Gift cards are a thoughtful way for clients to gift your services and merchandise to family and friends.

Recipients are sent a link to create (or log into) their personal account. Once logged in, the gift card is redeemed to their virtual Wallet and ready to use in-store or to pay a balance. Here's an article for your clients to show them how it works.

Before you start, you'll need the 'Manage gift cards' permission and at least one custom ledger code to assign to your gift card(s).

In the Store > Gift Cards subtab, click New gift card:

Use the Actions column to edit, duplicate, or delete/archive gift cards at any time. Changes don't affect gift cards that have already been sold. To change the order in which gift cards appear in the store, click and drag the points icon on the left.

🎗️ Don't forget to make the gift cards section visible in your store! To do this, go to the Store > Store settings > Customize subtab and put a ☑️ next to Gift Cards.

In the store, click on the Gift Cards section to view the selection of gift cards. If only one gift card is available, clients and admins will immediately see the gift card order form. Only 1 gift card can be completed at a time.

The invoice shows the recipient's email address and the send date. Admins may cancel a gift card if it hasn't been redeemed by clicking 'Cancel/Refund items'.

Admins can see who purchased a gift card in the account by going into the Purchases section and scrolling down. Clients have access to this same screen in the Purchases tab in their personal account. Both admins and clients can use Actions to:

On the send date, the recipient is emailed a special link to log in or create their account. The gift card is redeemed in the account they log into (or create).

When the recipient logs in, they must consent to redeem their gift card if they've never visited the organization's SmartRec store. After consenting, a success message confirms the gift card has been added to their account.

Once redeemed, the gift card shows in their personal account, under the Wallet tab:

Gift card funds are available for use as a credit; either at checkout or when paying an outstanding balance. Any account member can use a gift card from the account Wallet to buy anything in the organization's store, save for a few restrictions.

Let's say you have a $25 gift card and want to buy a $10 item. At checkout, you can use your available credit (i.e., the $25 gift card).

​

Let's say you have a $50 gift card and want to buy a $200 item. At checkout, you can use your available credit (i.e., the $50 gift card). Then, $150 remains to be paid with an accepted payment method.

​

If there's an existing credit in the account, the sum of the gift card and the account credit can both be used at checkout. The gift card is used up first, followed by the account credit.

Say you have a $50 gift card and an account credit of $100 and want to buy a $125 item. At checkout, you can use your available credit (i.e., the $50 gift card and 75$ of the existing account credit) to complete the purchase. Any remaining balance must be paid immediately with an accepted payment method.

This $125 transaction reduces the Gift card balance from $50 to $0, and the account credit from $100 to $25.

A gift card can be used to pay off an outstanding balance. Clients can do it from their own personal account (as long as the organization allows it).

First, check in the Accounting and finance>Payments subtab that clients can pay their balance and the option is set to 'Clients must pay the full amount due'. For now, clients must clear the full balance if they want to use a gift card to help pay.

Here's what clients should expect in their personal account:

👇 A client with a $100 SmartRec Demo gift card has a balance of $200. It must be paid in full. They use the $100 gift card and pay the rest by credit card. $0 remains on the SmartRec Demo gift card.

You may cancel an invoice and refund money back to the gift card. The refund can't exceed the amount that was paid with the gift card. There must be a credit in the account before you can refund any kind of payment.

Below, we'll look at how to refund a purchase paid in full with a gift card, or partially paid with a gift card.

Expand the invoice to Cancel/Refund Items and select the item(s) to cancel:

In client billing, a Credit memo appears for the canceled purchase and a Refund appears for the return of funds to the Gift card balance.

Expand the invoice to Cancel/Refund Items and select the item(s) to cancel:

❗ When you credit a partial amount or add a fee, the other payment method's refund is reduced first. If we add a $5 admin fee, it's deducted from the cash refund ($25 - $5 = $20) while the refund to the gift card is left untouched. If the admin fee is $30, then no cash refund occurs and only $45 is put back on the gift card.

In client billing, a credit memo appears for the canceled purchase, a check refund and another refund to the Gift card balance.

Gift cards are unique in the sense that you can buy one, you can pay with one and it's a type of liability. See below which report you need based on what you're looking for.
​

The Breakdown of sales lists who purchased a gift card and how many were sold.

The Payment by ledger code shows the total amount purchased and how it was paid. In this example, $75 worth of gift cards was bought (Net). It was paid for by cash. We also see $10 worth of Merch was bought and paid for with gift card money.

