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!

[bp3]

Seriously, Square.  You need to pay attention to what customers are saying.  Are you a rinky-dink operation without any coders?  How hard can this be?

[AidanC]

Hi everyone,
I would like to start a discussion about feature request for pre authorization of cards.
this feature seems to be one of squares most requested, i for one would really appreciate this feature.
I own a boat rental company which requires a $500 damage deposit before every single rental. As it is now, I use an old-fashioned carbon copy machine to hold their credit card information for the deposit. the transaction its self doesn't even go though square when I do deposit them
I know adding features like this would be expensive for square but i can assure many, rental based companies would turn to square POS for this feature alone. Much of the tech used are already in play for the square appointments feature for reservation deposits.

Basically, I am starting this thread to try and urge square to look into launching pre authorization, if this would help your small business leave a comment to show support.

[scooterjoes]

There is a long standing thread on this topic, but Square refuses to give their loyal customers an answer other than "we are tracking this" and worthless workarounds.  This has been going on for years now.  Short of threatening to leave, its not clear what else can be done to force them to offer this fundamental feature of merchant processing.

[berobi]

Your posting this thread inside the thread that already discusses this.  It aint happening with this company, any time soon, for sure.  

[Scott3p0]

Can you preauthorize a charge without sending it through to be charged? like a sale on approval that later is ok’ed to be charged, or a deposit that is held and authorized but not charged unless it becomes necessary? 

[VanKalkerFarms]

Currently, Preauthorization is not something offered. 

[DeniseAck]

@ORSLLC @scooterjoes --we've now all been requesting this for THREE years and clearly no one at Square cares enough about listening to feedback. 

So, as a community, we can try and help each other instead.  Who has found a good alternative that doesn't charge a startup fee, and doesn't charge a monthly fee? I don't know if Square will take down this thread. Some have mentioned Clover, but they are not free.  Please list options you looked into...

Clover-- gateway is a onetime set up fee of $299 + monthly fee of $19.95 Processing at 3.29%+.19 

[BWDT]

Will there be a saving card option soon to run tabs? I am a GM of a Tavern and we have had several walk outs on Tabs because of this.

Thanks

[smosbach]

Just want to weigh in that this is also a feature we desperately need.  Having to physically hold on to cards in order for people to keep a tab open dramatically slows down our ability to provide service and hence keep customers moving through.

[TheLoftWineBar]

I agree with everyone else on this topic. It is unacceptable that Square STILL does not offer a pre-auth bar tab. I’ll be leaving Square for one of the MANY other POS options that DO offer pre auth.