Gift cards

Gift cards let a customer pre-pay a balance that they — or someone they’re gifting — can spend in your store later. CIQRA supports gift cards as part of its payments capabilities. This page is a concept-level overview of how they fit in.

Note

This is a conceptual overview. Gift cards are part of the CIQRA Pay engine, which is set up during onboarding, so there isn’t a dedicated gift-card admin screen to walk through yet. What follows describes the concept, not click-by-click steps.

What a gift card is

A gift card carries a stored balance — a set amount of money that can be redeemed against future orders in your store. Think of it as prepaid store credit tied to a card code:

• Someone buys or is issued a gift card for a certain value.
• The recipient redeems it at checkout, drawing down the balance toward their order.
• Any remaining balance stays on the card for a later purchase.

How gift cards relate to CIQRA Pay

It helps to separate two moments:

• Buying a gift card is a normal sale — the purchaser pays through CIQRA Pay, just like any other order, and that flows through the usual charge → balance → payout path described in How CIQRA Pay works.
• Redeeming a gift card spends its stored balance against an order, rather than charging a card for that portion.

So a gift card is both something you sell and a way customers can later pay.

What to keep in mind

• A gift card represents a real liability — value your store has promised to honour later — so treat outstanding balances as money owed.
• Gift cards can encourage repeat visits, since a recipient has a reason to come back and spend the balance.
• Redemptions and refunds interact: money spent from a gift card behaves differently from a card charge, which is worth remembering when you’re reconciling returns. See Refunds and disputes.

Tip

Because gift-card balances are a promise to your customers, keep them in mind when you think about your store’s finances — they’re spendable value that hasn’t been redeemed yet.