Tendering Gift Certificate in Aloha

[qsrsf]

Hi All -

Fairly basic question -

How do I properly tender a paper Gift Certificate?

Currently I have a Gift Certificate tender set up. On the FOH I hit my GC Tender button and enter the total amount of the GC and then give the customer cash change for the unused balance.

My problem/question is what to do if the customer wants to keep a balance on the GC?

For Example, $25 GC is presented. Total tab is only $9.43. I could simply enter in the $9.43, and figure out the remaining balance manually but what I would like to do is enter the $25 total value, have system subtract the $9.43 and tell me the change due is 15.57 (25-9.43=15.57), but not actually think I am providing change and deduct that change from the drawer.

Essentially I want Aloha to do the math for the change but not deduct that change from the cash drawer amount. (The GC tender is set to not affect deposit).

Also does the Aloha gift certificate program work well? What does it actually do? I would actually love to be able to sell gift cards, but I don't know what equipt is needed to apply a balance or deduct a balance from them.


Thanks!

 

[alohasith]

As most of the included Aloha enhancements, I find their included Gift Certificate worthless. However their Gift Certificate Manager ($1000) is actually pretty good. It does handle gift cards quite well. You can also have it manage a paper certificate with proper decrements and reissuse of a new paper certicate on the spot with the "new value".

 

[zahead31]

I went with Aloha's eCards program for gift cards. The database is enterprise-based so gift cards can be redeemed at any location. A database is also stored locally in case the internet connection fails, the gift card can still process.

The gift card reporting from Aloha's enterprise site is outstanding, and if there is anything additional you need, there is a custom report writer built in.

It works with Aloha so there is no additional hardware needed, and the price is much lower than the 3rd party gift card processors.

 

[qsrsf]

Thanks for the help. Any ballparks on what eCards costs? Doubt it will be cost effective for one unit

 

[zahead31]

I forget the one-time set fee (i believe around $100). We are paying only $45 per month per unit, and there are no transaction fees.

 

[alohasith]

I've got GC on 3 stores. 2 stores on e-card (because they are of the same name) other store is independent, that one's on GC stand alone. The e-card setup, done several years ago in it's infancy was a monetary disaster but is working O.K. now. There is the monthly fee and the cards are expensive as you can not encode them yourself.

At our stand alone store, no monthly fee, we encode our own cards and we recycle them too. I bought an encoder years ago on ebay for 150 and it's saved me 1000's over the years.

I pay around .50 a card printed 2 color front 1 color back with a lo cohesive mag strip. I average 3 uses out of each card by re-encoding. Of course as stand alone there are no monthly fees. If you're not multi unit stay away from e-card, 2 or more stores you must e-card.