Best Practice for handling Unpaid Bar Tabs

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

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Square Champion

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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.

Chip A.
Square Expert & Innovator and member of the Square Champions group. (But NOT a Square employee, just a seller like you)

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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.

Chip A.
Square Expert & Innovator and member of the Square Champions group. (But NOT a Square employee, just a seller like you)

Was my post helpful? Take a moment to mark it as a solution. Marked solutions help other sellers find possible resolutions to similar problems. Also, if you find your solution elsewhere (say, through Support), it is helpful to come back to your post and tell us about it, then mark that as a Solution. Solutions are what this Community is all about!
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Thanks, Chip.  I appreciate your feedback.

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