Beating a Dead Horse but it needs to be: Preauthorization

[FarmAndBar]

We need to be able to preauthorize credit cards when running a tab. Period.  We really enjoyed the low buy in and easy menu development and a couple of the other features, but a bar/restaurant needs to be able to run a tab and preauthorize a credit card.  I've gone back and looked at conversations about it and it appears that this has been a CONSTANT request by users that has gone ignored.

I'd like to know why it isn't available.

[#2]

Pre-Authorization for Bar Tabs Update ⭐
Hi everyone - I'm Hadley, from the F&B product team. First of all, thank you SO MUCH for continuing to share all the feedback here over the years, we know how important the Bar Tabs feature is. For anyone who is not aware, this feature is currently in beta in the US for both Square Point of Sale as well as Square for Restaurants POS. 

➡️ If you use Square POS, here are instructions on how to get started beta testing. 

➡️ If you use RST POS, you can join the beta community here and our beta team will enable feature to your account. You can find the support article for getting set up on RST POS here. 

As a reminder, when a feature is in beta, there is still some engineering work happening to iron out the smaller bugs and optimizing the experience for our sellers and their customers. If you choose to participate in the beta testing, please share any feedback (good or bad 😄) to our beta team at betafeedback@squareup.com so we can learn how it is working for you and your staff.  

Thank you!

[BSBRick]

Hi Tom,  I haven't heard back from anyone on the dev team.  Can you provide an update on this request.  Please advise.  Thanks!

[Russell]

Hi @bevinmorgan & @BSBRick - I'll hop in for @Tom on this. 😉

We definitely hear you and understand where this would be useful for your businesses. Know that we are continuing to track this and let our Product Liaison Team know you are looking for this feature!

[bevinmorgan]

I'm hoping on as preauthorization would be a huge win for my events side of the business. 

[Sanctuary]

Adding another voice asking for this ability.

[aeronaut]

I would also vote for this as our biggest feature request right now regarding open tickets/tabs.

Unlike OP, we do keep customers' cards behind the bar, and it's a headache and a financial/security risk. It takes extra time to properly file and retrieve a customer's card every time they open and close their tab, and cards are left behind virtually every night as well. This results in lots of phone calls & emails when customers want to get them back, and also needing to shred cards that were left behind but never retrieved.

If we could simply attach a customer's credit card when opening their tab and hand it back to them immediately, these problems could be avoided. As @BSBRick mentions, the outcome would be either the customer closes their tab normally, signing and adding a tip, or if the customer never reappears to settle up then unclosed tabs could easily be closed at the end of the night with a pre-set service charge. It would be a big improvement for us and our customers.

[PaintnSip]

Adding an "us too" to this thread. It would be way more elegant for both the customer and the staff.

[BSBRick]

Hi @Russell, this is clearly a need with Square from the response.  What is the development progress on a fix to resolve this concern. Please advise.

Thanks!

[Sunbright]

This would be very benifcial for our business as well. However, if Square can not hold the funds for a secuirty depsoit atleast allow us to refund our customers without an eight week limit. Sometimes, we charge our guest over a year before they arrival dates and we still need to be able to refund their security depsoits without having to send them a check. Thank You!

[Chad]

Hello @aeronaut, @PaintnSip, and @BSBRick. 

I just wanted to take the time to thank all of you for sharing your opinions regarding this features request. I have made sure to flag all of your posts for the product team. Currently we don't have a timeline we can share regarding this feature request.

Even the best feature requests take time to build. Seller feedback is a big part of prioritization for new features, but it's not the only part. If there are any updates @Tom, @Russell or myself will make an announcement on this thread and tag all three of you. 

In the mean time we will continue to flag these requests to our product team. 😀

[Kpay]

Happy Friday everyone! Wanted to let you know about a new partnership that we just launched with Checkfront. Checkfront supports partial and full payments, so may be a good solution for certain businesses like tour companies, accommodations (B&Bs, campgrounds), and rental companies. 

Check out the launch video from Checkfront and you can read more on getting started on the Checkfront website: