A gift certificate is a customer card allowing them to buy food or drink up to a certain dollar amount. What the rules of usage are will be up to your restaurant operation. Compeat provides a way to track the issuance and use of gift certificates, and to integrate them into your financial system.
To set up the use of gift certificates, you should select the checkbox "Use Gift Certificates" on the Other Accounts tab of the DSR Definitions screen, and enter account numbers in the GC Inventory, GC Liability, and GC Over/Short boxes of the same screen. Also, you will need to check boxes for all menu choices under Transactions > Gift Certificates in the Screen Access tab of the Security > Groups > Group Properties screen. This will enable you to access all the gift certificate functionality.
Each gift certificate goes through three states:
Created A gift certificate becomes created after it has been posted in the Create Gift Certificates screen. (It is presumed that the certificates have been printed elsewhere.)
Issued A gift certificate becomes issued when its sale has been recorded in the DSR screen's Gift Certificates tab. When an issuance is recorded there, a credit is made to the GC Inventory account.
Note: When you Issue Comp Gift Certificates, they are issued from that screen, not the DSR screen. When comp gift certificates are posted, a debit will be made to the GL account of the comp code selected, as well as a credit made to the GC Inventory account. Redemption of comp gift certificates is handled on the DSR like any other gift certificate.
Redeemed A gift certificate becomes redeemed when its use has been recorded in the DSR screen's Gift Certificates tab. When a redemption is recorded there, a debit is made to the GC Liability account, and the serial number can no longer be created or issued.
Two other states can occur after the certificate has been created but before it has been issued or redeemed:
Lost You can mark gift certificates as lost using the Mark Gift Certificates as Lost screen. Lost gift certificate serial numbers cannot be created, issued, or redeemed.
Voided When you use the Void Gift Certificates screen you are reversing the posting that occurred when the certificates were created — that is, the GC Inventory account gets credited and the GC Liability account gets debited. A voided gift certificate can be re-used by creating a new gift certificate with the same number.
Finally, you can perform two actions to gift certificates that have been created but not yet issued:
Adjust Gift Certificate Dollars Allows you to change the denomination of gift certificates that have not yet been issued or redeemed.
Transfer Gift Certificates Allows gift certificates that have not yet been issued or redeemed to be transferred to a different entity.
You can view the following reports about gift certificates on the Reports menu > Gift Certificates submenu:
Gift Certificate Listing This report lists gift certificates by range of serial numbers or dates, and is accessed by selecting Reports > Gift Certificates > Gift Certificate Listing.
Gift Certificate Activity This report lists gift certificates by date range and entity for one of the four stages listed above, and is accessed by selecting Reports > Gift Certificates > Gift Certificate Activity.