Gift Certificates are a great feature to offer to your customers, as they can help promote the business and increase sales. It enables people to be able to buy a gift for someone while still letting them chose what they want. Some gift certificates may never be claimed so it can be quite profitable.
Gift Certificates enable customers to buy (or be given) a Certificate or Card for a specific value. Each certificate is issued a unique number and has the details stored for easy tracking.
Gift Certificates can be printed from within Evopos as they are issued, or you can use pre-printed plastic cards with bar-code numbers.
With the Certificates you can detail who it was from, who it is to, a personal message.
You can also optionally set it so that it expires, the default if set is 1 Year, but you can change this.
Please contact your Evopos Customer Service team for Pre-Printed cards.
Setting Up
Create a part Number for each common Gift Voucher value, or just create one gift card item and change the value when required.
To make if easy to find the 'General' part numbers we normally start the Part Number with .G and then a reference to what it is, for example:: '.GGIFT20'.
Also, for example, the Description could be: 'Gift Certificate', Sell price (Incl): 20.00, 'Cost Percent if Zero' to 100%.
Some countries require that Tax be included in the gift certificate price in which case you should set to Standard Rated, otherwise you can set as zero rated. In each case the eventual tax paid is the same, just the timing of the tax paid is different if spread over a tax period.
To create the Gift Certificate Part Number:
-
Navigate to Items\Stock Items
-
Select New and create a New Stock Item with the 'Type' of GIFT CARD
-
Set your description
-
Set the pricing (Optional)
You should also select: Settings\System\Sales\Gift Certificate Form and set the Gift Certificate form (for Printing)
Selling a Gift Certificate
To sell a Gift Certificate
-
Select Sales from the top menu
-
Enter one of your Gift Certificate part numbers you created in Setup (above)
-
Confirm the Amount (this will be the amount on the Part Number by default, but you can change it)
-
Confirm who the Certificate is To (for example if Mum is buying it for her Son we can put the Son's name eg: Peter Smith, If we are giving it to the Rotary club as a prize we can put Robina Rotary Club - Christmas Draw)
-
Confirm who the Certificate is From (for example if Mum is buying it for her Son we can just put 'Mum', if enter this. If we are giving it to the Rotary club you would put your company name)
-
Confirm a Message (for example if Mum is buying it for her Son we can put 'For being a wonderful son'. If we are giving it to the Rotary club you could put 'In appreciation of the great work the Rotary club does'.)
-
Confirm if the Certificate expires (The default is set to 1 year, If not set to expire then nothing will be printed)
-
Click Ok to add gift card into the sale
-
After finishing the Invoice, Evopos will create the gift card record (You will be given an option to print the certificate if you have the form set in settings)
Claiming or Viewing a Gift Certificates
To claim all or part of a gift certificate value:
-
Ensure Sales has been selected from the top menu
-
Scan or enter the Bar-code number on the Certificate or Card into the sales screen. If you cannot read Bar-code or do not have a Bar-code scanner you can type āāGā and then the gift card number eg: -G102235. Alternatively you can just enter '-G' to show a list of all Gift Certificates (You can use this method to recall a certificates and re-print it from that screen)
-
When a Certificate has been selected Evopos will ask to confirm the amount being claimed (the customer might only want to claim a portion at that point in time). Evopos will then add the amount being claimed into the sale as a negative amount.
-
Finish the sale as normal. If the Invoice is for more than the amount being claimed, the customer can pay the difference. If the balance is negative (if you did not want to take a proportion of the Certificate value), you can ensure a Name has been selected and put the Credit balance on their account.
-
If there is a balance left on the Certificate and you want to re-print it showing the new amount. Do this after finishing the transaction and then re-scan / re-enter the Certificate code / number and select Print from the menu, you can then cancel.