Square intros new shift scheduling feature for its Team Management service as it eyes larger sellers - ZDNet

Square announced a new shift scheduling feature for its Team Management service as part of the company's continued focus on acquiring larger sellers. 

Square said its shift scheduling tool is a first-party scheduling feature for Team Management that allows employers to create and publish shifts right within Square, while also enabling employees to signal their availability, and request and swap shifts. 

With the addition of shift scheduling, Square said it now offers a complete suite of labor management tools for businesses via the existing features in Team Management and its deep integration with Square Payroll, giving sellers the ability to schedule, manage, and pay their staff all within Square.

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The company posits that the consolidation of tools and data will make it easier for employers to gain important visibility into daily team operations while also ensuring accurate reporting on labor costs.

In terms of strategy, Square said its Team Management service is key factor in its customer acquisition blueprint. Square's growing portfolio of business services and APIs reflect a broader shift that has taken place within the Jack Dorsey-founded company, which initially launched in 2009 as a hardware company pushing technology to enable mobile payments. Square's portfolio has broadened substantially over the years to include a range of revenue-generating software and services.

"Team Management is a central component to attracting and retaining larger sellers," said Saumil Mehta, GM of Square Point of Sale. "Square has been known for 'the little white reader' for much of its history, but as we've grown our suite of solutions over the years, we've also shown we can serve much larger sellers as well. These upmarket sellers have more complex needs when it comes to managing their teams. They typically have more employees, more locations, and more complex operations -- and the features available in our POS solutions, inclusive of Team Management, help us meet those complex needs." 

Square's shift scheduling feature is available via the Square POS or a seller's Square Dashboard, the company said. It's available today for free in all Square markets. For additional features and functionality, sellers have to upgrade to Team Plus at a cost of $35 per month, per location.