Is there a way to enter denominations on 3rd party gift certificate purchases?

[Snyder2009]

Our local Chamber has "bucks" that it sells to keep dollars in the local area. As a chamber member, we are accepting those  and we know to treat them as gift certificates in Square even though they are essentially cash. The problem is that we cannot find out how to enter the denomination of the certificate (which is either $5 or $20). We know to choose "Other Gift Card or Certificate" as the payment source, but there is not an option to enter the amount. If the certificate is less than the purchase price, we also understand to "Split the Amount" between the certificate and whatever other source the customer will be using. However, if the customer is paying for the full order with the certificate there is not a way to denote the certificate amount that we have found. For instance, if the check is $16.34 and the customer pays with a $20.00 certificate, there is not a way to enter this so that correct change is given etc. Again, the certificates are essentially cash but they have to be exchanged at the Chamber in order to receive the cash. This is not done on a daily basis and the drawer and cash deposits would be off if we enter it as cash. Does anyone have a similar situation that they have a work around for? If not, how do I add this to the "wish list" for Square upgrades? Doesn't seem like it'd be that difficult to come up with an option to enter the amount of the certificate before completing the sale.

[TheRealChipA · Accepted solution]

Hi @Snyder2009.  Very interesting.  While you may be right that it “doesn’t seem like it would be that difficult” the fact remains that currently what you are wanting to do it not entirely possible in any Square POS.  In my years in this Community this is the first time I’ve ever seen this issue arise, so honestly I’m not sure that Square would be interested in investing a lot of time and manpower into implementing something that would have such limited use.

Having said that, to answer your “wish list” question, you can submit feature request on the Ideate Board.  But this is not by any means a short-term solution, even IF the product team were to accept it for a future product map update.  Still, it is worth a try.

Otherwise, I can only come up with one viable solution, but it will require manual work every day.  You COULD use the cash button for payment IF you keep the paper bucks the customer gives to you.  Treat them as cash and count them when you reconcile your drawer.  This way your drawer would balance, and since you probably need the physical bucks as proof for reimbursement, anyway, you would have that audit trail as well.

That is probably the easiest and best short-term solution, or at least the best that I can come up with.