Best Practice for handling Unpaid Bar Tabs

ELees — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 13:58:22 GMT

Hi Everyone,

can someone educate me on what the best practice is for handling an unpaid bar tab?

My bartender says the system does not allow closeout at the end of day until the tab is settled.

TIA

Re: Best Practice for handling Unpaid Bar Tabs

TheRealChipA — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 19:35:48 GMT

Hey @ELees. Sorry to hear this. People are the worst, aren’t they? So, a couple of things.

First, your bartender is mistaken. After you select the close of day function, you can Run Close of Day with open checks. You just have to select the “Run Anyway” button in the pop up warning box, and then enter a manager code to continue.

Second, you might want to consider using the beta for the new bar tabs feature in Square for Restaurants POS. In your device settings on your dashboard, go to Service Settings > Bar tabs pre-auth. Once you go through the steps to set this up, you bartender can pre-authorize a card and then close the tab to it if the customer walks out without paying. That is, in reality, your best protection and best practice.

If you don’t want to do this, you’ll have to resort to taking physical cards to open a tab and holding them until the customer is ready to pay out. That’s really the only other option you have.

Re: Best Practice for handling Unpaid Bar Tabs

ELees — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 20:12:42 GMT

Thanks, Chip. I appreciate your feedback.

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Best Practice for handling Unpaid Bar Tabs

Re: Best Practice for handling Unpaid Bar Tabs

Re: Best Practice for handling Unpaid Bar Tabs