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]

So sorry for the confusion here, @Amanda_Bierock @FarmAndBar and others!

Pre-Authorization recently became available to all users of Square for Restaurants (Free, Premium, and Plus), and you should be able to turn in on by following the instructions in this support article, via the Dashboard and device settings.

Enable and Configure Pre-Authorization Bar Tabs

If you are using Square for Restaurants and aren't able to enable Pre-Auth by following these steps, please reach out to our support team for assistance.

For businesses that use Square Point of Sale, there is not currently a way to access Pre-Authorization.  While we did run a Beta test last year for Pre-Authorization on Point of Sale, it has been discontinued and Square for Restaurants is the only application that currently supports this functionality.

The team developing Pre-Authorization decided last summer to focus their efforts on Pre-Auth within Square for Restaurants and discontinued the Beta and development of Pre-Auth for Point of Sale.

Some testers who participated in the Point of Sale Beta we ran last year may still have access via their open tickets settings on individual devices (like @ryanwanner) but accounts that were not enrolled in that Beta feature last summer can no longer be added.

@nika I hope this context is helpful when these questions come up - it can be confusing because at times we had a POS Beta on the way.  It's understandable when it's been a request for so long 🙂

Andy
Beta Specialist

[#3]

Hello all! We are so excited to let the community know that this feature is now available for Square for Restaurants! 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!

[LLCafe]

We could really use this as well, It would make life much easier for Bars & Restaurants! 

[HDA]

So Square, years of promises and yet nothing delivered. If you arent going to do this have the courtesy of just saying so instead of stringing us along...

[Deuces]

We switched to Toast and it has been more than worth the investment in new equipment. Pre-auth is quick and easy … (you set the pre-auth amount). We use the handhelds for check out vs printing paper … it’s as simple as closing customers out using their saved CC.  And if they forget, we can add tip (posted) and use saved CC to close them.  

Beyond that, support is amazing; live support always available via a phone call (no prior ticket authorization required - you just call and they answer!) and the tech support team is knowledgeable, friendly and patient … they will even remote into the system to troubleshoot (we have only had a couple issues that required us to call, primarily related to human error by our bartenders).  

Remote access to the system is very easy via mobile online tools … we can peek into our system at any time and even perform manager override functions remotely.  

We honestly could not be happier. 

[FarmAndBar]

Yeah, I think that if their goal was genuinely to build a bar/restaurant platform that they could nail this down in a matter of weeks.  It seems to be an on going thing for nearly six years.  First comment on the matter is dated back in 2016.

[eastender]

Actually, we’ve been asking for this since before 2016 but the threads here were merged and that date/post was lost. 

At this point, it’s my own **bleep** fault for staying in an increasingly bad relationship for 10 yrs. So we’re actively reviewing a replacement.

We’re a Brewery/Brewpub, and the top pick so far seems to be Arryved, designed with the specifics of our industry subset in mind. Seems to be a lower cost too.

Good luck everyone!

[graylbu]

Spoke with someone at Square customer service and they said they have no information on this and the only way to push something into production is to get at least 1000 likes or similar requests. Square - Please, PLEASE complete the functionality for us to pre-authorize credit cards when starting bar tabs for our patrons. ALL of Square's competitors are doing this. Seems ridiculous to lose business for this seemingly commonplace functionality that benefits multiple business models. Put it into beta testing now or Toast and other POS systems are where I'm going. 

If you agree and your business can benefit from this functionality, please like this comment and ask others to do the same. Maybe, just maybe we can gain some traction on this. Cheers. 

[TB_BS]

I honestly, can't believe that Square doesn't understand the importance of this. I have seen people request Pre-Authorization since 2017 and they have had ample time to try and figure it out. Toast is a fairly new system for bars and restaurants, and yet they offered it immediately. I feel like more people would choose and stay with Square if they just listened (read) what their customers wanted. I know that they are doing this because they make more money with running the card every time, but I feel like in the long run they would keep customers and ultimately make more money. 

And if you have to charge extra for the feature, I am sure people that NEED the feature would pay for it, but to just not even offer it through their own platform, but offer it through other platforms that use their processing is really messed up. 

If so many other companies have the feature, it can't be that difficult to add, they are just being bullheaded at this point.

[Amanda_Bierock]

YES!!! This is ABSOLUTELY needed. There is a 63 page archived post in the Seller Community about this very feature. It has been YEARS have a lot of users asking for this with nothing done. This is so infuriating!!! Link to archived post: https://www.sellercommunity.com/t5/Read-only-archive-Square-Point/Feature-Request-Pre-authorization-...

[Kassi_]

Hey there, @FarmAndBar - 

Appreciate you bringing this over to the Ideate Board. I know this has been a long time request from our Sellers. 

I have actually merged the previous thread one of the other sellers mentioned to add their voices to our new Feature Request process. 

The status has been changed to reviewed, so our Product Team can look into this a bit further. Once more information become available the status will be updated by a Community Moderator. 

[HRBrewing]

Four years they've been saying it's just around the corner but I have since found out that it's not an option because the existing hardware cannot support pre-authorization. Based on this new information I am moving over to Arryved. Pretty unhappy I've been lied to for 4 years!