Square, Inc. (NYSE: SQ) announced that it is introducing Square for Restaurants, its custom-built point of sale system designed for the restaurant industry, in Australia. Square for Restaurants is the company’s first solution built specifically for full-service restaurants, bars and lounges, bringing the speed and ease of Square to all types of larger businesses.

Square for Restaurants is Square’s most sophisticated industry-specific software solution yet, enabling fast, accurate operations for both the front and back of house. It’s cloud-based and customisable for however a restaurant is run, letting managers easily update menus and floor layouts remotely, across multiple terminals and locations. Additionally, Square for Restaurants has built-in employee management to enable staff time and performance tracking, table mapping, bill and tip splitting, fraud protection and more.

“Square for Restaurants offers everything you need to run a full-service restaurant at full speed,” said Alyssa Henry, Seller Lead at Square. “Square has always been a great fit for smaller cafes and quick-service vendors, but we haven’t always been able to meet the needs of larger restaurants. This product enables us to step up and serve the bigger end of town, offering the robust functionality that’s needed for large-scale and multi-location operators.”

Australia is the first global market, outside the US, where Square for Restaurants has been rolled out. Business Development Lead for Square Australia, Colin Birney, says since launching in 2016 the company has been humbled by the growth they’ve seen among Australian businesses, particularly in the hospitality sector. “Hospitality businesses make up around a quarter of our local seller base, and we continue to see more businesses in the sector sign up to use Square each year as awareness of our platform grows,” he said.

A number of restaurants and hospitality groups have been using Square for Restaurants as part of a public trial that has been running since June, including Jacqui Graham, owner of famed Italian establishment Fedele’s in Melbourne’s south-east.

“We manage a big operation with conference and function services in addition to our full-service restaurant. We really need everything working together, from taking payments and issuing invoices to ordering and course firing,” said Ms Graham. “Square for Restaurants has been a game changer for us, with deep functionality that makes these tasks simple for our staff and a seamless integration with our other business systems, like our accounting software, to take the hassle away from those back-end tasks.”

The launch of Square for Restaurants is complemented by the introduction of Square’s customer rewards program, Square Loyalty, which is also available to Australian businesses from today. The new program can be run straight from the Square Point of Sale app and is completely customisable, enabling businesses to reward their customers to drive more repeat visits to their business.

“We know that attracting and retaining customers is one of the biggest challenges Australian businesses face, that’s why we’re thrilled to make Square Loyalty available to our sellers in time for the busy holiday shopping season,” said Mr Birney. “Customers enrolled in Square Loyalty programs return and spend on average two times more than other customers, so this is an easy and affordable way for businesses to boost sales.”

From today, Square for Restaurants is available to all restaurants in Australia for $129 per month, with Square Loyalty starting from $49 per month. The new products will work seamlessly with Square’s growing ecosystem of products and services, that includes the new Square Terminal, inventory management, data analytics, and more. Please visit our website to learn more square.com/au.