Capture delayed payments
- Account owners or team members with the transactions permission to view and manage payments.
- Square for Restaurants Plus and Premium subscribers.
- Square Plus and Premium subscribers with advanced restaurants capabilities added.
About capturing delayed payments
When you use Square for Restaurants with delayed-capture payment flows — such as keeping a card on file for a bar tab or holding a check open overnight — the payment authorization is placed on the customer's card but the funds are not captured immediately.
Delayed-capture payments must be captured before the authorization expires. The capture window depends on your check settlement settings — this may be at the end of your working day, end of your reporting day, or up to 36 hours after the check was opened.
Before you begin
The delayed payment must not yet be settled or expired. Payments that have already been captured during close of day or that have expired cannot be manually captured.
You can capture delayed payments from the Transactions applet in the Square POS app or from Square Dashboard.
This includes prior-day sales that were missed during close of day — as long as the authorization has not expired, you can still capture them the following day.
Capture a delayed payment
- Sign in to Square Dashboard and go to Reports > Payments > Transaction status.
- Locate the pending payment you want to capture. Delayed-capture payments display a status indicating they are awaiting capture.
- Select the transaction to view its details.
- Select the option to capture the payment.
- Confirm the capture amount, including any tip adjustments.
- Confirm the capture action.
Once captured, the payment is finalized and will appear in your sales reports. Funds will transfer to your linked bank account on your normal transfer schedule.
Understand tipping on delayed-capture payments
If a customer added a tip to a delayed-capture transaction, the tip amount is included when the payment is captured. You can also adjust tips on delayed-capture transactions from Square Dashboard before capturing the payment.
To adjust a tip before capture, sign in to Square Dashboard and go to Reports > Payments > Transaction status. Locate the delayed-capture transaction, open the transaction details, and update the tip amount before completing the capture.
Handle expired or failed captures
If a delayed-capture payment authorization has expired (based on your check settlement settings), you cannot capture the funds. In this case:
The original authorization is released back to the customer's card.
You will need to collect payment from the customer through another method.
If you continue to experience issues with expired authorizations, review your close of day procedures to ensure payments are captured promptly. Learn how to set up and run your restaurant’s close of day report.