Discounts & gift cards

Gift cards

Sell gift cards at any checkout, track balances, and let customers pay with them anywhere.

How gift cards work

A gift card is a code with a dollar balance attached. Customers buy one (or you issue one), then whoever holds the code can spend the balance at checkout — in store, at a kiosk, or online. Balances carry over until they're used up.

Make sure the Gift card product type is enabled under Settings → Organisation.

Creating a gift card product

Go to Products for your location and create a new product.
Choose the Gift card product type.
Pick a pricing style:
- Fixed amount — set a price like $50; the card is always worth $50.
- Customer-chosen amount — turn on the open-price option and the buyer types the amount at checkout. You can set a minimum and maximum (e.g. $10–$500) to keep amounts sensible, and offer a few suggested amounts as quick-pick buttons so buyers don't have to think of a number themselves.
Add a name and image, and place it on your menus like any other product.

You can create several fixed denominations ($25, $50, $100) or just one open-amount card with your own suggested amounts — whatever suits your counter.

Selling gift cards

Gift cards sell on every surface: the counter POS, kiosks, and your online ordering apps. The customer picks one of your preset amounts (or types a custom one, if you've allowed it), and that amount becomes the card's starting balance. Buying a gift card genuinely creates one — you get one card per unit purchased, so a quantity of three produces three separate cards.

At checkout the buyer can add a recipient's email, their name, and a short personal message — so it feels like a real gift rather than a receipt. They can also choose when it's sent: right away, or on a future date (a birthday or holiday, for example). If no recipient is given, the card is emailed to the buyer instead. The code also appears on the customer's receipt, so online buyers can forward it as a gift.

The recipient gets a branded email with their greeting, the buyer's personal message, and a link to check their balance any time — no account or sign-in needed. A gift scheduled for a future date arrives automatically on that date; it doesn't need anyone to send it manually.

If your gift cards are set to expire after a certain time, a buyer can't pick a send date beyond that — checkout tells them the expiry date and asks for an earlier one, rather than taking their money for a gift that would arrive already expired.

You can also issue a card manually without a sale — for goodwill credit or a prize:

Open Gift cards in the main menu.
Press Issue gift card, enter the amount and (optionally) the recipient's email.
Copy the code from the list and pass it on.

Managing gift cards

The Gift cards page lists every card with its code, who it was issued to, the current balance, when it was last redeemed, and its status (Active, Empty, Disabled, or Expired). The header also shows your total outstanding liability — the sum of the balances you'd still have to honour — which your accountant will thank you for. Cards that have expired or been disabled are left out of that figure, since you no longer owe them; if any expired cards still hold a balance, the amount is shown separately beside the total so you can see it.

Open any card to see its full history — every top-up, redemption, and adjustment — and to manage it. From here you can:

Issue a brand-new card.
Top up or adjust the balance (add credit, or correct a mistake).
Disable a card so the code can no longer be spent.
Resend the card email to the recipient.
Change the expiry date — push it out, bring it forward, or set the card to never expire.

To answer a quick "how much is left on my card?" at the counter, search the code on this page.

Where customers see their own cards

Signed-in customers can view their gift cards and current balances on their account, so they can check what's left without asking staff.

Paying with a gift card

A gift card is now a way to pay, not a discount code. How the customer applies it depends on where they're checking out.

At the counter (POS): on the Pay screen, choose the Gift card method. Enter the code to check its balance, then apply it. Whatever the card doesn't cover, you take as normal on another method — for example, apply the gift card and settle the remainder in cash.

Online, at a kiosk, or via QR: the customer reaches a "Have a gift card?" step during checkout. They enter the code and the card balance reduces what they're charged. If the card covers the whole order, the card-payment step is skipped entirely — there's nothing left to pay.

In every case:

The available balance comes off the amount owing.
If the balance doesn't cover everything, the customer pays the remainder by card or cash as normal.
If the order is smaller than the balance, the leftover stays on the card for next time.

Gift cards show on the order detail and in your tender reporting as their own payment type — see Reports.

Refunds and gift cards

Refunding an order that was paid with a gift card — process the refund from the order as usual; see Refunds and edits. The refund goes back onto the gift card first, restoring that balance, before any other payment is refunded.
Refunding the purchase of a gift card itself — refund the order and the card that was issued is cancelled automatically, so its balance can't still be spent.

Good to know

Gift card balances don't expire by default. When you issue a card you can optionally set an expiry (in days); leave it as Never to keep the balance available indefinitely. A card also stops working if you disable it.
An expiry is never final. If a card lapses — a customer was away, or you set the window too short — open it, use Change expiry date to pick a new one, then Reactivate it. The card keeps its original balance and its whole history. Changing an expiry is recorded on the card's history, since it changes what you owe.
A card works for the whole of the day you set as its expiry, not up to that morning.
Codes are unique and hard to guess, but treat them like cash — anyone with the code can spend it.
Gift cards and discounts can be used together on the same order: discounts apply first, then the gift card pays down the discounted total.