I work for a public school. Our Entrepreneurship program runs a student ran enterprise in the form of a school store. We are looking for a point-of-sale system to use for these students that is real-world and provides hands-on experience for them. We are finding that most point-of-sale systems require a social security number to be set up. Can Shopify create an account for our public school without giving an individual’s social security number?
Hi @NikkiNix
Thank you for considering Shopify for your school entrepreneurship program! Our Basic plan and higher tiers all include access to Shopify POS, at no additional cost and no additional information needed.
Most point of sale systems that require a SSN are most likely also providing you a gateway to accept payment online or through debit/credit card. You can use Shopify POS for cash sales, or to create and finalize orders where payment is accepted outside of the POS system or online website.
If you are wanting a POS system and a card reader, along with the ability to collect payment through in person debit/credit card sales, you will need to create a merchant account with the gateway you wish to use. Shopify offers access to our own payment gateway called Shopify Payments for eligible businesses. All payment gateways are required to collect basic information about the account holder to ensure they are a valid and legitimate business.
Yes, we want to be able to accept credit card sales. To use Shopify Payments, does that require a SSN or will the school’s tax ID be sufficient?
I reached out to our Shopify Payments team to clarify and they noted that you can have Shopify Payments registered under the school without requiring an SSN, but you would need to provide a valid IRS registered EIN number. This would also affect the way taxes would be processed for the business as well.
I highly encourage you to reach out to our open learning team, who help schools get access to Shopify services: open-learning@shopify.com.
We also have a dedicated retail support team, who work with merchants making in person sales, and they can be accessed 24/7 through our Help Center: Contact Support - Retail Support. They would be happy to answer additional questions about the Shopify POS system.
Hi Shay,
I reached out to open-learning. They are not taking any new clients and do not help with payment. Our Chief Financial Officer would like to set up a meeting to discuss features. Is there a way for me to set up a conference call with your team and mine?
Hi @NikkiNix
Shopify offers general support via live chat, email and messaging and merchants using our Retail Point of Sale software and hardware have an option to phone our retail support team through the support option in their POS app.
I recommend creating a free trial store (no obligation, it closes automatically at the end of the trial) and installing the Shopify POS app on your smart phone. This will give you access to the support tab in the POS app where you can find the available retail support phone numbers.
You can also review an introduction to the POS app itself in our Help Center here: Selling in person with Shopify POS.
I have downloaded the app and do not have a support tab. I have used the search option to look for support and it returns no matches.
Other suggestions? Is there no way for my CFO to talk to someone for support? If he can’t visit with someone we will not be able to use this service and will have to go with another vendor.
Hey there, @NikkiNix ! Imogen here, jumping in for my friend Shay!
Within the Shopify POS App, there should be something we call a ‘hamburger menu’ (this is a menu made up of some horizontal lines) near the bottom left corner. You’ll want to tap that, and it will load up a menu that will appear from the left.
At the bottom of this menu, there will be an option listed as ‘Support’. Tap that option. Then, you’ll see 4 options listed, one of which being ‘Contact Support’. You can tap that, and a phone number and email option will appear so you can get in touch with our Retail Team!
Please let me know if these steps are unhelpful! We absolutely want to get you in touch with our team so you can make these decisions as quickly as you can!