thread Re: Transferring Gift Card Balance from Shopkeep to Square in Archived Discussions (Read Only)

How to migrate gift cards from another merchant service

Square_head — Sun, 14 Aug 2016 21:18:43 GMT

How do i migrate gift cards from another company with my new square account

Importing existing gift cards

headrushroaster — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 14:23:06 GMT

We're in the process of transitioning from an existing POS system in which we have gift cards already in use.

How do we import existing gift card balance data?

Thanks!

Re: Importing existing gift cards

dakotaharvest — Sat, 06 Aug 2016 12:00:18 GMT

Chances are you can't.

We had to get a report of all gift cards and their balances on the last day of using the old system.

Whenever a customer comes in with an old gift card, we look up the number in a binder. Then we transfer the card to the new Square Gift Card and use "Other > Gift Card" as the form of payment. We adjust on a spreadsheet this process so that it doesn't' look like additional sales but simply exchanging one form of currency for another.

Definitely not a nice workflow, but was better than the fees we paid each month to run the gift card program from the other vendor.

Re: How to migrate gift cards from another merchant service

Sean — Fri, 15 Nov 2019 00:37:23 GMT

@Square_head - We'd be happy to help you migrate your gift cards from another provider over to Square.

While we'll need you to work directly with a supporter to do this so give us a call. In the meantime, here is an overview of the process:

When you call our team we'll request a CSV file that lists your previously issued gift cards. We will then upload the card data to your Square account so that you can redeem and check balances by manually entering the gift card number with the Square Point of Sale app.

Below are a few tips to get the most out of migrating your gift cards to Square:

Any gift cards you’ve purchased from another provider that haven’t been issued will need to be discarded.
Non-Square gift cards can’t be activated or reloaded with Square.
Square can’t guarantee that all gift card number formats will be supported with the Square app.

Before getting in touch with us to get the migration process started, you'll want to make sure you've already taken these steps:

Confirm you’ve ordered you Square Gift Cards. You can order physical gift cards from your online Square Dashboard if you haven’t done so yet.
Obtain a report in the form of a CSV from your current gift card provider. The CSV report needs to contain all previously issued gift cards, including the gift card number and current balance for each card.

Here are a few tips to help avoid issues with your .CSV:

Remove the header row. The first row should contain the first gift card number and balance, not the column titles.
Remove any zero balance gift cards ($0.00).
Make sure the amount column is in cents (multiply the dollar amount by 100) and doesn’t contain decimals.Make sure the file type is a .CSV.

If you've already got your ducks in a row, just reach out here to get the process started.

Re: How to migrate gift cards from another merchant service

perkits — Fri, 16 Sep 2016 23:40:50 GMT

We just migrated today from our old Gift Card system to Square. Followed the steps layed out here and all when VERY smooth.

When someone brings in an old gift card, we can check the balance or apply to a sale. You simple type in the number on the back of the old card. Sure it's an extra step that takes a couple of seconds, but it well worth it to have our gift cards intagrated all into one system now.

Re: How to migrate gift cards from another merchant service

DaoDeJing — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 14:37:07 GMT

Looking to do this soon, but have a few questions.

Once migrated, the gift card codes basically are e-gift cards, right? That is, if I have square appointments on my webpage customers would be able to type in their old (migrated) gift card code to pay for their appointments?

Second, you say that not all gift card code styles may be supported. Can you provide more details as to what sorts of codes might not be migratable? I have alphanumeric codes (just letters and digits, no symbols) that vary from 6-12 characters in length.

Thank you for your time!

Re: How to migrate gift cards from another merchant service

Helen — Tue, 05 Sep 2017 21:29:21 GMT

Hello @DaoDeJing, these are great questions. I did a bit of digging on my end to find the answers, sorry to keep you waiting!

When we've migrated your old gift card numbers for you, you'll be able to manually enter the old gift card numbers into the Point of Sale app.

Your customers won't be able to pay for Appointments using a gift card (old or new from Square!) but I'll share your interest in that feature with the Product Team!

To answer your second question gift card numbers should be numeric only and between 4-19 numbers long.

Hope this helps! If you're ready to migrate your old gift cards to Square contact our Support team!

Re: How to migrate gift cards from another merchant service

DaoDeJing — Tue, 05 Sep 2017 21:58:24 GMT

Thank you for your answers. They're pretty disappointing though... 😕

Gift cards are a HUGE part of many appointment-based industries (salons, massuers, barbers, etc.), so it's simply shocking that gift cards of any kind are incompatible with Appointments. Please encourage the engineers to make this high priority!

Digit-only gift card codes are an understandable decision on Square's part, but I imagine that factor alone would prevent many business from deciding to change to the Square system. The inability to migrate their alphanumeric codes - and thus causing a greate amount of frustration for customers when their codes don't work - is too great of a sacrifice.

Thanks again for taking the time to address my concerns. At the moment these limitations are a deal-breaker for me. But I'll keep my eye on Square and hopefully the system will be able to provide increased functionality in the future. (At the very least, the ability to use gift cards to pay for Appointments.) Thanks again!

