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!

[ESRLA88]

Any intel on using Square for POS in a hotel bar? We are seeking to upgrade from our ‘custom’ ancient P.O.S. POS somebody’s IT husband set up long ago. Does Square function for Guest Room Charges and Direct Bill Transactions to a company? 

[Amanda_Bierock]

It looks like this is something people have been asking for for years, and still nothing. We are opening up a bar and chose to use Square as our POS...and not being able to pre-authorize a credit card for an open tab is one of several things (like not being able to apply a dollar based discount more than once) that we have since found out about that is really frustrating. I doubt my comment will get this done any time soon, but figured I would add my voice asking for this functionality to be added ASAP!

[Helen]

Hello @ESRLA88! Hopefully a seller who uses Square in a similar setting can chime in but I wanted to answer your questions! 

There isn't a way to integrate Square with another system to manage Guest Room Charges but you could use a feature called Open Tickets to start/save tabs at your bar.

However, it's important that you and your staff know that there isn't a way to pre-authorize a card with Open Tickets. To settle a tab, guests would need to present their card and pay at the Point of Sale at the end of their stay. 

By direct bill transactions are you looking for a way pay suppliers from Square? That's a feature request that we are tracking. But you can send an Invoice to a supplier to accept a payment from another company. If you were looking for something else, let me know! 

[cgrcnyncottage]

PLEASE add this feature - it is why I signed up. Very disappointed the option is not there yet... 

Thanks!

[ESRLA88]

Hi Helen,

No we were hoping Square had an option to directly bill our parent company’s corporate accounts for their promotional guest comps as well as whenever corporate covers the bill for a employees or other associates. 

While the Open Tickets covers part of what we need, sounds like it would not solve keeping the completion of the transaction upon check out streamlined.

We primarily wanted to ise Square in the bar only and then hopefully the restaurant and hotel would follow. 

Thank You

[Helen]

Oh I see @ESRLA88! Hmm while you could use Invoices to bill your parent company (and apply discounts too) they would have pay the invoice by card. It sounds like Square isn't the best option for that aspect of your hotel yet!

I should also let you know we recently launched an new app called Square Restaurants which you might like to take a look at for your bar/restaurant in future. 

Let me know if you have any other questions.

[RRedel]

I agree, we need this feature. I have two bars and just 2 days ago a customer gave us a credit card and then left after he spent $60. He even left his card behind and of course it was declined. I made the bar maid pay the tab as she forgot to ask for an ID to go with the card. 

[ravenkwill]

I'm not finding a recent discussion of this - old threads from 2 years ago talk about the need for pre-authrization. I run a smal b&b. We allow free cancellation up to 48 hours in advance of stays, but charge a cancellation fee for less notice and for no-shows. Unfortunately, we don't usually find out the card's no good until it's too late. If we could pre-authorize at the 48 hour mark, we could be certain of the funds being available, or to contact the guest and cancel the reservation.

We have a no-show tonight. We've had 3 calls today for rooms which we turned down because of this reservation. Then they don't show, and the card is declined. If we could have attempted to pre-authorize 48 hours ago, we'd have known it was declined, and could have opened up the room.

Please let us know when this will be implemented. It's apparently already available through your Square Appointments, but that doesn't really work for our booking needs. 

[DaoDeJing]

I agree this would be a very useful feature and hope they implement it soon.

For now though, would it be too onerous to contact every customer at the 48 hour mark to confirm they still plan on coming? This wouldn't be foolproof of course, since they could still not show and have a declined card. But it might cut down on the problem.

Requiring partial prepayment might be another option, with a refund only available if they cancel before the 48 hour mark. This would not only give you at least a little something should they back out, but would also be a way to ensure that they gave you a valid card in the first place. (I personally have had problems where people give a maxxed out or expired card when they make a booking. Ug.)

Another idea would be to use Square Appointments, but only on your end. (That is, the customer makes the booking some other way.)

Perhaps one or more of these, used together, could reduce the risk sufficiently?

[kisutte]

We're actually shopping for another POS system since our business is growing and we're hiring more bartenders. This feature is definitely needed by Square. It was a good POS system for us when we were getting started. Now we're needing something that offers this feature to help mitigate relying solely on employees or the customer remembering their tabs/cards. We loved using Square. Maybe there will be an update before we finalize our next POS system?