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!

[Beckybsharp]

Just commenting here so you can “track” this feature request.  I was coming to see if there was any timeline on it, but there seems not to be.  So we will probably just go ahead and change systems.  I’m not sure if Square as a business thinks it will lose out on the .10 per swipe by doing that.  I think that will be true, but I think the number of bars that would go with square if this feature was available is vast.

[JJ_]

Hi and welcome back to the Seller Community! 👋

This would be considered a feature request at this time, @Beckybshart.

In the meantime, you may be able to  use Invoices Deposits to collect your clients security deposits and then refund the specific amount when done with the service.

I hope this information is helpful!

[PermafrostDes]

I have an idea for my business based around rentals. The value of the rental object is significantly higher than the ticket cost for any individual rental, and each object I'll be renting is quite costly to replace. I want to secure/mitigate my risk profile by using a security deposit. I think the best way to do this is a credit card hold.

While I can do deposits via creating an item called "Deposit" that I expect to refund, I don't think the refund flow is particularly customer-first. I can't refund to Debit cards if the card isn't present, and the Square documentation says a Credit refund can take up to 14 days. I also don't know if it will be used against me in the future if there's a dispute and Square sees that I have a really high return rate.

The deposits feature of invoices is also a poor fit. It's a workmanship/order deposit. It's designed to be a fraction of the total bill. A partial fraction, not 800%. To refund an invoices deposit, the docs say that I have to cancel the invoice. Which is just a mess at every layer.

Any other ideas or work arounds? I think this rental idea might be a "killer feature"* for my business, so I really want to ensure I have a good solution for the customer experience.

* Sorry, I come from a tech background. I don't know a less cheesy term.

The title of this post has been edited from the original: Credit Card Holds?

[VCBCBeer]

Is there any update on this feature? We have added multiple points of sale throughout our bar over the last year, and not being able to save and pre-authorize cards has become a huge bottleneck for us. Is this feature one that Square ever plans on implementing? 

[Valentina]

Hi there @PermafrostDes ❄️ 

This is a very popular feature request, and you've expressed your interest in a super helpful way here. I've moved your post to be the highlighted voice of a thread where we've been tracking interest in this feature for a while. If we have news to share, we'll post about it here as soon as we do! You should also find some suggestions here at the top of this thread in the meantime. 

I'm also curious to know if you've thought about leveraging Square Contracts to mitigate risk?

[PermafrostDes]

Thank you Valentina.

Square Contracts is an interesting option. I'll have to look at it more closely, but the little intro video seems like it might be viable. I'm most concerned about enforcement after the fact, but contract + card on file might be viable for the price range I need to work in.

A quick glance at Checkfront (from another answer) does not seem compatible with my needs, but I will give them a call to ask a few questions.

[Valentina]

I'm happy to hear one of these solutions may work for ya!

Let me know if other questions come up about anything you're considering, @PermafrostDes ✨

[flounderbrewing]

Seriously why hasn't square offered open tabs that can hold the CC info?  I own a brewery and in the brewery message boards Arryved is winning in recommendations and this is the only feature (an important one) that we can't defend square on for us being happy.  We had a tab open, the customer left and forgot their CC and cancelled it before we were able to charge it at the end of the night!  Restaurants/bars don't want to hold on to credit cards!!!

[Deuces]

@VCBCBeer I wouldn’t hold your breath on this one … it’s been a popular feature request for years and Square does not seem interested in adding this feature.  We moved to TOAST and it is awesome. Pre auth works flawlessly and their support is incredible (real people available to help any time you need them).  

[Frida]

Hello @flounderbrewing,

Good to see you posting in the Seller Community again, welcome back! ☺️ 

This has definitely been a popular request among many of our customers. Please take a moment to view this thread and take a peek at @isabelle's response to this feature request.

We are always working to strive towards better product releases, so hopefully this will be something we can see in the future. Should any updates be made to this function, they will be posted in this thread you commented in. 

I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts on this topic! 😁