How do I comp a Gift Card or eGift Card?

[HelloVino]

The title of this thread has been changed from: How to comp a gift card

I’ve been using the square gift cards for about 6 months now and frequently donate comped gift cards. I just realized all of those cards I gave out show a zero balance because it was comped and that feature does not work. I can only imagine the problems this will cause when those cards start coming back.  Not happy. 

[MayaP]

Hi @bakebelieve,

Welcome back to The Seller Community. Happy to be hearing from you!

The process to comp a gift card, whether it physical or egift card is the same. You will sell the gift card through the Point of Sale app as usual. And then apply the 100% discount at the end. 

The card will be loaded but no money will be added to your daily sales. Here is more information on how to apply the discounts. 

I hope this was helpful. Please follow up if you need anything else? 

[bakebelieve]

The issue is I am not a retail location. I'm trying to send a $100 gift card via email. I only have desktop website and iphone retail app.  I tried just going to my gift card page on my site to just try to buy one and apply the discount but there is no where to put the discount code I set up on back end.

[MayaP]

Hi @bakebelieve,

Thanks for reaching out! I am happy to help clarify this.

Right now through Square Online you cannot discount a gift card.

Honestly the easiest way to go about this is to actually use the Point of Sale App. And through that app apply the 100% discount to essentially comp it.  Add the egift card to Checkout> Add discount> Charge> Select Other Tender so nothing is actually charged.

I hope this information helped! Please let me know if you have any other questions?

[Lilii]

This is old and outdated, can this be updated with how to preform a comp egift card since you have rearranged the system. Nowhere can I set up a egift card manually and then discount it. You removed vouchers with limits and replaced with coupons which have no limits. We need to not have our sales taken advantage of by people sharing coupon codes while we wait for the one person to redeem their gift. This is very frustrating. 

[BernadetteA]

Thanks for posting, @Lilii 

Can you please clarify what you are trying to do? You wish to offer discounted gift cards, but limit the code to one use? Are the customers purchasing these discounted gift cards through your Square Online website? 

[Lilii]

I figured it out after going through everything (for context, I have a eCommerce shop not a physical shop so don't use the plastic cards).

For those trying to give out "Complementary" eGift cards, you need to do the following.

Step 1. You have to download the Square app on your phone. That is the only way to "manually sell" a gift card. Once that's set up, Go to More, Scroll down and open Add-ons, select Gift Cards, and follow the prompts to activate that service on your phone. If it's activated it will now have a green tick on that option.

After that go back to the Checkout column, select Gift Cards, then Sell eGift card, set up the eGift card then at the Review Sale stage you can add a 100% discount to make it free. 

In regards to the 'one use only' comment. I was previously using the Online>Shared Settings>Vouchers, to give prizes away. I'd give the winner a code for $100 off and the setting would allow me to limit that code to be a 1 of 1 voucher and once it was used there were no more vouchers available and that safeguarded my system from anyone sharing that voucher code and getting the same discount. That is about to "get merged" into Coupons (from the 25th of March), which lacks this feature. Pretty stupid if you ask me. 

[Summer2024]

Hi, @Lilii! 

I am glad you were able to find a solution for this.  ❤️

I know it can be super frustrating when things change with software, but our team is working to make sure the coupons feature meets business' needs as they make changes and adjustments. 

[FlagTagAZ]

I have a question on comped or discounted gift cards.  When they come in and use them and say they have 100% off.  How is that accounted for in the revenue and sales.  Is it showing up as full revenue is being recognized in square, or does it show as zero dollars came in.  I ask because if it is showing full revenue but is 100% compensated, there shouldn't be any tax on something given for free (especially services.)  We give out 5 or 6k a year in zero dollar gift cards and this could have a large impact on what we are reporting for taxes etc.  

[FlagTagAZ]

An accounting question that I have is how does this get handled at the time of sales.  Say a gift card is comped 100% so no money has been collected but it has say a $100 balance on it.  When they come and buy something for $99.00 let's say, does that $99 show up in the tax reports and sales reports?  Also looking at the balance sheet reports wanting to understand how it is reporting.  It would suck if we gave out $5k in comped gift cards and it showed $5k in revenue we didn't actually collect for the year as an example.

[VanKalkerFarms]

I do believe that will show up as income when a comped card is used.  But I would think, but that is an accountant question, that the comp expense will negate the income netting you $0. 

But I would definitely check with your accountant as to how they want to treat that "income".