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!

[EB_CST]

Yes, I totally agree. We’re shopping for another provider as I write this.

[EB_CST]

We’re shopping for a new provider as I write this. Goodbye Square.

[Atomburst]

Please post what you find. We are interested in other options. We had spark pay about 8 years ago as they had cheaper processing fees. They were a large bank so we decided to stay with square. Square now too big to listen to their customers.

[bab-jerry]

Here's a link to the updated functionality that includes pre-auth: https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7949-pre-authorization-for-bar-tabs

[JW4624]

Nice, but this doesn’t work for those of us not using the Restaurant functionality. How do we make this work in the other apps?

[Amanda_Bierock]

I actually tried switching over to Square Restaurants on my Square Register Monday but even then couldn't access this as it is a beta feature, so apparently you need to be part of the beta testing group to even access it. I just put in a request to get invited, so hopefully will get that...but yeah, still not very accessible to most of us at this point.

[FarmAndBar]

We have square for restaurants and the link above does not match what we see as options in our menu.

[DP22]

Since Square is about to stop refunding the credit card processing fees, hold feature is absolutely necessary. Without it I will be looking for another CC processor. We are in the rental business and we can't lose $30 every time we refund a $1k security deposit.

[EB_CST]

We're in the same situation. $500 security deposit for bike rentals... so $15/transaction. Let me know what you find for new CC processor

[Trailer_Guy1]

We jumped Ship. Now running USAePay. We can "Hold" one amount and charge another. It's working fantastic.  Their web interface is simple. I can create invoices and clients can click on them and pay online.They have POS options too. $50 a month. Well worth it.