Simplified Flow for Gift Card Loading in Square Point of Sale

[#1]

 Loading Square Gift Cards just got a whole lot easier!

---

You’ve told us for some time Gift Card loading and activation has been a time consuming and confusing process for you and your employees. We heard you loud and clear, and are excited to announce we’ve simplified the loading flow of a new gift card in the Square Point of Sale app. You no longer have to create an item for each gift card and the process for loading gift cards has been reduced from 12 steps to just 4!

Here’s how it now works in the Square Point of Sale app for IOS 4.75 or Android 4.72: 

1. Go to your in-app item library and tap Gift Cards.
2. Swipe or enter the gift card number.
3. The gift card balance should be shown at the top next to the gift card number. Note: This is also the new way to check the balance on existing gift cards.
4. You can leave the screen or load more value on this gift card.

You will notice that by default the Square Point of Sale app will display $10, $15, $20, $25, and $50 default amounts to be loaded onto a gift card. If you’d like to set your own default amounts and turn off the option to load custom amounts, follow these steps:

1. Visit the Gift Cards section of your online Square Dashboard > Plastic Gift Cards.
2. Under Default Values, click Edit.
3. Enter your preferred default values > Save.

Toggle Allow Custom Gift Card Amounts to Off to disable this option in the Square app.

Note: If you don’t see this feature available for you quite yet, please bear with us for a few days while all accounts have been updated.

What else has changed?

• To check a gift card balance, follow the same step as loading a gift card. The balance will be shown at the top next to the gift card number.
• To clear a gift card balance, follow the same step as loading a gift card. The Clear Balance button will be visible after swiping an existing gift card.

What happens to my existing gift card items? Don’t worry, you can still access your existing gift card items. They will continue to work to load gift cards. However, you will not be able to create new gift card items in the Square Point of Sale app or your online Square Dashboard.

Learn more about purchasing and activating gift cards from the Square app in our Support Center.

Thanks for reading this far and for being a member of the Seller Community. This updated experience was made possible thanks to your feedback, so keep it coming and let me know if you have any questions about this new feature by replying to this post.

[Harvestmoon2004]

Now anyone can load,  it really was confusing to everyone else but me.  Thank you for your continued improvements.  

[Danay]

The only problem that I have with this is that we used the clear balance button on gift cards that we got back empty bc that is how we took the phone number that was linked to that card off so we could reuse it. We found that as we reused them we could not replace the phone number for rewards unless we cleared the balance, now when I swipe an empty card there is no option to clear balance... what are my options now?

[lilychiang]

Hi @Danay, that's a great question. When a gift card balance goes to $0, we automatically unlink any phone number that is associated with the gift card

[Danay]

Perfect- that must be something new bc previously that was not happening! But that makes it easier for us now. Thanks!

[Snowfamily]

Is there a way to load gift cards for a particular service instead of an amount? For example, if I load a 60 min massage and if I am running a discount for that session?

[snohomojo]

why does clearing the amount cancle the phone number? we have loyal customers that reload and use the same card (otherwise it's a $1 for a new card) and now their card is not linked to their loyality account. 

[MadMags]

As a possible future feature, could you consider adding the ability to load multiple gift cards all with the same value without needing to select 'Gift Card' for each one? We frequently have customers asking for 20 gift cards, each with $10 value, as party favors, etc., and entering all of those cards individually can really bog down our sales process.

With my previous POS system, we'd be able to select (for example) $10 gift card, quantity 20, then the POS would prompt us to swipe all 20 cards.  Made the process SO much easier than selecting 'Gift Card', then entering '1000', then swiping a card, and repeating those steps 20 times.

[4sisters]

We often give away gift cards as prizes in the community is there anyway to load a gift card witout it looking like you took a payment?

[RepRep]

While using the new Square Register for loading gift cards the card reader will not work, they have to be typed in by the gift card number to load. I never had a problem on the square stand with this issue. The Square Register also restarted itself twice while trying to process payment for a gift card purchase.

[MadMags]

#4sisters: What I do is to issue the card, finalizing payment as cash (even though no cash was tendered...) then immediately going to Reports -> Current Drawer -> Pay In/Out and enter a Payout for the cash amount with the notation 'Charitable Donation' or such.  

This keeps the drawer cash report correct, but unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to get a report on these charitable payouts, so you'll need to track them manually if you want to record them for tax purposes.

[Edds]

We are just starting to use Square gift cards. On our very first test, we were successful selling the gift card, and charging a transaction to it, which showed the remaining balance at the end.  However, when we only want to check the balance, after swiping, we see the last for digits of gift card (so it is recongnized) but no balance. This has happened for 2 tests on same card.

[lilychiang]

@Edds You should see the balance next to the last 4 digit of the gift card at the top. Are you not seeing any value or is the value $0.0? 

[RepRep]

I have never had a problem with using gift cards with iPad and stand. Only recently since using the new Square Register.

[archer]

My business style requires items. I’d like to see an option for this. Please bring items back.