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!

[ChesterGapWines]

I agree this is a must have for my business. We have been waiting YEARS with the same response from square, which is “hold the customer’s physical card in a box behind the counter” which is absolutely a breach of the credit card company’s rules.  What if that box walks? We trust square with transaction data, and expect them to offer this feature.  I’m investigating Toast as an alternative… we should all do the same and send square a message. 

[Nico916]

Just adding my vote to add pre-auth to Square! 

[ryanwanner]

For all of you who are asking for the ability to preauth cards, I have something for you!

Product Updates: Open Tabs for Self Serve Ordering 

If you use the QR code self serve ordering through Square Online, you now have the ability to have open tabs! I’ve been playing with it as a tester, and I can say that it is quite slick!

There are a few minor shortcomings, most notably there’s no way to comp/void items until the tab is closed, but knowing the team behind this update I know these features will happen pretty quickly. 

At this point the open tabs feature is only available for self serve online ordering only. I hope that the dev team will continue to expand this to include at-register sales. 🤞🏻

[Thecocoblanc]

Honestly running a beauty service and not being able to accept deposits has me looking into other platforms and softwares currently. It’s been 2 years with square and I thought by now they’d add this feature. I’ve lost out on so much money due to clients cancelling right before the 24 hours and I cannot late cx them or collect or their cad declines the day of when they no show. Or they come in thinking they prepaid because they put a card on file. Or they’re **bleep**ed because they didn’t bring the card in and they thought It was saved on file. @Frida @Sean  PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE recommend that they update this. I don’t want to use Acuity or GlossGenius, or Booksy. I like square. But this lack of deposit feature is KILLING my business. 

[longtab]

We are have a growing problem with walkouts, and unlike every other POS out there we cannot swipe a card to an open ticket - so when they walk we lose.  This is such a simple fix for Square that could really help us prevent losses.   We do a lot of business with Square but this is a huge liability for us - we are considering moving to another platform unless there's a fix coming soon.

[_Violet]

Hi there @longtab - Thanks for reaching out to us here on the Square Seller Community. Sorry to hear the lack of this feature is causing a loss for you and your business.

I've merged your post to an existing thread where other Square Sellers have discussed this as well. At the moment, we do not have an ETA on whether or not opening a tab will be a feature implemented into Square. Our Product Team is constantly improving our products based on feedback like this.

To learn more about how feature requests work, please see this post from one of our Seller Community Moderators. Be sure to keep an eye out for any updates, here, in our Seller Community. We appreciate your input.

I hope this information is helpful but please do let us know if you have any additional questions. 

[Nukebrewer]

Given that the original feature request was made nearly 5 years ago and how critical this feature request is to some of our businesses, it's pretty safe to assume that square has made the decision NOT to implement this feature. Yes, they now playing with a version in "self-service" mode but my guess they are sticking to their "privacy concerns" reasons for not implementing it. Shame on Square for just not telling people that they aren't doing it and stringing them along for so many years. I like many others is riding square out until the end of the year then will switch POS solely for this lack of feature. With businesses closing and other struggling, it is mind blowing why square has dug their heels on implementing a feature that every other POS has.

[ryanwanner]

@Nukebrewer and all that are interested:

I can tell you that the self serve open tabs feature works brilliantly well, and I cannot recommend enough to implement it in your businesses. With just a little over an hour of work on your side creating stations and tables, printing the QR codes, and taping the codes to your tables you can have an open tab system that is just about bulletproof. While I agree that this feature needs to be implemented for in-person sales, the amount of heavy lifting for coding the systems has to be quite challenging. This is not something that the systems were originally coded for, and it's not the matter of simply plugging in a new batch of code. That said, with the ground work laid for open tabs on the online side, I have a feeling that we will see movement on the in-person side sooner than later.

[TrailsideHaven]

Really frustrating that this isn't a feature on Square. I don't want to switch providers either, but I need to be able to collect refundable damage deposits. I do not want to use the workaround via charging and then later refunding. It's unprofessional and inconsiderate since it takes so long for refunds to process (plus, it adds complications for tax-related purposes, and confusion with unnecessary money going in and out of your bank account).

[BlominA2]

In the fall of 2000 we were investigating new POS options, hoping to transition from our existing system. We did our requirements gathering on calls with several companies.

The sales representative from Square assured us repeatedly that opening tabs with a card pre-authorization was a feature that was nearing completion and said multiple times that it was scheduled to be released by EOY 2020. This was a large part of the reason why we chose to move forward with Square. 

Is this an approved sales tactic? To promise delivery of features to close a deal? We've otherwise been very happy with the service, but have been pretty disappointed that the promise of this feature was clearly just an attempt to make a sale.