Gift cards: sell them at the till, spend them like money

Who are gift cards for?

Gift shops, clothing shops, salons, hardware stores, bookshops: any business where people buy something for someone else, especially around birthdays and the end of the year. A gift card is also a tidy way to say sorry to a customer, or to give a prize, without handing over cash.

What do gift cards do?

• Sell a card for any amount on the main till, Quick Sale and the industry tills, with the sale or on its own, or issue one from the dashboard.
• Sell eGift cards on your store website and food ordering site, delivered by email, WhatsApp or SMS.
• Print the card on your receipt printer, or send it by WhatsApp or SMS with a message.
• Take a gift card as payment at the till, against an invoice or at your online checkout, alone or with cash or card for the rest.
• Keep refunds as store credit, for a named customer or on a new card for a walk-in.
• Keep a history of every card: what was put on, what was spent, and what is left.
• Treat unspent balances as money owed, not sales, so your takings and VAT stay right.
• Show what is still owed on cards and store credit in a balances report, with a CSV download.

How do I switch gift cards on?

Gift cards are off by default. Your EasyTaskr contact switches them on for your business; they cannot be turned on from your own Settings yet. When they are on, you see a Gift cards tab under Customer offers, and a Gift card button on the till, Quick Sale and the industry tills. Selling eGifts online has its own switch in Gift card settings, off by default.

Any till user can sell and spend gift cards. Issuing from the dashboard, cancelling, changing a balance, giving a new code and settings are for owners, admins and managers.

What should I set first?

Open Gift cards, then Gift card settings from the menu. The page has a few short sections:

The VAT choice matters. For a card that can be spent on anything, VAT is charged when the goods are sold, not when the card is sold. The rate is fixed on each card when it is sold, so changing the setting later never re-taxes cards already out. If you are not sure which applies to you, ask your accountant.

EasyTaskr never takes a fee on gift cards.

How do I sell a gift card at the till?

1. Press Gift card on the till.
2. Choose Sell it: With this sale if the customer is buying other things too, or On its own now.
3. Tap a preset amount, or Another amount and type it.
4. Press Add with the amount to put it on the sale.
5. Take payment as normal, in cash or by card. A gift card cannot be bought with another gift card, store credit or on account.
6. The receipt prints the card with its code, a QR code and its value.

The confirm step shows one grand total, the goods plus the gift cards being bought, with a small line under it: "Order · Gift cards". On the main till the goods and the gift card are saved as two records from one checkout; on Quick Sale and the industry tills they are one sale. Either way the drawer counts the cash and the reports keep the card out of sales.

How does a customer spend a gift card?

At the till, press Gift card, then Pay with a gift card. Scan the card or type the 16-character code into Gift card code and press Find. The till shows the balance; press Use to take what is needed, or change Take from the card to use less. The rest of the sale can be paid in cash, by card, or left on account where that is allowed. A gift card and the card reader cannot pay the same sale: take the rest in cash, or use the reader on its own sale.

On an invoice, choose Gift card as the payment method. Scan the card or type its code, and the amount is taken off the card.

The receipt prints each card used, what it paid, and what is left on it.

Typing is forgiving: capitals, spaces and dashes do not matter, and the codes leave out letters and numbers that look alike. A wrong code shows "No gift card with that code". Too many wrong tries from one place lock that place out for a while, which stops anyone guessing codes.

How do I issue a card from the dashboard?

Use this for a card sold over the phone, a prize or a goodwill gesture.

1. Open Gift cards and press Issue gift card.
2. Choose an Amount or Or type an amount.
3. Under How, choose Sold and how it was Paid by (Cash, Card or Bank transfer), or Given free and type Why it is given.
4. Fill in Who it is for, Their phone and a Message if you want one.
5. Press Issue. The Gift card ready screen lets you Print it or Send it by WhatsApp.

A card given free is recorded as a cost to the business, not as money taken.

How do I look after cards once they are out?

The Gift cards list shows every card by its last four characters, its balance, status and when it was issued, with one search (last 4, name, phone or customer) and a filter by status. Open a card to see its History and these actions:

• Send balance link: sends the balance page, never the code.
• Change balance: add or take off an amount with a reason.
• New code (lost card): the old code stops working at once; the balance stays.
• Cancel card: stops the card for good, with a reason. What was left is written off.

The full code is shown only at the moment a card is issued. EasyTaskr keeps a scrambled version for checking, so even someone who saw your database could not spend a card. That is why a lost card gets a new code instead of a reprint.

What happens with refunds?

Money goes back where it came from. If a till sale that sold a gift card is voided, the card is cancelled, unless some of it has been spent. If a payment made with a gift card is removed, the money goes back on the card. If goods paid by gift card are returned and refunded to the gift card, the money goes back on the card that paid, never more than it paid.

How does store credit work?

On a return, Pay it back how? offers Cash, Back to the gift card (only when a gift card paid) and To store credit.

• A named customer has one store credit balance. It shows on their customer page, and the till and the invoice payment screen offer Store credit once that customer is chosen. There is no code to carry.
• A walk-in gets a new store credit card with a code, shown and printed once on the return screen. It is spent like a gift card, by its code.
• Store credit never expires, carries no VAT of its own, and is not a drawer movement, so the till's cash count is not touched.

Store credit uses the same switch as gift cards.

How do gift receipts work?

After a sale, or later from the sale's menu in sales history, press Gift receipt. Choose all or some of the items and print it. It shows the items, the quantities, a return-by date and a return code, and never a price.

On the returns screen, Scan gift receipt finds the sale and picks the gifted items. The value stays hidden unless the cashier taps Show value. With gift cards on, the money goes onto Store credit by default, as a new card with a code for the person holding the gift, never onto the buyer's account. With gift cards off, a credit note is the default. Cash back on a gift, or a return after the return-by date, needs a manager and a reason. The return window is set in Settings, 30 days unless you change it.

What does it not do yet?

• Paying a food online order with a gift card is not built; buying an eGift from the food ordering site is.
• Quick Sale spends store credit by a walk-in's code only; a named customer's store credit is spent on the main till, the industry tills and invoices.
• Printing a batch of plastic cards to activate later is not built.

What report is there?

Gift cards, then Report, shows what is still owed on gift cards and on store credit, and expired cards that still hold money, grouped by month of expiry, with a CSV download. Unpaid till cards are cleared away each night.

Related features

Gift cards are one tab of Customer offers, beside customer offers, customer rewards and coupon codes. They are paid for and spent on the POS till and against invoices, and the cash shows up in your end of day cash-up like any other.