Using Gift Cards and Discounts

Overview

If your business uses gift cards or gift certificates you can manage them in serviceminder by creating a Part to represent the value. Think of it as a stand-in for the gift card, similar to how you might handle a credit memo.

To help keep track, we also recommend adding notes to both the Proposal and/or the Contact record to remind yourself when a gift card or discount has been applied.

If you’d like to measure the impact for marketing or reporting, using this Part method is especially helpful. You can run the Part Summary Report to see how often these items are used, who’s using them, and in what context. This same approach works for both gift certificates and discounts.

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Creating a Part

To get started, create a new Part called Gift Certificate (or something similar):

1. Go to Control Panel > Parts > Add.

2. Set the Unit Price to $0 if you want flexibility.

   • Example: If you only ever sell $50 gift cards, set the Unit Price to -50.

3. Be sure to select Exclude in the Branding Reporting Category for this Part. 

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Adding to a Proposal

When someone purchases or redeems a gift certificate:

1. Create a Proposal for the customer. If they’re buying a certificate, make sure the Proposal requires a 100% deposit, then generate the invoice from it.

2. Add a note to the invoice making it clear it’s a gift certificate, and add a note to the Contact’s profile that they have a credit (include the invoice number for easy reference).

3. Add the Gift Certificate Part to the Proposal.

   • If the Part has a $0 amount, you can enter a negative dollar value in the Rate field or type the discount percentage into the Quantity field.

Once you hit Enter, the Amount will update to a negative value and the balance due will adjust accordingly.

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Reporting

Want to see how often gift cards, certificates, or discounts are being used? Run the Part Summary Report. This gives you a quick look at usage trends and helps with marketing or financial reporting.

In the top right corner, you can use the dropdown menu and choose to organize the report in the following ways:

• Service Agent
• Part
• Contact
• Owner
• Organization

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FAQs

 What if the discount is more than the total job cost?

You don’t need to track that manually. Once the invoice is paid, you can create a credit memo for the overpayment. That memo will track the remaining balance and let you apply it to future invoices.

When making a payment that exceeds the invoice balance, you can check the box for Apply Excess to Other Invoices to carry the credit forward automatically to any other unpaid invoices.

How do I apply a 20% discount on a proposal?

For percentage discounts, create a Part with a $0 Unit Price, then enter the percentage in the Quantity field of the Proposal.

• For fixed-dollar discounts, you can create a Part with a negative Unit Price (e.g., -10 for $10 off).
• For percentages, you’ll always set the value directly on the Proposal, since the Unit Price field only accepts dollar amounts. Set the value by typing the percentage of discount directly into the Quantity field for that part on the proposal.