thread Re: What is the best way to sell and redeem non-Square gift certificates? in Archived Discussions (Read Only)

What is the best way to sell and redeem non-Square gift certificates?

cowgirlglamour — Fri, 03 Feb 2017 22:11:03 GMT

We sell paper gift certificates, when we sell one, we run the sale thru the Square as a non-taxable sale. When the gift certificate is redeemed, we charge sales tax on the full amount. We are concerned that we are counting gross sales twice, once when we sell the certificate and again when merchandise is purchased and paid for with the certificate. I suspect we are not doing one or both transactions properly. Your help is appreciated.

Re: How to sell and redeem gift certificates

Sean — Fri, 03 Feb 2017 22:19:16 GMT

Hi @cowgirlglamour, and welcome to the Seller Community. We're happy to hear from you! This is a bit of tricky situation to handle, as there is no best approach to handling gift cards in this scenario. You are correct. The gift would be a part of your gross sales twice, upon sale and redemption. I've heard from a couple sellers on this topic in the past and here were a couple of there thoughts:

- Use the other Tender > Gift Card. Each time you look sales, subtract this amount.

- Track sales more accurately outside Square using a spreadsheet application (ie Excel, Quickbooks...)

- When a gift card is redeemed, apply a Discount to remove the cost of the item being purchased. Name the discount "Gift Card."

Hope this helps!

PS) If my answer solved your problem, would you mind marking it as "Best Answer"? That'll help the rest of the community find what they're looking for. If not, just write back, and I'll continue to help. Thanks!

Re: How to sell and redeem gift certificates

flourishmarket — Wed, 15 Mar 2017 18:19:43 GMT

Having only recently started selling and redeeming gift certificates, I realized that I am having the same problem with the gross amount being calculated in twice. It is unfortunate that Square can not properly handle these transactions - it seems a fairly basic operation. I plan to change the way I redeem certificates to the "discount" procedure mentioned above. It needs to be as simple as possible for me and my business.

Re: How to sell and redeem gift certificates

flourishmarket — Wed, 15 Mar 2017 18:37:08 GMT

Well, I spoke too soon. The "discount" method does not take into account that the customer is liable for the full amount of sales tax, not the amount left once the "discount" (gift certificate) is applied. Back to the drawing board!

Re: How to sell and redeem gift certificates

Sean — Wed, 15 Mar 2017 21:25:02 GMT

Hi @flourishmarket. Totally understand your frustration. I'll be sure to pass along your feedback!

Re: How to sell and redeem gift certificates

cconner27 — Fri, 24 Mar 2017 22:39:27 GMT

I too have the same dilemma. I came up with the discount method on my own prior to looking for a solution here for the afore mentioned reason that the full amount of sales tax is not charged. Hopefully Square can consider this in future updates.

Re: What is the best way to sell and redeem non-Square gift certificates?

thecottage — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 16:15:25 GMT

I too have struggled with trying to do this. The easiest method I have found is to take cash or check only when someone is buying a gift certificate. That way, after the sell is made, you can go back in and cancel out or refund the transaction so that it's not showing as income . This will not work with credit cards due to Square refunding the money to the card. Square needs to have options on how we refund .

Re: What is the best way to sell and redeem non-Square gift certificates?

ProfImageEnhcmt — Mon, 03 Apr 2017 21:04:08 GMT

Same issue! We didn't even realize this was double revenue until we started working on taxes this year. Now we have a lot of things to sifting through and fix... I'm astonished there is not a solution for this. Square's market is small business - so many small business use paper gift cards! In addition, trying to redeme Groupons (also something a lot of small business do) comes up with a similar problem. We've already gotten the income directly to the bank from Groupon, and we have to collect sales tax when the use the Groupon. We've ended up just creating an item in our inventory called "Groupon tax", but at the end of every quarter when we do sales tax and the end of every year when we do income tax, we have to manually remove the total for this "Groupon tax" item from revenue and add it to taxes. And I'm assuming this deams any tax information or forms Square generates useless because the imput data isn't correct. I beg of Square to please solve this.

Re: What is the best way to sell and redeem non-Square gift certificates?

KEPS — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 21:55:00 GMT

I, too, just discovered (when doing taxes) that my paper gift certificates are being counted as income TWICE.

