Basics Page: Advanced Instant Gift Certificate options

Sell GCs for: allows you to restrict your types of sales to only dollar GCs, only services, or both types. We recommend both, as service GCs tend to have a higher per-transaction value. You will need to fill out your Services menu before service-based GCs can be sold, too.

Default GC Type and Online GC Type:  If you have set up custom GC Types to use during holidays and special promotions, select them here to make your promotion "live"!  When your promotional window is over, set it back to the default and you're back to regular expiration, etc.... 

Barcode on GCs is important if you're going to read GCs at the front desk with a barcode reader. If you're using a POS system, select GC ID, otherwise stay with Secure ID. Note that some bar code scanners have trouble reading GC IDs which are 4 digits or less.

  • Email me a copy of each GC receipt: Normally, we send you an email with each IGC purchased - this is a happy way to let you know you're getting conversions on your IGC page. But if you get too many of these or check your SpaBoom account often enough that they're not necessary, turn this checkbox off.
  • BCC me on GC recipient email: Whether or not you'll receive a masked copy of the email sent to each IGC recipient. So if Joe buys a gift for Sue, you'd get Sue's email exactly as she does. This is OFF by default to keep your emails manageable, but of course you can turn it on at any time.
  • Track points-based rewards programs: Use this setting if you are running a membership or rewards program.
  • Create and print or email retail gift certificates:  Boy, I really forgot what this is supposed to do.
  • Automatically assign retail GC IDs:  When you create a retail GC from your GCs tab, this will fill in the ID for you based on the last GC # used.
  • Add a checksum digit to GC IDs:  Adds an additional digit to your GC ID for additional security.
  • Accept GCs with unprocessed credit cards via Redemption Terminal:  got one of those grey box Redemption Terminals?  By default, you'll be warned if you try to redeem a GC for which you have not yet received your money.  Turn that off by enabling this box.

GC Terms: Create custom legalese on your GCs. Anything really important you want on your GCs, you’ve now got the perfect place for it. The rather dry default is “Appointments are subject to our cancellation policy,” but you can make it anything you want.

Sales Tax on Services: if you are legally required to charge tax on your services, you can enter your percentage here.

This will be your default tax rate for all services. But guess what? You can further refine your tax rates within your service categories and even on individual services, if your local regulations require that much fanciness. The Services help topic has more details on this, of course.

Additionally, you can add tax to your dollar-based IGCs as well, but this is much less common. How to know if you should? Do you need to charge taxes?