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A gift voucher is a piece of paper or electronic card loaded with a value that's later exchanged for goods or services.

When you sell a gift voucher, the customer is holding an asset of your business until the voucher is redeemed. So when you record the sale of a gift voucher, it needs to be recorded as a liability posted to an Unclaimed Gift Certificate Voucher account.

When the customer redeems the voucher, all you need to do is create an invoice and pay for it using the funds from the Unclaimed Gift Voucher account.

This way, you can easily track the value of outstanding gift vouchers or write-off any that remain unredeemed.

OK, let's take you through the details.

 

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titleTo create an Unclaimed Gift Voucher account

To create an Unclaimed Gift Voucher account

You'll first want to create a credit card account which will hold the value of issued gift vouchers.

  1. Click your business name and choose Accounts List.
    Settings menu with accounts list highlighted
  2. Click Add accounts.
  3. Give the account a number and name that suits your account list. As it's a liability account, we'll choose a 2- number and name the account Unclaimed Gift Vouchers.
  4. Select Credit Card as the Type and choose the applicable Tax rate. Check with your accounting advisor if unsure. Here's our example account:example account setup
  5. Click Save.
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titleTo record the sale of a gift card

To record the sale of a gift card

When you sell a gift voucher, record it using a receive money transaction. This lets you allocate the funds to the Unclaimed Gift Vouchers account created earlier.

  1. From the Banking menu, choose Receive money.
  2. In the Deposit into field, select your applicable business bank account.
  3. In the Notes field, enter a description of the gift voucher sale.
  4. In the Allocate to field, select the Unclaimed Gift Voucher account.
  5. In the Amount field, enter the gift voucher amount.
  6. Select the applicable Tax Rate/GST Type. Check with your accounting advisor if you're not sure which to use.
    Here's our example for the sale of a $100 gift voucher:
    Example receive money for gift voucher sale
  7. Click Save.
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titleTo redeem a gift voucher

To redeem a gift voucher

When a customer redeems their gift voucher, it's recorded as an invoice because the customer is using it to buy something. You can then "pay" for the invoice using funds from the Unclaimed Gift Voucher account.

  1. From the Sales menu, choose Create invoice.
  2. Select the Customer who is redeeming the gift voucher.
  3. On the first line of the invoice, specify the details of what's being sold.
  4. In the Allocate to field, select the applicable income account.
  5. Select the applicable Tax Rate/GST Type. Check with your accounting advisor if you're not sure which to use.
  6. (Optional) Use the Notes to customer field to record details of the gift voucher redemption.
    Here's our example redemption of a $100 gift voucher:
    Example sale where gift voucher is redeemed
  7. Click Save.
  8. From the Sales menu, choose Take payments.
  9. In the From field, select the customer who redeemed the gift voucher.
  10. In the Into account field, select the applicable Unclaimed Gift Voucher account.
  11. In the Notes field, enter details of this payment.
  12. In the Total amount received field, enter the amount of the gift voucher.
  13. In the Payment amount field, enter the amount of the gift voucher.
    Take payment example
  14. Click Save.

The gift voucher is redeemed and the Unclaimed Gift Certificate account balance is reduced by the voucher amount.

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titleTo determine the value of unclaimed gift vouchers

To determine the value of unclaimed gift vouchers

To determine the value of all unclaimed gift vouchers, check the balance of the Unclaimed Gift Vouchers account.

  1. Click your business name and choose Accounts List.
  2. In the Search field, enter the account number for the Unclaimed Gift Vouchers account (or scroll down to view the account).
  3. Check the Current Balance of the account. This represents the value of unclaimed gift vouchers.
    Here's an example which shows $100 worth of gift vouchers are yet to be redeemed.
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titleTo see a history of gift vouchers sold and redeemed

To see a history of gift vouchers sold and redeemed

To see a history of gift vouchers sold and redeemed, check the transaction history of the Unclaimed Gift Vouchers account:

  1. From the Banking menu, choose Transaction history.
  2. In the Account field, select the Unclaimed Gift Vouchers account.
  3. In the From and To fields, enter the date range.
  4. Click Update. All transactions on the account are shown.
    transactions shown for the chosen account
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titleTo write-off unredeemed gift vouchers

To write-off unredeemed gift vouchers

Unredeemed gift vouchers represent income, so they can be written off using a receive money transaction. 

  1. From the Banking menu, choose Receive money.
  2. In the Deposit into field, select the Unclaimed Gift Voucher account.
  3. In the Notes field, enter a description of this transaction.
  4. In the Allocate to field, select the applicable income account.
  5. In the Amount field, enter the gift voucher amount.
  6. Select the applicable Tax Rate/GST Type. Check with your accounting advisor if you're not sure which to use.
    Here's our example:
    example receive money transaction
  7. Click Save.

Recording this transaction will reduce the balance of the Unclaimed Gift Vouchers account and credit the balance of the chosen business account.

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titleRelated topics
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Accounts list

Creating invoices

Customer payments