Gift Certificates are typically paper and homemade in your shop. The certificate balance is stored in Ascend and directly attached to a customer's account. So the sale must be associated with the person receiving the Gift Certificate (that will be redeeming it), and not the person buying it.

Gift Certificates are mostly commonly used at shops that are not integrated with Chase.

1. Create a new Sale and attach the customer who will be receiving the Gift Certificate.
2. Take their payment for the Gift Certificate (for example, $50 in cash).
3. The sale balance now shows in parentheses, indicating a negative value (where the shop owes them).
4. Select Gift Cert from payment types.
5. The Amount will automatically in fill in with the negative amount in the balance field. The Gift Certificate Balance shows their current balance (which this new payment will be added to).
   
6. Select OK.

If you open the customer record (for the customer receiving the gift certificate), you'll see their Gift Certificate balance has been updated and can be used to help pay for store purchases.

Note

Anytime you see a dollar amount in parentheses in Ascend, it indicates a negative amount. this means the shop owes the customer money in that situation. Gift Cards, Gift Certificates, and In-Store Credit are common examples of this.

Additional Resources

KB22-012