Gift certificates — are an extremely convenient marketing tool in retail that helps retain a customer if they cannot finally decide which product to choose as a gift.
This mode in the system allows you to generate certificate barcodes, issue them, sell them, reissue them, and accept them as a means of payment for goods and services.
When implementing this functionality in a store, entrepreneurs most often ask specialists the following questions: which type of certificate is better to choose for correct work with a fiscal registrar? How to correctly process the sale and payment with a certificate through a software ECR (PECR) to avoid errors? Why does the system block returns of certain certificates? And how to configure printing so that information about payment with a certificate is displayed in a fiscal or sales receipt?
The answers to these questions lie in correctly understanding the internal logic of the Torgsoft program.
Types of gift certificates and their features
The Torgsoft program provides three fundamentally different mechanisms for working with gift certificates:
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«As money». According to this logic, the certificate acts as a direct equivalent of money. Selling such a certificate is essentially an exchange of funds for a paper or plastic medium. Transactions with such certificates are reflected in financial reports (certificate balance), but the sale and use of certificates of this type do not appear in product reports.
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«As a deferred discount». In this case, you sell the customer a service — a discount on a future purchase for the specified amount. When the customer uses such a certificate, a discount is applied to the current sale, equal to the certificate face value (an action similar to adjusting the amount). The sale of such a certificate is reflected in product reports (if services are included there), and its use is balanced by the discount. Technical support specialists strongly recommend using this certificate type specifically when working with a software ECR (PECR).
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«As a product». When issuing this type of certificate, the program requires you to specify the accounting center where they will be received. The system automatically creates an incoming invoice that puts these certificates on the store’s balance with the corresponding sale price. When the certificate is sold, an actual product sale is created, to which all current promotions and the customer’s cumulative discounts apply.
Important nuance: when a customer comes to redeem such a certificate and buys a product, their customer discount will apply only to the additional amount paid with real money, and the amount of goods paid with the certificate will not be included in their accumulation for calculating future discounts.
Fiscalization of gift certificates through PECR
To legally sell gift certificates (including those handled «As a product» or «As a deferred discount») through a fiscal registrar or PECR, they must be made fiscal in the system. To do this, go to the menu item «Commodity management» — «Product type», find the automatically created system product type «Gift certificate», and select the «Fiscal» checkbox.
When paying for goods with gift certificates through PECR, users often had questions about the inability to choose the payment form (cash or cashless) for the amount covered by the certificate.
In Torgsoft versions starting from 2022.0.48, this issue has been resolved: now, when using gift certificates «as money» or «as a product», it is possible to clearly select the form and method of payment for the prepayment (the amount of certificates used) directly before sending the receipt to the tax authority. However, to avoid any complications with fiscalization, the best solution remains using certificates «As a deferred discount».
Prohibition on certificate returns
Entrepreneurs should pay special attention to the return procedure, as it has strict restrictions to prevent accounting fraud. Certificates handled «As a product» are system-protected: they cannot be added to a sale through the regular sales window, and they are strictly prohibited from being returned to the warehouse through the «Document - Return» form. A similar prohibition also applies to certificates «As a deferred discount» — the program blocks the possibility of returning them through the «Return» window. In addition, there is an important rule for the buyer: if a customer returns to the store a product that was partially or fully paid for with a certificate «as a deferred discount», they permanently lose the amount of that gift certificate (money for the discount is not refunded).
Variables in the receipt template for displaying certificate payment
To make the payment process as transparent as possible for the buyer and avoid questions about why the amount of money paid in the receipt differs from the full cost of the product, information about the certificate must be printed.
For this purpose, the system has a special variable «Paid with gift certificates». It is available both for non-fiscal sales receipts and for fiscal receipts of the software ECR. This variable retrieves from the database and shows the exact amount of the gift certificate that was used as payment during the current sale. Adding this variable to your receipt template (through the FastReport editor) will remove most customer questions at the checkout.
Legal regulations
A gift certificate for a store is not «just a piece of paper», but either a prepayment for a future purchase or the buyer’s right to a discount/payment for part of the goods. Therefore, the sale of a certificate and the subsequent sale of goods using the certificate must be processed through an ECR/PECR with a correct receipt. When the buyer pays with a certificate, the receipt must be generated for the full purchase amount, indicating the goods, price, amount, and payment form; the tax authority directly allows specifying the payment type as «gift certificate». If the product costs more than the certificate, the receipt shows several payments: for example, part — by certificate, the rest — by cash or card. (zir.tax.gov.ua)
In Torgsoft, it is safer to configure gift certificates so that the program logic matches the fiscal logic: the certificate must be set up as a fiscal item/mechanism, and when goods are sold, the receipt must show the actual product and the method of covering the amount with the certificate. For working with PECR in Torgsoft, the recommended option is «as a deferred discount»: then the certificate works as the buyer’s right to reduce the amount of a future purchase, not as «unofficial money in the cash register». It is advisable to display the amount paid with a gift certificate in the receipt template so that the buyer can see why the amount payable in cash or by card is less than the full price of the goods. For Sole Proprietorships on the single tax, there is a separate risk: the Tax Code requires payments for goods in monetary form, so it is better to agree the certificate model with an accountant and not process it as barter or an «internal currency». (zir.tax.gov.ua)
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