The Payment by item report (ideal for Cash accounting) shows how each transaction was paid for. In this example, we see that 2 gift cards were paid for with cash. We can also see that some merchandise was paid for with gift card funds.

If your organization uses accrual accounting, the Journal entries for each transaction provides a complete breakdown, including reconciliations. Simply filter the ledger column for ledger codes pertaining to your gift card(s).

A liability is an amount that your organization owes or will owe. You've been paid money for a gift card, but that money is meant towards a future sale, it's not money you will keep. There are two reports that track liabilities with journal entries.

The Liabilities report gives you a snapshot of your liabilities on a specific day.

The Summary of Transactions gives you a summary of your liabilities over a period of time.

Breakdown of payments by ledger code: Filter for the Gift card ledger code(s) to see who bought one and filter by Credit type to see who paid with a gift card and what they paid for.

Reconciliation: On the 'All' sheet, filter by the gift card's name, Gift card refund and gift card payment to see who bought a gift card, who used a gift card as payment and/or whose gift card was refunded. The accuracy of this report relies on transactions being reconciled.

End of shift report: Shows the total number of gift card payments and refunds, with the client's name and /or admin who made the transaction.

No, you cannot modify the details that show under the gift card in the store.

The email address used to send the gift card isn’t tied to the gift card itself. Rather, the link inside the email is the key. When you click the link and then access your personal Amilia account (regardless if one uses a different email address), the gift card funds can be redeemed in the account.

No. A record of their account is only added to your Clients list once they've logged into their personal account and have visited your online store.

An admin may cancel the gift card invoice if the gift card hasn't been redeemed yet. If the gift card has been redeemed, then it's impossible to cancel the invoice. If you have any questions, please start a chat with our support team!

If the client doesn’t provide consent after logging in to their personal account, the gift card can’t be redeemed. They may shop in the organization’s store, but the gift card won’t be available for them to use.

They can refer to the gift card email and click the ‘Redeem my gift card’ button again. The client is redirected to their Amilia personal account (if they have already logged in) or they’re redirected to the login page so they can log into their account. In both cases, they’ll again be asked to provide consent to redeem their gift card.

A gift card can only be redeemed once. If you click the link after the gift card has been redeemed, you’ll see an error message when accessing your personal Amilia account.

Yes. It can be used by a client to pay off an outstanding balance in their personal account and admins can use it as a payment method in Client Billing.

Yes, clients can use gift cards to purchase subscriptions and pay for installments. However, they’ll need to provide a credit card number to buy the initial subscription or installment payment. At each payment interval, SmartRec will check if there is an existing gift card balance and will use it for the subscription or installment payment. If the balance on the gift card isn’t enough to cover the payment, it will use the credit card on the account to cover the remaining amount.

In the client’s personal Amilia account, the gift card will show a $0 amount. Admins will notice the Gift card balance in Client Billing has disappeared.

At checkout, the client won’t be asked to use an available credit unless there’s another account credit available. If there’s neither a gift card nor a remaining account credit, the client must pay the full purchase amount, as usual.

Depending on whether you use accrual or cash basis accounting, you'll process your gift card sales differently.

If you use cash basis accounting, you recognize revenue the moment it's invoiced. You list the cash coming in from gift cards as sales just like any other.

If you use accrual basis accounting, you recognize revenue when the service is rendered instead of when it was invoiced. When cash is coming in from gift card sales, it isn't counted as income until the gift card has been used to pay for a purchase.

A 1% fee is charged on each gift card sale, similar to the Service rate applied to every invoiced item in Amilia. Credit card (Visa, Mastercard, AMEX) fees also apply. Click here to learn more about how Amilia bills your organization.

You can pay using a gift card at the Point of Sale. However, you can't purchase a gift card through the POS.

In accrual accounting, revenue from the sale of a gift card isn't tracked with the ledger code it was assigned. Since there's a risk the recipient never exchanges their gift card, the money from the sale of a gift card is considered a liability.

(Rather, it's when you use a gift card to purchase an item that revenue is recognized in the ledger account of the item that was sold).

Below are journal entries when a gift card is purchased, and then used as payment.

1 ) $35 is owed to you which creates a debit in account receivable.

2) The funds are credited in the Default-Gift cards liability account until the gift card is used as a payment.

1 ) $10 is moved from the Default-Gift cards liability account.

2) $10 is credited to the Default-Account deposit liability account until the payment is reconciled with an invoice.

1 ) $10 is debited from the Default-Account deposit liability account since the payment has now been reconciled with an invoice item.