Re: How to migrate gift cards from another merchant service

Helen — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 18:19:46 GMT

You're welcome @DaoDeJing! I'm sorry to hear that you aren't going to use Square but thanks for considering us! In the meantime, I'll share your feedback with our Product Team who are constantly working to improve our features based on our sellers' (and prospective sellers') feedback!

Re: How to migrate gift cards from another merchant service

DaoDeJing — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 14:26:15 GMT

Thanks. I have thought of a workaround though.

I can just avoid using Appointments to process payments at the time of booking. Problem solved! I'll just require card information to hold the appointment (to charge in case of no-show) and check them out using Square POS when they arrive and pay, thus allowing gift card codes to be applied.

I think this will work for now. Thanks for your help!

Re: How to migrate gift cards from another merchant service

Milancoffeestat — Sun, 15 Oct 2017 17:26:41 GMT

Hello,

I've been trying to work with square reps and engineers for a week now to get our migration done; last I heard, it was complete, but when I key in the card number from an old card (it's all numeric and 6 digits) it tells me invalid card. Am I missing something? Is there somewhere I can go on my square dash board to verify or view the migrated data?

Re: How to migrate gift cards from another merchant service

perkits — Sun, 15 Oct 2017 21:36:40 GMT

In my case I had some cards that where 16 digits and some that where 15. They imported them all but added a 0 to the beginning the the 15 digits cards to give them 16 like the rest. Just 15 digits wouldn't work.

My understanding is they all have to be 16 digits just like the Square Gifts cards. Once we worked all that out everything seems to be work well, and that was a year ago.

Re: How to migrate gift cards from another merchant service

Sean — Mon, 16 Oct 2017 17:21:03 GMT

@Milancoffeestat So sorry to hear about the trouble with the migration. This is definitely something we can invesigate more closely for you. Since it doesn't look like we already have an open case for this issue, can you reply to your last email with your supporter or reach out directly again? We want to make sure you get up and going correctly!

Re: How to migrate gift cards from another merchant service

Milancoffeestat — Sat, 21 Oct 2017 15:02:03 GMT

@Sean Thanks for your response. I continue to play phone and email tag with the reps on this issue. I've spoken with a number of reps but most frequently, Valencia. The card numbers of the uploaded old data vary from 5-6 digits through 11. Maybe this is part of the issue? I will try inputting zeros in the beginning. I've been emailing the support staff that emails me but it's taking up to 3-4 days to receive a single response, and usually I hear back right at the end of the business day Friday, where I have no opportunity to respond. I tried to call in again yesterday and the phone customer support was down.

Super super frustrating not being able to reach anyone on weekends, and the delay before responses come in. There also seems to be disparity between how reps handle this-- When I called again on Thursday, the rep who answered claimed that I was not an authorized user on the account (I am the creator of the account! and the only other person on the account has ensured twice in the past that I am on the authorized users list) and told me he "thinks he can see the issue" but could not tell me until my authorized user status was updated! After calling back again that evening, the other user was told that I was *already* an authorized user, and that they would return my call. I did not receive any return phone call back.

I'm not trying to be negative, but I really just need to wrap this up and get my manager's business back up to speed and running as soon as I can.

Transferring Gift Card Balance from Shopkeep to Square

smallcakeskelle — Thu, 23 Jan 2020 21:46:49 GMT

[This reply was created from merging an existing thread:

Transferring Gift Card Balance from Shopkeep to Square]

We recently took over a store that was using Shopkeep until about 6 months ago. They never got their gift card balances from Shopkeep transferred over to their Square POS. Is there an easy way to do this? What does the file need to contain?

Thanks

Re: Transferring Gift Card Balance from Shopkeep to Square

Valentina — Thu, 23 Jan 2020 21:45:22 GMT

Hi there, @smallcakeskelle - you can migrate your issued third-party gift cards to Square Gift Cards, and our team can help with this process. I've moved your post to this thread where @Sean has detailed the steps taken to migrate your gift cards. Please reach out directly to get started!

is there a way i can add old gift cards from a previous site to square

Allabouther — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 19:22:07 GMT

I'm needing to input my old gift cards from a previous sight I was using, is there anyway to do that??

Re: is there a way i can add old gift cards from a previous site to square

AshleyK — Thu, 21 Jan 2021 13:58:28 GMT

@Allabouther Thanks for reaching out and welcome to the Seller Communitiy! 🙂

I've merged your post to an existing thread where Sean details how to complete this. You can also find some other workarounds that some sellers have used. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Do you have to use Square Gift Cards or can we use standard gift cards that we already have?

jparish04 — Sat, 30 Jan 2021 08:18:13 GMT

We are in the process of switching over from another POS provider and are curious if we can use the same unloaded plastic gif cards on our Square POS. We have so many already that we don't really want to have to purchase additional plastic cards if we can just use these blank ones that we already have.

Re: Do you have to use Square Gift Cards or can we use standard gift cards that we already have?

perkits — Sun, 31 Jan 2021 06:22:15 GMT

I don’t think so. We have some leftover from when we changed over a few years ago. The good news is after you do change over it’s seem less with the system.

As you may know you can (with Square supports help) load your outstanding cards from your old program. They may not swipe though. We usually have to manually enter the number. After a couple of years now we rarely receive them anymore.