WordStock’s Coupons program tracks, organizes, and maintains all activities related to the various types of ‘coupons’ supported by WordStock, including: Gift Cards, Gift Certificates, Credit Memos, Book Club Coupons, and Book Tokens.
The Coupons screen, shown below, is where you view a coupon’s history and details, such as the date it was issued, the customer’s name, the amount of the coupon, and its usage.
For added convenience, Coupons interacts with WordStock’s Customer File so that you can create or modify customer records from within Coupons without having to leave the program.
You can track credit memos by entering them into Coupons manually. By doing that data entry, you can keep information current, so you can reissue a lost credit memo, if need be, so we encourage its use!
Using WordStock’s reporting functions, you can quickly generate a report of all outstanding coupons to monitor your financial position.
Key Points
Expiration
WordStock will configure your software so that Gift Cards do or do not expire, depending upon your state laws. (This document assumes that Gift Cards expire, and that the expiration date is 2 years from issue. If procedures are different when there is no expiration date, it will be noted.)
• An expired card can be renewed so that the customer’s investment in it is not lost.
• Gift cards are all single-use and can only be created in the POS program.
• If you redeem a Gift Card for less than the amount stored, change is given as cash or a credit slip.
• Gift Cards have statuses [Issue /Finished/Review/Expired] that mark each phase of the card’s cycle and that allow certain functions or not.
Selling a Gift Card
At the POS program’s prompt to “Enter a command, SKU, or ISBN” scan a Gift Card’s barcode. If the card has a fixed value printed on it, such as $25, then it is ready to be finalized. Alternatively, if the card is variable, that is, if it has no set value, type in the Gift Card’s value. WordStock will prompt you to type it again.
If you allow Gift Cards to expire, you will be prompted to confirm the expiration date which, by default, will be two years away. If you prefer, we can configure the POS not to prompt to confirm this prompt or not to display a confirmation prompt.
Returning a Gift Card
When you want to return a Gift Card, WordStock will prompt you to scan the Gift Card, which is checked to confirm that the Gift Card was actually issued, has the correct initial value, that its current value is equal to the initial value (or that the barcode value is 0.00), that its status is “Issued”, and that it hasn’t expired.
If a Gift Card has been used or does not exist because it was never issued, it cannot be returned. WordStock updates the status of cards that have been returned to ‘Review’ to alert managers to monitor them.
Line item delete of a Gift Card
WordStock does not allow modifications of Gift Card sales (and returns) other than line item deletions; line item deletion changes the card’s status to ‘Review’.
Voiding a Gift Card
If the Gift Card has been used, you cannot void any part of the sale. Voiding Gift Card returns is not allowed. Voids of sold Gift Cards are updated to status Review with current receipt info.
Using a Gift Card as a method of payment
You may scan a Gift Card at the method of payment prompt. If the card’s value exceeds the transaction’s total, change is given either as cash or as a credit slip -- we’ll set this up for you when Coupons is installed. WordStock automatically:
- Updates the card’s status to ‘Finished’;
- Sets its current balance to 0.00;
- Updates the total redeemed with the full value of the card;
- Fills in the last use date and last use amount; and
- Enters current receipt info.
Voiding a Gift Card payment
The Gift Card’s status must be ‘Finished’, and the receipt number given to void must be the same as the “last use” receipt info from the coupon screen. The Gift Card’s status is updated to ‘Issued’, and all values originally assigned to it are restored.
Maintenance
A maintenance utility automatically tracks when Gift Cards are scheduled to expire. and is included in the programs called during backup.
Gift Card Reports
Coupons includes full reporting of Gift Card activity, e.g., enables you to create sort includes, sort orders, and report formats. For security, global changes and global deletions are not available.
Program Commands
OLD - Call up an old record by coupon number
NEW - Create a new record
RPD - Create several new records (rapid entry mode)
C - Call up an old record by coupon number, then enter search mode
CS - Same as the OLD command, but uses the current coupon number
N - Call up a record by customer name and enter search mode
NS - Same as the N command, but uses the current customer name
NC - Call up a CUST rec by name
MOD - Modify the record that is currently on the screen
USE - Update the current record’s usage with a new amount
CUN - Create a new CUSTOMER record
CUO - Modify an existing CUST rec
GC - Change the coupon type mode to Gift Certificate
CR - Change the coupon type mode to Credit Memo
BT - Change the coupon type mode to Book Token
BC - Change the coupon type mode to Book Club
GF - Change the coupon type mode to Gift Card
DEL - Delete the currently displayed coupon record
STR - Change the store# to use for lookups