Sell and Redeem Gift Cards

Selling one

Gift cards are sold like anything else: add one to a ticket and check out. They are managed under Gift Cards / Packages in the left navigation.

Clients can also buy them from your website, unless you have turned that off:

• Hide Personalized Gift Card from Website
• Disable Gift Card Purchase from Website

Redeeming one

At checkout, choose the gift card as the payment method and apply it. If it does not cover the whole ticket, take the rest on another method — see Split a payment.

The balance is tracked on the card, so a partly used card keeps working.

The accounting point most shops miss

When you sell a gift card you have not earned the money. You have taken cash for a service you still owe. It is a liability.

Perceny lets you keep that out of your day's numbers:

• Exclude Gift Cards from Cash Register (Cash Register Settings) — gift-card revenue is not attributed to the drawer.
• Hide Tips for Products & Gift Cards (Payment Settings) — no tip prompt on a gift-card-only ticket.

Turn the first on unless you have a reason not to. Otherwise December looks like your best month ever and January looks like a collapse, when in fact one paid for the other.

Commission on gift cards

Decide deliberately whether selling a gift card earns commission, and if so, whether it earns again when the card is redeemed. Paying twice on the same money is a common and expensive mistake. If in doubt, pay on redemption — that is when the work happens.

Packages

Packages are the same idea applied to services: a client buys several visits up front and draws them down. The same liability logic applies, and the same advice about when commission is earned.

Where to look

• Gift Cards / Packages — every card, its balance and its history.
• A client's record shows the cards attached to them.
• Reports show gift-card sales separately from service revenue, which is exactly why the register exclusion is worth turning on.