Question about credit card authorization form

[laureng2]

Question for you all about Square credit card authorization forms. In the FAQ section about charging credit cards, they give you a template to input all of the numbers of the customer's credit card number. Then when going to save the card on file, they give you the option of using another form that only asks for the last four digits. If they are offering this form for merchants to use, then why are they requiring sellers to put the full number into the terminal when charging the card?

[JJ_]

Hello there @laureng2 

The Credit Card Authorization Form serves as evidence that you have authorization from your buyer to keep this card on file and debit/charge it whenever needed. However, when manually entering a card on the application we require 100% accuracy on every card transaction. 

I hope this information is helpful! P.S. Welcome to the Seller Community

[MMV]

Is there a digital authorization form?  A link I can send to the customer to fill out?

[XY]

Found this thread searching for the same thing. Then I found this which is confusing:

Here’s the link to the FAQ where I found this. 

It says we don’t have to do anything. Then it refers to the authorization form.

Which is it? We need it or we don’t, Square?

[sayra]

Hello, @XY. 

Excellent question! We understand that this might be a bit confusing. Although we don't mandate the use of an authorization form, we recommend obtaining written consent from your customers before charging their cards. This practice is particularly beneficial for sellers handling recurring payments and can serve as a valuable record in the event of any disputes.

Please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns. 

[XY]

But it says with Card on File we don’t have to worry about handling our customer’s sensitive info or storing paper files. Not true since Square doesn’t help us with the authorization and instead sends us to a paper form for our customers to sign that we have to store.

[JJ_]

Your feedback is valid @XY. We’d love it if you'd submit this request on our Ideate page for Square Point of Sale. Our team monitors these boards, and we triage them to measure needs. You can search the boards to see if this has been requested before and add your use case if so!