2) $10 is then credited to the Default-Accounts receivable asset account

You can apply a discount code at checkout to reduce the amount that's charged on a gift card, without reducing its value to the recipient. This is useful for promotional purposes and can be leveraged by your organization to generate gift cards for donation (e.g., slap a 100% discount on a gift card so admins can purchase it without having to pay for it).

To set this up, go to the Discounts and fees > Discounts subtab:

At step 1 of checkout, input the discount code so it applies to the gift card. If there's more than one gift card on the order form, the discount is applied on all of them.
​

Check the the Breakdown of Sales and the Summary of awarded discounts reports:
​

In journal entries, here's what you'll see when a discount is applied to the sale of a gift card:

1 ) $90 is owed to you which creates a debit in accounts receivable. The initial amount owing was $100, but was reduced by the discount of $-10.00.

2) $10 represents a reduction of income, which creates a debit to the contra revenue Discounts account.

3) $100 is the total gift card value that's sent to the recipient. This creates a credit to a liability account as you are liable for this amount until it's spent by the recipient.

1 ) $90 is received as payment. This creates a debit in the cash account.

2) $90 represent a credit to the Account deposit account until the payment is reconciled to an invoice (this occurs in the 'Reconciliation' set of journal entries underneath).

1) $90 represents the money the client paid you, which initially created a credit in a liability account. Since the money is being moved, a debit is made from that same liability account.

2) $90 is now reconciled to an invoice item, which creates a credit in accounts receivable.

Not yet, but this is something that we plan to add in the future (e.g. gifting a specific activity to someone else, limitations per season, exclusion of certain or all merchandise, etc.). If you feel strongly about this feature, please submit an improvement request to support@amilia.com.

It depends what system it's coming from. Some systems make it really hard to do so. At the very least, you'd be able to credit all the accounts with the existing balances you have, depending on how many active balances you have of course.

You can create themed gift cards by uploading custom images when configuring the gift card. You can also name the gift card according to the theme. For example, $50 Birthday Gift Card.

It's probably tied to your permission levels, as gift cards require the ‘Manage gift cards’ permission. If you have the permission and still don’t see the subtab, please contact support@amilia.com.

Yes, gift cards require an Amilia account to be purchased and used. Upon redemption, the recipient will be asked to either log into an existing Amilia account or create a new one. Everything is integrated, so as soon as the account is created, the Gift card will be added to it.

That said, consider this scenario:

Other SmartRec admins have created a generic account, like they do for the POS, so that people don't have to create an account when they're physically at the location / facility. However, your clients will still need to provide an email for the gift card recipient.

Keep in mind that the gift card is not bound to the purchaser’s account. However, when it’s redeemed it will need to be associated to an account to be used. This means that the purchaser could ask you to send the gift card to them and then they would be able to forward it to a recipient later.

If the person didn't receive the email, you, as an admin, could check in the purchase page of that person if the email used is the correct one. You or your client could resend the gift card to the correct email address.

Yes, it will be clearly identified as a gift card payment and will show in your reports as well. Your clients can view the invoices and payment confirmations for all transactions they make in your store from the Purchases tab in their personal account.

We don't have plans for physical gift cards (e.g. plastic cards), but we do plan to add gifting codes that you will be able to print and include in a birthday card, for example.

Gift card laws vary by country, state, and province. For this reason, unused gift cards never expire in SmartRec and are carried as a liability. There may be a process for transferring the funds to a next of kin. You can review your country, state or province’s regulations here:

Yes, you’ll need to create a separate card for each predefined denomination you’d like to offer. For example, one for $10, one for $25, and one for $50, etc. Once you’ve created a gift card, we suggest duplicating it to speed up configuration.

No, a client who purchases an activity using a gift card can only be refunded to the gift card. For example, if a client pays for a $50 activity using a $50 gift card and decides to cancel, the amount can be added as a credit on the account or refunded back to the gift card.

That said, if they use a gift card to pay for part of an activity, the amount of the gift card will be refunded to the gift card and the rest can be refunded to the other payment method used (e.g. cash, credit card, etc.).

If a client wins a gift card in a contest, we suggest that the admin purchase the gift card and apply a 100% discount code to it. Then, send the contest winner the gift card.

If a gift card is scheduled for the same day, it's sent to the recipient as soon as the purchase is finalized. If the send date is scheduled later, it's sent to the recipient between 12am-1am (based on the organization's time zone).

* Last updated in October 2023 - this article is still in development 🚧
​