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]

@Amanda_Bierock

I have Square for restaurants. I see the same thing you do. Still nothing.

[#3]

Hello all! We are so excited to let the community know that this feature is now available! For more information on enabling and configuring preauthorization for bar tabs, check out this help article. Respond here if you have any questions, and thanks for your patience while our team built this out. We appreciate you!

️ Kristen
Square Community Manager
Product Engagement

[#4]

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!

[VanKalkerFarms]

Congrats @kristen  on shipping the feature.  This might be one of the oldest requests, maybe the test mode is older still.  Glad to see it worked its long road thru the system to functionality.

[Amanda_Bierock]

It looks like this feature is only available if using the Square for Restaurants application and not if you are using the Square Point of Sale application? I'm assuming this is the issue because we are using the Square Point of Sale application on all our devices (one Square Register and two iPads) and I can't follow the steps listed in the linked how-to article to enable this feature, specifically, I don't see Bar tabs pre-auth under Service Settings in my Dashboard.

[ryanwanner]

@Amanda_Bierock From what I know it is available on the standard point of sale now, but it’s accessed a little differently. 
On your device, go to More > Settings > Open Tickets. You should see the option to enable preauth there. You have to do this per device. 
One warning: if you have open tickets enabled and have active tickets on your system already, they will not be visible with preauth enabled. When you disable preauth the existing open tickets should be visible again. 

[Amanda_Bierock]

@ryanwanner Unfortunately this doesn't work for me, I don't see preauth as an option under Open Tickets in the Square Point of Sale app on any of my devices. Here is a screenshot from my Square Register of what I see. Am I somehow still looking in the wrong place?

[ryanwanner]

@Amanda_Bierock  No, you're in the right place. I wonder if this is a switch that needs to be thrown on the back end, which would mean a phone call to support.

Now, I may be mistaken with preauth being available on the regular point of sale. I beta tested it so it was fully available on all my devices. Now that it's out of beta there may have been some restrictions put into place. That's above my pay grade, though: I'm tagging @nika , the beta manager, who should have more insight.

[FarmAndBar]

@Amanda_Bierock

I have Square for restaurants. I see the same thing you do. Still nothing.

[Amanda_Bierock]

@ryanwanner Thanks. I was actually in the beta too but couldn't ever use it since the beta didn't work/run on Square Register and if you didn't have the beta on all your devices then open tickets wouldn't sync across them.

[collabman]

You have to go to "View Details" then settings to configure the pre-auth on the register.  It will make you reboot the register once configured.  It's pretty awesome.  We've been using for over a year now (in beta).  Square has worked out all the early issues.  One thing to note: if you dip the card it will pull the name for the ticket.  If you tap it will just put the card and last four digits (Visa 1234).  Not a big deal, just ask for a name.  This has probably saved us tens of thousands in walked tabs over the course of using it.

[Amanda_Bierock]

@collabman Hmmm, they must have added the ability to use the beta on Square Register using the Square Point of Sale app after June 2023, as Square told us at that time it wasn't available and I didn't hear that changed. I'll have to see if the option is under "View Details" when I go in. But still didn't see it on the iPads, and if we can't get it up and working on all devices we would still be stuck.

[FarmAndBar]

"View Details" doesn't seem to send me anywhere. The screen stays the same.