and number of orders cleared. That way, you can quickly tell how your team is doing and where things might need to improve. 

→ Did you know Craver has a Fresh KDS integration, too? See how it helped Sips Coffee here. 

#4 — MarginEdge: The Best Square Integration for Inventory & Cost Management

MarginEdge is a management software that helps owners and operators “[automate] tedious processes” like inventory management, bill payments, and ordering. Let MarginEdge handle (and improve!) your coffee shop’s money stuff so you can focus on the fun stuff instead. 

MarginEdge Square integration features

• Automated invoice processing — MarginEdge automates invoice processing in a few simple steps. Upload a photo of your receipt and let the software code, organize, save, and store it.
• Real-time cost management — With MarginEdge, you can get daily P&L statements generated and updated in real time. All the financial info you need without manual entry. 
• Automatic sales forecasting — MarginEdge uses data like past sales, holidays, and seasonality to generate (and automatically update) sales forecasts for your coffee shop. 

Why it’s one of the best Square integrations

Keeping track of coffee beans, syrups, milks, and other inventory can be a nightmare. Factor in the million and one other cost management tasks you have to deal with as a coffee shop owner or operator, and that nightmare starts to feel like an impossibility. 

That’s where MarginEdge’s Square integration comes in to save the day. 

MarginEdge’s inventory and ordering management features can take counts completely off your plate, with automatically updated inventory sheets, order guides, and waste tracking. Bolstered by data from your Square POS system, MarginEdge can also help you improve inventory accuracy and reduce overstocking by analyzing your coffee shop’s “theoretical cost and usage against actuals” for individual menu items and menu categories.  

You can also explore your financial health with MarginEdge’s Square integration. After combining your Square POS sales data with cost data, MarginEdge automatically shares real-time snapshots of your coffee shop’s financial health, from daily P&L statements and budget updates to product price monitoring, food usage reports, and waste logs. Saving money and reducing waste without any manual tracking doesn’t sound so bad, does it? 

#5 — DAVO by Avalara: The Best Square Integration for Tax Management

DAVO is a tool that allows coffee shop owners and operators to “automate their sales tax from start to finish.” Enter your sales as usual, then DAVO will do the rest, setting aside your daily taxes, preparing (and filing) your returns, and paying your taxes — all for you. 

DAVO Square integration features

• Automatic sales tax collection — DAVO uses data from your coffee shop’s POS system to automatically calculate your sales tax and transfer it to a secure tax holding account. 
• Automatic sales tax filing — With DAVO, you don’t have to worry about filing your sales tax on time. It’ll automatically file your sales tax with the state with an on-time guarantee. 
• Automatic sales tax payments — DAVO also pays your state sales tax for you, using the money set aside in the secure tax holding account with a “paid in full” guarantee. 

Why it’s one of the best Square integrations

Let’s face it: nobody opens a coffee shop for the thrill of filing sales tax. Filing your coffee shop’s sales tax can cost you a ton of time if you’re doing it yourself, money if you’re paying someone else to do it, and stress, because it’s yet another task on your already-full plate. 

So, why not hand things over entirely to DAVO and Square? 

DAVO’s Square integration is how coffee shop owners and operators “[put their] sales tax on autopilot.” DAVO can automatically pull business tax data from any Square hardware or software your business uses. Whether your coffee shop uses a Square POS system, a Square Terminal, or even a simple Square Reader, DAVO can integrate with any of them and pull the necessary sales tax info on its own.  

Not only does DAVO’s Square integration save you time and effort doing the sales tax calculation, but it also helps with saving, filing, and paying, too. Using your coffee shop’s Square data, DAVO takes your collected sales tax and puts it in a secure holding account. Then, come tax season, DAVO automatically files and pays your sales tax for you, so you don’t have to lift a single finger post-Square integration. 

FAQs

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Better mobile ordering and customer loyalty start with Craver’s Square integration.