[Early Access] Open Tabs for Online Ordering Profiles: try it out and share your feedback

[RazakM]

Hi F&B folks! 👋

We’re excited to share that Open Tabs for Online Ordering Profiles is now available in Early Feature Access!

What it is

Open Tabs lets customers start a tab from their Online Ordering Profile, continue adding items throughout their visit, and pay when they're ready to close out. Staff can view and manage the same tab from Square Point of Sale, making it easier to serve dine-in guests without interrupting the ordering experience.

We’re looking for restaurants, bars, coffee shops, bakeries, and other F&B sellers to try it out and share feedback with our team.

To get started:

1. Head to Early Feature Access in your Square Dashboard and install Open Tabs for Ordering Profiles
2. Go to Online Ordering → QR Code Ordering and enable “Allow dine-in customers to open a tab.”

Screenshot 2026-08-10 at 10.37.24 AM.png

You'll need to be on a Square Plus or Premium plan and have Online Ordering Profiles enabled.

Since this is an early feature, your input directly shapes where it goes next. Share your feedback here throughout the beta — what's working, what isn't, and what you'd like to see improved 🙌. 

[emilyz123]

We do have an open ticket feature now that we use for this use case so I'm trying to figure out how that's different.  https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5337-use-open-tickets-with-square

[RazakM]

Thats fair. This is more of a self-serve experience. With Open Tickets, the staff manages the ticket and adds items as the buyer orders more. The key difference here is that it’s buyer-first, so the buyer can add additional items directly from their own device without needing staff to update the ticket.

[CinderBistro]

@RazakM Sounds interesting but how do our servers get notified when a customer has added something to their order? I also assume items ordered would also be automatically routed to the correct KDS?

[RazakM]

Yes! Any items added will automatically route to the appropriate KDS, and the order will also pop up on your POS just like a regular order. From the POS, you’ll be able to assign a server to it as well.

[backyard]

Quick question, I assume that if they set up a tab that way it's the online ordering processing rate vs the dip/tap rate?

[tranguyen]

Thanks for raising this @backyard ! From what I've found, the tab is charged online ordering processing rate. 

However, because multiple items/orders are consolidated into a single transaction, so you will pay the fixed fee (30¢) only once instead of on each separate order. 

Will let @RazakM confirm as well!

[RazakM]

Thanks @tranguyen. That is correct

[LTDBrewing]

@RazakM My biggest problem with this is that it requires pre-auth and the way square does pre-authorizations does not work for us.  When square does a pre-auth it puts a freeze on the funds on a debit card and our customers did not appreciate that.  If square can come up with a better way to do a pre-auth, this feature would be more appealing to us. For example when I get gas and pre authorize it with a card it doesn't put a hold in the maximum amount on my bank card, so there must be a way. Thank you!  

[RazakM]

Thanks for the feedback @LTDBrewing. That’s a good callout. I’ll flag this and share it with the rest of the team.

[noworyz123]

Does the customer have to start the tab using the QR code in order to add things to their tab or can a staff member start their tab (how we currently do it) and the customer add things via the QR code later on?

[RazakM]

The customer needs to start the tab using the QR code, as this feature is designed to be a self-service experience.

[backyard]

Makes sense, thanks for clarification. When the customers order/tab shows on the POS, are staff members able to also add items on the customer created tab?

[RazakM]

Yes, staff can add items from the POS once the tab has been created. Though to do that you would need to have Open Ticket enabled.

[RazakM]

Hi @noworyz123 , The feature is self-serve so the customer is expected to start their tab using the QR code. With Open Tickets, the staff manages the tab and adds items from the POS too

[backyard]

As I'm playing around with this, is it possible to set a different menu for QR code (for here) ordering than my main online ordering menu?

For example, using the for here QR code ordering, I want to have additional items that I do not have in my main online ordering menu that customers use on my website for pickup orders.

[RazakM]

At the moment there’s no way to set a menu specifically for QR code ordering. Will flag that as a potential improvment to the overall experience

[backyard]

Ok, where is it pulling the products from? Is it a menu that I built for the website or is it based on "channels and visibility"

Seems confusing on where the products are defined. Thanks

[RazakM]

You can reuse the menu you’ve already built for your website, so there’s no need to start from scratch. You’ll just need to update the sales channel and assign the menu to the appropriate ordering profile.

Totally understand the confusion here! This article has a bit more detail on how menus work across locations and sales channels: https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8553-manage-your-menus-across-locations-and-sales-channels

[backyard]

Okay, I think I get it now, haha! But, with that in mind, I’m not sure this feature is quite ready for how I’d like to use it.

I run a restaurant and bar that utilizes online ordering system for food. That works great! If I were to add QR code ordering for dine-in customers, I’d also want them to be able to browse and add items from the drink categories that are not part of the online ordering food menu. However, I don’t want those drinks to be available on our regular online ordering site (just for in-house use).

From what I understand, I can’t have two different “online” menus for this feature, so it seems like I either have to allow food orders only via QR code, or I have to include all our drinks on the online ordering site. Neither of those options works for us.

I’m sure this will keep getting better, and I’m excited about the updates because I think I could really use this functionality if I could customize it a bit more to fit our needs.