iWASH - Gift Cards

Gift Cards are a powerful feature of the iWASH system. The Gift Card feature is based on an active Warehouse as a central store and guardian of the Gift Card Database.

To use the Gift Card feature you need to first produce your Gift Cards. They can be either a Magnetic Swipe Card or with a Barcode on them. On every card the code needs to be unique. The encoding can use any length or combination of letters and numbers but it must start with the prefix GC.

It is a good idea to have the code printed in plain text on the card at the same time, in case the reading equipment in the store is not working at the time the customer tries to use the card.

Terms and condition might be on the back. The stated face value of the card should be displayed on the front. The design of the card is completely up to you.

Once a card is used it should be destroyed, that number should not be ever used again. While there is no technical reason why a card cannot be re-used or topped up, there is a security risk in doing this.

The barcode used in the example above is called “3 of 9”. This is a common barcode and is even downloadable free from the internet. Many printers will have extensive barcode libraries. You might want to have some examples created and test them with your hardware to make sure that they can be read.

Encoding Magnetic cards requires special equipment. It can be purchased but there are dedicated companies around that can print and encode the cards. When encoding, it does not matter which track is used as iPOS is looking at all 3 tracks. Only encode on a single track, not all the tracks, otherwise iPOS will read the card 3 times for each swipe. Track 1 is normally used for encoding which uses letters like we are.

There are 2 things that can be done to increase the security of the cards. The first is to not print the plain text at all, and the second is to omit some common characters from the plain text. Either method is of dubious value since the hardware to read the coding is easily available.

The easiest method to test you encoding is to use Notepad (Start > Programs > Accessories > Notepad). Scan/Swipe the card and the results will be shown in the Notepad window. Magnetic Cards will add symbols % ; ? around the numbers. That is OK, iPOS can handle these. Both devices will also add Line Breaks to the end.

Before a card can be used it needs to be SOLD for the face value. The idea of a gift card is that the person buying the card is most likely not the person using the card. In fact the card may not be even used in the store it was purchased from. This requires some accounting and reconciliation to make sure that each store gets their entitlements.

Firstly a special central bank account should be set up for Gift Cards, this may be a virtual account (in your books) or a real account, see your accountant about what is right for you. (this document will continue to refer to this as the “Gift Cards Fund”)

When a card is sold the funds need to be collected from the store and deposited into this account. When a card is used, the store where it is used then claims the amount from the fund. This is simple in principal but it can get complicated very quickly when multiple cards and stores are involved.

The cards once produced are unknown the system and currently have no value. The next step is to activate a card so that it is recognised and it therefore has value. As a security measure, leave activation until a customer pays for the card, this way the cards are worthless until activated.

An active Gift Card is as good as Cash in any of your stores.

To sell a card this is done from the Point of Sale. Normally done as a Cash Sale

Start the POS.
Select a Your Name (login).
Read (Swipe/Scan) the Card.
Since the card is not yet in the warehouse you will get this screen.

Click on either of the green buttons. This will create the record in the warehouse and the system will add a “Gift Card Sale” to the order in the POS.

Behind the scenes, the system has stored the number of this gift card against the transaction. It will be saved both in the order at the store and transmitted to the warehouse. The warehouse can be used to track the usage of the card.

On completing this sale, iPOS treats it very specially. Normally when you sell something it adds to your Gross Sales, Selling Gift Cards does not. On all iPOS reports Gift Card Sales is after the Gross Sales line but before Tender Types and banking. This is very important.

The store does not pay GST on the sale of a Gift Card, the GST is paid when the goods are exchanged at a later date. A Gift Card is like a receipt that a customer has given you money to hold in credit for when they will purchase, as yet they have not bought anything.

The example on the left shows this when a $20 voucher was sold and paid Cash. If the voucher was paid for by Eftpos then the report would show Tender Types $20 and Banking $0.

At no time has the Gross Sales amount changed.

Now a customer has arrived at the store with a Gift Card and wants to use it. Gift Cards are treated like another form of payment like Eftpos, Credit Cards etc. So there is nothing special to be done until the end of the sale.

Process the sale as you normally would. Right up to the point where payment is required.
Now swipe/scan the voucher.
The Point of Sale machine reads the code from the card and checks with the warehouse what the value of card is.

If the card is valid the warehouse will display a window as shown. Cards which have been used up or not entered into the warehouse will warn this to the operator and not let the payment continue.

Now that we have a valid card there are 3 options.

1. The Sale is greater than the (remaining) Card Value. Clicking OK will apply the full value of the card to the sale and require more payment to complete it. The card balance is set to zero and the card should be collected from the customer.
2. The Sales equals the (remaining) Card Value. The system will apply the remaining value to the sale, set the card balance to zero and the card should be collected.
3. The Sale is less than the (remaining) Card Value. The system will apply only the value of the sale and reduce the card balance by that amount and the customer can keep the card for next time.

Balance of cards can be checked at anytime by swiping the card in the point of sale. Value is NOT reduced unless a sale is completed. The warehouse can also tell you the balance of a card as well as a full statement of its use.

Cards are administered through the Warehouse.

Start the warehouse and login.
Select Gift Admin from the Gift Card Menu.

Click on the New button (top right) to create a new card. Select an existing card to see how it has been used or to modify its details.

There are 2 reports in the warehouse that can be used to maintain and reconcile the balance of the Gift Card Fund.

Gift Journal – This report shows all cards used in a date range.
Gift Reconciliation – This report shows each store in the network and the number of cards sold and used in the date range. Use this report weekly or monthly to create journals in the Gift Card Fund and collect/give the money to the stores to match.

Processing Gift Cards issued before iPOS was used can be done by using the Gift Card payment type on the payment screen. iPOS does not and cannot keep track of the balance of these cards but it can make sure that the sale is treated correctly at payment time.