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!

[scooterjoes]

Pre-authorization is actually supported, but you need to implement it outside of Square. I have it running via a Jotform. Obviously it's an extra process, but it does seem to work.

[cantrellr]

I suspect you are not understanding what pre-auth is in this use-case. I looked briefly at jotform and do not see any way to use it for this scenario. The idea is that a customer comes to the bar, orders a beer, we take his card, capture his info, and give him is card back. If he walks out, we can run the transaction without needing his card. Most restaurant/bar POS systems have this feature. Mind bomb that square does not

[HRBrewing]

My rep just reached out looking for referrals. Are you kidding! Him and the whole Square team has been lying to me for nearly 5 years telling me pre authorization is right around the corner. Square could easily be the best thing on the market but this feature lack has caused me such grief over the years. I wish they would just fix the problem, everybody wants this feature. Even if I had to buy all new hardware to make this work, I would. Are you hearing me Square??

[Moloko]

It is beyond ridiculous that square is still not allowing this. It’s 2022. 

I would also like an explanation. It’s starting to feel like we’re hillbillies when we tell customers we have to hold their card for a bar tab. Soon people won’t even be carrying wallets anymore. What then? Switch to toast? I have all this stupid square equipment already. 

[TobaccoLeaf]

TOBACCOLEAF

3m ago

Subscriptions and Memberships

I have tried for the past year tried to ask the square account managers and developers for a way to make it possible to utilize the gift cards and card on file for memberships that require a monthly subscription.

Currently we have different tiers of membership but our most basic is $120/month where we charge $20 maintenance fee + $100 that goes to a customer's gift card by charging their card on file. This is a 1 year contract and has it's own terms and conditions that people sign and accept.

The process to charge members every month in its current form requires me to input the gift card number manually every month when I would like to add money to a customer's account for their designated tier level. This means if I have to charge 50-100 people I currently have to manually enter for 2 hours to ensure people are good to go for the month. 

Since we can save card on file and also gift cards on file I do not understand why we cannot charge a designated amount to the gift card on file when doing a transaction?

The process goes like this I add under my items a membership fee that each member pays. Then under library I click gift card then check balance and then I have to input the gift card amount of $100.00, then add the customer to the sale, then click charge card on file x 100 times (one for each customer)!

We also need pre-authorizations on cards for members because it enables us to ensure that people are paying for what the services they receive throughout the year. 

There needs to be a better way to do this and if you have a solution or can work with me to create one I think me and members in the community would appreciate it.

Sincerely,

Charlie

[Kassi_]

Hey there, @TobaccoLeaf 

Thank you for dropping this Feature Request in the Ideate Board. 

I have merged your post to a thread where other sellers have voiced this feature too. Putting these together will show our Product Team how popular this is among our sellers. 

[pbadrock]

OK, this is really getting crazy as far as Square being the size they are yet still not being able to keep a tab open with pre-authorization without having to hold the physical card.  Every other POS system does it fine.  Had I done my research, I would have used a different POS from the start for this reason alone.  It is crazy to have to hold a card in this day and age.  Please Square team, give us the update you have been promising for years!!

[Nukebrewer]

I recall someone posting awhile back that was much more familiar with banking regulations than I stating that the core of Square's software is such that it would not be allowed to put this feature in as it has too many "holes" in it from a security perspective. Not sure if that post got deleted. If true, that would explain why we have not seen this relatively easy feature to implement happen in the 7 years I've been using Square. It appears that it would take a major rewriting of the core to make it happen. This is one of the main reasons I plan to discontinue using it beginning in 1/1/23. One can submit 100's of feature requests. Trust me, they know, it just is not an easy thing to implement for them due to major issues in the kernel. Take it for what you want. I'm not a security expert. It would, however, explain why for YEARS we all have been hearing that "it's coming" only to be disappointed and have open tickets never paid as customers leave without getting back their CC. Even the mere fact that we have to ASK to hold a customer's CC makes us look like were are not a serious vendor. Done waiting guys! 

[eastendbrewing]

After 10 years on square, and probably 6 or 7 years of promises about this change coming, we have moved on. (News flash: It’s never coming. It represents a FUNDAMENTAL change in their processing functionality, and rewriting the whole thing is just not worth it to them.)

We’re a brewery with to go beer and a full kitchen, and we are now fully switched over to Arryved. It’s been a pretty smooth transition, and the costs are shaking out to be pretty much the same, despite being structured differently. Plus it’s faster. Like WAY faster. 

Best of luck to you all. Change is hard, but sometimes it’s worth it. I’m going to unsubscribe now, as this is no longer a pain point for us. 

Stop in for a beer sometime. East End Brewing.

[HRBrewing]

I have been hearing from my various reps at Square for 5 years now that pre-authorization is right around the corner but here we are 5 years later.

I own a brewery with a very busy walk up bar and beer garden. Currently we have to hold customer cards behind the bar if they wish to open a tab. On busy nights this can be 50-75 cards in a little box. Customers often leave their cards behind and sometimes when busy and there are several similar cards, the wrong card gets swiped and handed back to wrong customer. 

This is a standard feature in pretty much every other system out there and seems to be very sought after by Square customers so what is the hold up? I would like an honest answer from someone at Square. Is this ever happening? If not please just say it. I am opening a second location right now and if this feature is not coming soon I am moving on. If will be a pain since I'm so entrenched with Square with not just CC processing, but payroll, loyalty and several other items.

Please give us an honest answer.