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!

[TomTr]

Me too, but more for when I am requiring a deposit to hold an itme for future purchase.

[harrisjl59]

I would like to add that I need this feature as well for my business. I'd like to stay with Square, but will need to look elsewhere if the feature isn't added. Please ask the support team to consider a security deposit option for businesses. 

Thank you!

[PREMIERCAR]

Over a year later and the 5 pages of comments and thoughts not passed on or acted upon.
Come on Square.  I am beginning to look at other options because this is a needed requirement for business'

[PREMIERCAR]

Thought I would let people know my solution / work around for square's lack of consideration on this needed feature:

I capture the information with a form that is PCI compliant; it requires that you use an SSL site and the form itself saves the information in an encrypted database. The card information submitted can only be accessed with the decryption password. This is the form company I use.

Then you must manually key in the infomration to square to charge the card.  Enter the card information and charge the amount; a decline will come up if the information or card is bad before you get to the signature screen.  Then just cancel the payment.  You now know if the card info is good or not.

[Lor1]

I am in the same situation with my vacation rental. Have you found a solution that works for now? I am just getting started and trying to find a way to collect a damage deposit that I can refund without being charged the fee. Any help would be amazing! Thank you!

[JamesAnthony]

 CaptainBoom wrote "Being able to pre-authorize the card can allow the cardholder to see that a charge is pending, and perhaps reduce fraud.  It also allows me to know that the card is good prior to pulling and packing the order."

EXACTLY! I am in the same boat. We use AuthorizeNet for our ecommerce for the simple reason that SQUARE cannot do a "pre-auth" on credit cards. I have an e-commerce store, using BigCommerce and our sales are large also. We currently do a pre-auth when the customer checks out and then a capture when we ship the customers order. Like CaptainBoom stated  pre-auth on the card allows the cardholder to see that a charge is pending, while at the same time we know the card is good and the funds are available.

Also, Visa, MC & Amex state in their merchant agreements, that you CANNOT capture/settle against a credit card before the order is shipped. You can only do a pre-auth and settle when the item has shipped. Here is the exact language from VISA regarding charding and shipping. "Transactions cannot be deposited until goods have been shipped or services received." If SQUARE is doing an auth and capture then it's violates VISA and other card issuers rules. You can Google Visa policy on charging before shipping, MasterCard policy on charging before shipping, AMEX policy on charging before shipping, etc and see.

SQUARE needs to make this a priority and not some fluff that "It's on the road map" or "we hear you and will let our development team know". I will use SQUARE for our pop-up events but until they can give us the option to do a authorization or authorization & capture I cannot use them as my e-commerce processor.

[EJ_]

Thanks for sharing your interest and feedback about this @harrisjl59

Hopefully we can get something implemented for you soon!

[EJ_]

Thanks for sharing your workaround @PREMIERCAR

Hopefully we can get a solution going for you all as we know this is an important feature for everyone in this thread. 

If anything comes up, we'll chime back in with an update. 

[fhooper]

I would definitely like this feature as well. I, too, will have to look at different companies if this isn't implimented. 

[BWH]

Friendly Thanksgiving day bump!  NEED THIS for next Spring.