A Comprehensive Guide to Square Payments Links

Managing payments across different channels without adding operational complexity is a top priority for fast-growing businesses.

With Square payment links, you can collect payments remotely without building a checkout system or website, offering a simple and flexible solution.

This guide will give you a comprehensive breakdown of how Square payment links work, how to pair with Square checkout, and how finance teams can customize, track, and integrate these tools into broader financial workflows. We'll also discuss the Wise Business account. The global account that can help your company with all things cross-border.

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What Are Square Payment Links?

Square payment links are customizable, shareable URLs that direct customers to secure online payment pages. You can create them via the Square dashboard.

Each link can be tailored to a product, service, or donation, with options to:¹

• Set fixed or variable prices
• Make the payment one-time or recurring
• Collect customer information, like a billing address
• Enable tipping or discount codes

These links can be emailed, embedded in SMS, added to social media, displayed as QR codes, or linked in invoices. Customers can pay using credit or debit cards,

Pros of Using Square Links

Square payment links simplify transaction processing and offer several other benefits, making them an efficient payment collection tool that can address compliance and data integrity issues.

Pros of Square payment links include:

No-Code Simplicity

Your team can generate payment links without dev support, making this tool ideal for lean finance departments supporting multiple sales or service teams.

Better Cash Flow Visibility

Every transaction via Square shows up in real-time in your dashboard. This immediate visibility helps you forecast revenue, track deposits, and manage exceptions (like disputes or refunds).¹

Unified Data Across Channels

Square payment links help consolidate financial data under a single reporting umbrella if your business operates across digital, retail, and in-person sales. This provides better insight into how each channel performs, without needing to reconcile data from multiple platforms. For finance teams, this means a more streamlined and efficient reporting process.

Customization for Internal Tracking

Square payment links can be customized to include purchase order numbers and sales teams. Custom fields on payment links can also include internal references that help during reconciliation.

Secure and PCI Compliant

Square handles PCI DSS compliance for you. All payment data is encrypted, and Square manages the storage and transmission of sensitive card data, mitigating risk on your end.²

Square Checkout vs Square Payment Links

While Square payment links offer standalone links, Square checkout builds on this by providing a more embedded experience. You can generate hosted checkout pages as mini-point-of-sale environments for digital customers.

You can:

• Embed Square checkout buttons on your website
• Add QR codes to printed materials for contactless payments
• Share checkout pages via social media or newsletters
• Use Square Checkout to accept tips, apply taxes, and track inventory³

How Teams Can Use Square Links

Startups, solopreneurs, and established companies with distributed teams can use Square payment links.

Use Case 1: Sales & Closures

Your sales team can create and send payment links directly to prospects. No waiting for a billing portal setup or invoice delays, just a secure payment link to close deals faster.⁴

Use Case 2: Professional Services & Retainers

You can generate reusable links for recurring payments if you bill monthly retainers or recurring services. Customers can store their payment method securely, allowing for greater ease and convenience when making repeated payments. ⁵

Use Case 3: Virtual Events, Webinars, and Training

If you host paid digital events, workshops, or training sessions, Square payment links make it easy to collect registration fees. You can brand the payment page to match the event and export attendee info for internal use.

Use Case 4: Nonprofit and Fundraising Campaigns

Payment links are also great for managing charitable donations or fundraising events. You can create separate links for each campaign, set donation goals, and track contributions from different donor groups.

Use Case 5: Internal Expense Recovery

Internal expense recovery can be completed via Square links, which can easily be shared internally with teams to automate internal reimbursements or purchases.

Step-by-Step: Creating a Square Payment Link

Here’s how to create a Square payment link:

1. Log in to your Square Dashboard
2. Go to Orders & payments > Payment Links
3. Click Create a Link
4. Choose the payment type (e.g., one-time, recurring, donation)
5. Input your payment amount and customize the page (optional to add description or image)
6. Choose a Frequency if needed for recurring payments.
7. Click Advanced settings to toggle on additional features such as enabling tipping, allowing the buyer to set the price, redirecting to a website after checkout, or enabling Custom fields.
8. Click Create link.
9. Select Copy link to share
10. Share via email, text, social media, or generate a QR code³

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Wise for US Businesses

Wise Business can help your US company get paid internationally. After opting into payment details, you can get paid in multiple global currencies like a local. This means you can get around international transfer fees.

Create a payment link by simply putting your currency, amount and what it's for. As a business, you can also attach your invoice, due date or any messages for your customers. See below a step-by-step guide on how to create a payment link.

