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 Square for Restaurants 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!

[birdhouseinn]

Go ahead and name the POS you wish you'd stayed with.  It's the only real source of help this thread provides to everyone who needs this feature.  I've been reading and posting responses here for nearly five years!

[gregorysgrill]

We having been using the open tab feature in square for a week-long event - only to discover the card numbers are not stored. We hope people will come back to close their tabs and we are not sure if they will think their card scanned to set up tab covers it. It's frustrating.

[HRBrewing]

Clover and Arryved both have this pre-authorization feature. I was told 3 years ago it would be within a year. I have a huge beer garden and we have to juggle 50-100 cards on a busy night and it's just become more untenable as fewer people pay with cash. Square needs to make this happen now or I will be switching once summer season is over. 

[cstocker]

I have trouble understanding why this is labeled "NEW REQUEST" when we've been asking for it for at least the last 5 years, and keep getting the same non-answer. Unacceptable. Restaurants are having a particularly hard time right now, and though the QR code ordering helps, we really need to be able to pre-authorize cards for customer tabs. We can't just make people go through the whole QR code process to add an extra syrup, or a side of fries to their order. Square employees, please stop saying things like, "I understand how this could be useful, and I'll make sure our development team sees it." After 5 years, everyone knows this is a BS answer.

[FCExcavating]

Any updates on if this feature will be added?

[Creeksideinn1]

We have been using Square for a long time. I love alot of the features. However within the next 6 months or so we will be going to a new product that is able to pre authorize credit cards

[Unionmarketrva]

As I've commented before, we were told by our sales rep that credit card authorization for tabs would be forthcoming, which absolutely impacted our decision to move forward with Square. After waiting almost a year and a half for this feature to be released, I would call this blatant false advertising. Stop stringing along your customers and give us a real answer on whether this is happening. If other POS systems can support this feature, why can't Square? 

[Ellie_]

Hello @Unionmarketrva,

Thank you for providing us feedback and insight. I'm going to merge your post with a similar thread here. Check out @Sean 's response to this feature request.

[Sflikkema]

Is there an update on this feature yet, since it's been 5 years??!!! We need to be able to accept and hold deposits for events at a future date but have the payment not process until the day of the event but also make sure the card is valid at the time and in for the future event!

[HDA]

Is anyone away of another option as it appears Square dont care for taking pre-authorisations?