Gift Certificates
Chapter Topics
Credits/Charges in a Transaction
Credits/Charges Catalog
Issuing Gift Certificates
Redeeming Gift Certificates
Credits/Charges
in a Transaction
The Credits/Charges field in the Invoicing
screen is used to add a charge or credit to the customer's total
sale that is not itself an item from your Items
Catalog. The Credits/Charges field allows you to use XpertMart™
as a "cash register" and take or give the customer money without
subtracting merchandise from your inventory. The Credits/Charges field
is very flexible as it lets you enter any amount (unlike the Items detail area where the price
is "pulled" from the Items Catalog).
Examples of charges you may need to add to a sale are: shipping,
alterations and gift wrapping. An example of a credit given to a
customer might be a trade-in of an older item. Any credits or charges
you enter into the Credits/Charges field will show up in your daily Payments Journal reports but will
generally not show up in your sales analysis reports (since they are
not regular merchandise that you sell).
The best way to issue a Gift Certificate in XpertMart™
is through the Credits/Charges field.
Credits
Charges Catalog
To use the Credits/Charges field in the Invoicing screen you first have
to define which credits and charges will appear in the drop-down menu.
You do this by populating the Credits Charges catalog which is found by
going to Catalogs>POS>Credits/Charges:
Once the Credits Charges catalog opens up, add an entry for each type
of charge and credit that you plan on use. Make sure you create an
entry for Gift Certificates, as shown below:
Issuing
Gift Certificates
When a customer buys a gift certificate, select Gift Certificate from
the Cr/Ch Type drop-down menu. Enter the amount of the gift certificate
in the Credit/Charge field. In the example below the customer is buying
a $20 gift certificate.
You will notice that the amount entered in the Credit/Charge field is
added to the Subtotal yielding a new Total amount. The Credit/Charge
will appear on the customer's sales ticket.
The Gift Certificate charge can be added to an Invoice that contains
items or you can ring it up on its own.
Note: XpertMart™ itself will not print a
Gift Certificate and there is no way for the system to know whether a
gift certificate being redeemed is authentic. Therefore, you should
have gift certicates printed professionally that are difficult to
falsify.
Redeeming
Gift Certificates
When a customer is ready to redeem the gift certificate they can use it
as a Tender Type. Gift
Certificates can be used as the only tender type or in combination with
other tender types such as cash and credit card.
If the customer is buying an item whose value is less than the gift
certificate then you could give them change using cash or as a Store
Credit (see the next chapter
to learn how).
The advantage of issuing Gift Certificates as Invoice Charges is that
sales are not double counted. Suppose a cusotmer buys a $50 gift
certificate for his wife. A week later the wife buys a $50 garment
using the gift certificate. If you follow the steps outlined above,
your merchandise journal reports will show that you sold $50 worth of
merchandise, not $100.
Copyright © 2004 Dinari Systems LLC