Select whether you want to use a Single Use link (accept one payment from a customer) or Reusable link (accept multiple payments from your customers).

Share the link
Sharing your link is easy. You can share it by email, text or WhatsApp. It will contain everything someone needs to pay you, no matter whether they're on mobile or website. Both Wise and non-Wise customers are able to pay you, no matter their location in 8+ currencies.

Get paid
Your money lands directly in your Wise account, in the currency you requested. We will notify you that it has arrived. Your Single Use payment link expires in one month and you're able to track any paid, unpaid and requested payment links in your account.

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How Do Square Links Work With QR Codes

Square lets you instantly generate QR codes from each link. QR codes are ideal in several scenarios, such as:

• Contactless payments at pop-up events or physical locations
• Trade shows or expos
• Printed flyers or direct mail campaigns³

Finance teams benefit by having every transaction tied to the same reporting ecosystem, even when transactions happen offline.

How Do Square Links Work For Reporting and Reconciliation

Each payment process through Square payment links or Square checkout shows up instantly in your Square Dashboard. You can:

• Filter transactions by time, location, or team member
• Export CSVs for accounting
• Tag transitions with custom fields
• Monitor refunds and disputes³

This level of transparency reduces end-of-month headaches and ensures compliance.

What Finance Tools Does Square Links Integrate With?

Square connects with leading accounting and invoicing software, including⁶:

• Xero
• Quickbooks
• Zoho Books

Square’s API can support deeper integrations via internal dev teams or external platforms for custom setups.

Best Practices for Square Links

If you manage payment workflows for a growing team, implementing Square payment links can dramatically influence visibility, compliance, and operational smoothness.

Start by establishing policies for creating and using links across departments. Then, usage should be aligned with reporting and reconciliation practices to minimize inconsistencies.

• Audit links regularly: Ensure accuracy in pricing and messaging
• Enable recurring payments: Reduce collection friction on retainer-based models⁶
• Use custom fields wisely: Include internal tracking IDs or a note for reconciliation
• Monitor dispute rates: Use the dashboard to track and proactively respond to chargebacks⁷
• Export reports monthly: Align your finance calendar with real-time exports from Square

When to Use Square Payment Links Over Other Tools

While Square offers POS and invoicing tools, Square payment links shine in situations where speed, flexibility, and remote access are priorities:

• Short-term pilots or programs where you need to collect payments fast
• Transactions that don’t require a full invoice
• Online sales when you don’t have an e-commerce site
• Repeated, predictable payments that don’t need itemization⁸

Why Square Payment Links Make Sense for Teams

For many businesses, the appeal of Square payment links lies in their simplicity and scalability. Your team can generate payment links in seconds, track every transaction in one place, integrate directly into your accounting tools, and remain fully PCI compliant without relying on multiple platforms.

You get a payment collection engine built for today’s remote, hybrid, and high-velocity business environments when paired with Square Checkout, QR codes, and your Square dashboard.

When you aim to reduce DSO, automate collections, or improve your finance teams’ reporting accuracy, Square’s payment solutions are worth a close look.

Save Time and Hassle With Wise Business

Wise is not a bank, but a Money Services Business (MSB) provider and a smart alternative to banks. Wise makes it easy to send, hold, and manage business funds in currencies. You can get major currency account details for a one-off fee to receive overseas payments like a local. Simply add the local account details when billing international customers to receive international payments with no fees.

Account opening is 100% online, with no need to visit a branch or book appointments.

Once you’re set up, you can connect to software such as Wave, FreshBooks, and more. You can also withdraw funds from Stripe without currency conversion fees.

Open a Wise Business account online

Some key benefits of Wise Business include:

Major local account details to receive international payments with ease No monthly account fees just a simple one-off fee for account details Receive payments from e-commerce platforms such as Amazon or via Stripe. Free invoicing tool to generate and send invoices. Create invoices using the Wise invoice generator or invoice templates. Accounting integrations, including a QuickBooks Bill Pay connection. Bill payments will be synced, matched, and categorized in QuickBooks for simple reconciliation. BatchTransfer. Fast payment of up to 1,000 people.

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Source:

1. What are Payment Links? | Square
2. PCI Compliance | Square
3. Get Started with Square Checkout Links | Square
4. Staff Management Tools | Square
5. Staff Management Advanced Access | Square
6. Overview | Square
7. Point-of-Sale | Square
8. Compare | Square