When I sell my paper gift certificates, I sell them as non-taxable. When I redeem them, I click on "other" payment, and then choose "gift certificate", enter the GC total and the til pops open. I thought all was well! How do I possibly go back now and deduct all those Gift Certificate totals??? When I run a report for the year, I see my cash totals, credit card totals, and the "other" (check,gc,other) totals are clumped together. How do I find out what payments I took as checks, gift certificates, and other???? I need some serious help soving this mess. 😞

Re: What is the best way to sell and redeem non-Square gift certificates?

Chad — Tue, 20 Jun 2017 18:30:04 GMT

Hello @KEPS, I'm sorry to hear about the trouble with your reporting! I have some tips.

If you wish to view your totals for the year with a breakdown of all your payment types, use the Sales Summary Report on your Square Dashboard. This will give you the transaction totals for your other, cash, and card sales.

You can also look up specific sales under the Transaction Report. You can sort this report by payment method to find all of your gift certificate transactions. You can refund these transactions and it will change the amounts reflected on the Sales Summary Report.

Please let me know if I can help with anything else! 😀

Re: How to sell and redeem gift certificates

Holodeck3D — Sat, 29 Jul 2017 20:01:00 GMT

Hi Chad -

We have the same issue with Square not being able to address issuing a Gift Certificate.

Sqaure has a Gift Card payment at the POS, how are we to process the payment made a few weeks/months earlier in Quickbooks, if we are swiping the card through Square.

Square has known about this issue for at least 7 months from this thread, and I'm sure for many years, and still no solution. Why are we paying you almost 3% of our gross revenue, if you can't serve your customers?

Please have your tech team move this to the top of their projects.

Re: How to sell and redeem gift certificates

Chad — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 19:23:41 GMT

Hey @Holodeck3D, I'm a little confused by your question since you mentioned swiping the card. Are you using Square issued gift cards?

Re: What is the best way to sell and redeem non-Square gift certificates?

whiskeyandlace — Tue, 05 Sep 2017 15:24:58 GMT

Sounds to me like our hands are bring forced to purchase Squares Gift Cards and use through the system. I have only had one transaction for a gift certifcate...I accepted cash only, paper clipped it with a note and put it in my till. When the person comes in with my paper GC I will just pull the money out and use as cash transaction. Until something else comes along to cure this situation...I guess that's what I will do. Glad I read this now...sounds like I may have saved myself a huge headache!

Re: What is the best way to sell and redeem non-Square gift certificates?

KimberleeG1924 — Thu, 14 Dec 2017 17:26:11 GMT

I feel that the option to sell paper gift certificates is purposely left out of POS as square profits from sale of cards. I am a small ticket company and many times customers by super small gift certificates, such as $5. Why would I spend $1.25 to $2 per card on a $5 sale? Square needs to fix this problem.

Re: What is the best way to sell and redeem non-Square gift certificates?

EJ_ — Thu, 14 Dec 2017 22:47:22 GMT

Hi @KimberleeG1924 and thanks for your thoughts on this.

The Other Tender option was built with this payment method in mind.

Many sellers choose to sell their own gift certificates with Square. You'd need to create the gift certificate as an item for sale, and you can choose the Other Tender option and select "Other Gift Card" as the payment method.

Re: What is the best way to sell and redeem non-Square gift certificates?

KEPS — Fri, 15 Dec 2017 00:13:52 GMT

THIS DO NOT WORK!

It counts as double revenue. It will deduct the total gift card from the tendered sale, but be counted as double revenue on your report at the end of the day. Trust me.... I just got done going through 2 years of sales receipts fixing this headache. It appears on your register as if it is working while you are in transaction.... but it DOESN'T.

Re: What is the best way to sell and redeem non-Square gift certificates?

EJ_ — Fri, 15 Dec 2017 18:48:52 GMT

Hi @KEPS

Both the sale of gift cards and their redemptions would be accounted for in your reporting.

Was this what you're referring to?

Re: What is the best way to sell and redeem non-Square gift certificates?

KEPS — Sat, 16 Dec 2017 14:23:54 GMT

I'm talking about redeeming paper gift receipts.

If I sell one under a Gift Certificate titled category, how are you suggesting I redeem it?

Re: What is the best way to sell and redeem non-Square gift certificates?

KEPS — Sat, 16 Dec 2017 14:26:08 GMT

...because for nearly 2 years when I redeemed them, I would go to payment, other, gift certificate... but it always counted as double revenue.

Re: What is the best way to sell and redeem non-Square gift certificates?

boardwalksun — Mon, 18 Dec 2017 20:40:42 GMT

When I use the "other tender" option, it assumes it is for the full amount of the sale. I don't get the variable option. I want to be able to ender the amount of the "other tender"