Aloha - Gift Card Export

[Moregelen]

Does anyone know if there is any generic way to export the gift cards in Aloha into something like a CSV, or even just a fixed width text file?

We have a customer who is switching their location from Aloha (no idea of the version, but its fairly old) in order to conform with all of their other restaurants, but they have a little over 500 gift cards in their system (from what I can tell it is something similar to Micros' GSS).

Any suggestions?

 

[TobeThor]

If the GC #'s you mention are accurate; I'm sure they can print a GC liability report (which should have all open GC #'s with their balances) then just have someone spend 2 hours keying them into the new system. 500 doesn't seem to be so many that an automated process is necessary, IMHO.

 

[Knectech]

You should contact Aloha Insight and they should be able to run an export of all cards sold and the value that's remaining on them

 

[Moregelen]

TobeThor, its a question of time & accuracy. An import of gift cards can be as simple as

INPUT INTO #temp_gift_cards
FROM C:\temp\Aloha_export.csv
FORMAT TEXT;


Its child's play to import a CSV or fixed width format export if I can get it. Entering the data by hand is tedious, time consuming, and prone to errors. They also haven't budgeted enough time for me to do this for them, so they would have to find someone and hire them just to do data entry. That isn't so bad given the area (lots of starving college students), but its still something I would prefer not to have to tell them to do.

 

[eburks]

Are they Aloha Stored Value gift cards (and if not what brand are they

If stored value (and this has basically already been said above) you can export a report from the alohaenterprise website to an excel spreadsheet that will have card number and remaining balance and a lot of other info you may not need.

That is how I did it and it took me about an hour late 1 night after close. I had to do some sorting and delete a few lines and columns but I ended up with something I emailed to my new processor and was up and running before lunch.

If it is not Stored Value who is it. I like my new processor but they originally told me they could run native on aloha and then backed out so I am using veriFone terminals. I would really like to swipe my cards on the POS like stored value but we don't do a LOT of gift cards so it is not too much of a pain. It has really only saved me about $300 a year per store BUT it has let me get rid of the ALOHA VBO stuff that I HATED.

 

[TobeThor]

eburks... curious why you'd go from an integrated GC system (that was working) to a stand alone verifone terminal approach whereby you must marry up both systems on a daily basis? I get dumping integrated credit cards to avoid POS upgrade costs (PCI) but why dump internal GC's?

 

[eburks]

@ tobethor

We opened a 3rd store and used onePOS for our pos (salesmen will promise you everything and deliver nothing. We were told they could integrate Stored Value into their system. Then they said they needed the SDK and Radiant asked $5000. Gift Cards are a losing proposition for us already no matter what internet bloggers and slick business writers say. Central BBQ is voted the best BBQ in Memphis at least twice a year and Memphis is one of the 2 pork BBQ capitals of the world. We don't really need Gift Cards to increase sales. We want cards for customer convenience only and to make our catering and promotions lady happy. Ecardsystems still advertises that they integrate with ALOHA, but they don't (it's a bait and switch) I had to opt for a Verifone system to work with all 3 stores. We do so little GC biz I got no complaints. I was also a little upset with the Aloha VBO system Stored Value runs on because I would come in some mornings and there would be updates that had been pushed out and our terms would be stuck in a reboot loop. Also, I could rotate terminals or re-image a flash card in my sleep before Stored Value and have things running fine in 20 minutes but to get gift cards working again almost always required a call to Aloha Enterprise. I was use to working on things at 2:00 AM and going home knowing the job was done so I could sleep. The need to get a 3rd party involved each time cramped my style.

Gift cards are a racket. All it is is a database. But you don't pay for the system based on it's complexity, do you. Also with Verifone terminals in place I could probably go out and have someone on Freelance.com write me a program to communicate with our web host that we already have in place and maintain our own secure database for what a year of GC fees costs. When we get to our 5th store I will probably have done that