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!

[excelsiorbrew]

Has this been resolved yet? It is the main reason I am considering a new POS. I run a taproom and holding cc is terrible. 

[eastender]

I don’t believe this promised change has been implemented yet. I certainly haven’t seen it. 

[excelsiorbrew]

Ugh. This may be one of the most important features for a bar/restaurant. 

[TheLoftWineBar]

Hi Tom, it's been over a month since this discussion started, no comments from Square on the topic, and absolutley no sign that Square intends to offer a solution to this problem. Thoughts?

[puka]

Hi @TheLoftWineBar - Unfortunately, we don't have any updates to share on this feature. We'll make sure to share any news as we hear of it. In the meantime, you can learn more about how a feature request comes to life in Feature Requests & the Seller Community.

[micaholson]

This reply was created from merging an existing thread: Can I put a hold on funds like car rental agencies does?

My daughter and I are starting a small business for event rentals. We will have each renter sign a damage agreement allowing us to bill their card for the amount needed to repair any damage to the equipment.  Is there a way to place a hold on the card as security until they return the equipment, and then release it?  If not what other suggestions would you have?

I assume that if they have signed a rental agreement, and a signed credit card auth form specifying that we will charge their card for damages, we would be legally allowed to charge them if they broke items, or did not return them...

[VanKalkerFarms]

Square does not currently have a way to place funds on hold on a credit card.  you could use deposits to take a partial payment that is applied to their final purchase.  but it is not advisable to take a payment for a security deposit and then refund it every time as that will cause issues in the long rung for your account.

[TAPJETS]

Actually, this is very possible and fairly simple to do.  Square offers what is called delayed_capture in their Development Guide.  You should consider integrating their payment form into your website and this way you can DELAY_CAPTURE for 6 days any amount you specify. see below from their documentation

Eugene / www.tapjets.com

Delayed-capture transactions

Online payments are authorized by the issuing bank at the moment of purchase. An authorized transaction means that the bank has put a hold on the funds but the merchant has not received payment. Customers see this as a "pending" transaction on their credit card statement. At some later point, transactions are reconciled by capturing the transaction. A captured transaction means that the merchant receives the funds previously put on hold by the issuing bank.

The default behavior for Charge is immediate capture, but this behavior can be overwritten using the delay_capture field in the Transaction request object.

[birdhouseinn]

I think most of us are not using the Square API on our websites, but instead using the Square app on our phones.  I don't see any way to do delayed capture there.

[casadyc]

This is an incredibly important feature to have, and is rapidly becoming a standard for restaurant POS systems. Please hurry with this feature!