What is AE Gift Card module and how it works?

With Gift Card module, you can setup and sell Gift Card products, each with a unique gift card code. The gift card can later be used to discount/pay for future orders.

Custom monetary values, expiration dates and unique security pins can be created and sold online.

Speak with AE Sales to purchase the gift card module. Once gift card module is installed, you can begin managing your gift cards under Customers>>Gift Cards in AE Admin.

Create a Gift Card

To add your first gift card, click “Create New Gift Cards”. In the form that loads, you can:

  • Expiration Date: Select the date the gift card should expire on
  • Site: Select the site that gift card can be used on (currently can only select a single site per gift card)
  • Active: Turn on/off the status of the gift card (only active gift cards can be used by customers)

Each gift card needs to be assigned either to a customer account in your AE system or, if you want to email the gift card info, a specific email address.

  • Account ID: If you’re assigning to a customer account, find the account under Customers>>Accounts and copy the account’s unique numerical ID. Once you have the account’s ID, you can enter it in this form in the “Account ID” field (this will assign the gift card to that customer’s account).
  • Email Address: If you’re not assigning the gift card to a specific account, you’ll need to enter a valid email in the “Email Address” field.

Now that you’ve assigned the card to a particular customer…

  • Amount on Card: Enter the amount (monetary value) to assign to the card. For example, if the user ordered a $100 gift card, you’d enter “100.00” into this field
  • Email Card Info on Creation: If you want to email the customer with this new gift card’s information as soon as you finish this form, check this box. If you want to wait and notify the customer at a later date, leave this unchecked. You can come back and manually send the card info after creation.

Now that you’ve filled in the form, click “Create Now” and the gift card will be created. When a new gift card is created, the system automatically generates a unique pin number for that gift card. This pin is what is used to identify the gift card when it’s being used in checkout.

Manage Existing Gift Card

Once you’ve create a gift card, it will be listed under Customers>>Gift Cards. Click on the gift card you’d like to manage to load it’s details.

When editing a gift card, you can:

  • Send Email with Card Information: If you need to email the gift card info to the customer, click this button and it will be emailed to either the customer account’s email address (if card is assigned to customer account) or the email address specifically assigned to the gift card.
  • Expiration Date: If you’d like to change the expiration of the card, you can select a new date here.
  • Active: checked indicates the card is active, unchecked inactive (can’t be used).
  • Site: indicates the site the card can be used for (currently a gift card can only be used on a single site)
  • Account ID: if you need to update the customer account the card is assigned to, you can set the customer account ID here.
  • Email Address: if assigning a specific email to the card (usually used when card is not assigned to a customer account), email address entered here.
  • Current Amount: displays the amount (monetary value) currently assigned to the gift card<

Create New Transaction

Under this link, you can manually credit to or debit from the gift card’s current amount.

To credit (add to monetary value of card), click “Create a New Transaction”, set Action=Credit, enter the Amount you’d like to credit to the card. If you want to assign this credit to a specific order in the AE system (get unique numerical Order ID from Orders list in AE admin). Finally, if you’d like to make any admin notes for the transaction, you can enter them in the Notes field. Once the fields are filled out, click “Create Now” to perform the credit.>

To debit (reduce monetary value of card), click “Create a New Transaction”, set Action=Debit, enter the Amount you’d like to debit from the card. If you want to assign this debit to a specific order in the AE system (get unique numerical Order ID from Orders list in AE admin). Finally, if you’d like to make any admin notes for the transaction, you can enter them in the Notes field. Once the fields are filled out, click “Create Now” to perform the debit.

Below all this, you can view any recent transactions that have been performed on this gift card. You cannot undo/delete/edit previous transactions, they are only displayed here for your reference. If you want to undo a previous credit, simply create a new debit in the same amount. Likewise, if you want to undo a debit, simply create a credit in the same amount.

Selling Gift Cards Online

Currently this module does not auto-generate new gift cards. This means, to sell AE gift cards, simply create a product in the amount you’d like to sell for each gift card. For example, if I want to sell $25, $50 and $100 gift cards, I’d setup three products: 1. $25 Gift Card, 2. $50 Gift Card and 3. $100 Gift. When a user purchases one of these items, you’d come into admin and create a new gift card for the appropriate amount.

Where can AE Gift Card’s be used?

Customers can use AE gift cards directly in your AE webstore via the standard checkout process. Step 3 of checkout displays a small widget in which customers can enter their unique gift card pin numbers which will debit the order total based on the monetary value available on gift cards being used. If the customer uses a gift card in AE checkout, the monetary value of the gift card(s) is automatically debited when checkout is completed.

If you’d like to allow customers to use AE gift cards outside of the AE webstore, you can do so, but you have to manage the transactions manually. For example, if a customer comes into your brick-and-mortar store and want’s to use an AE gift card, they would provide you with the unique gift card pin which you can search for in AE admin under Customers>>Gift Cards and create a new debit transaction to remove the appropriate value from the gift card (and you would of course discount the order they’re making in store for the amount being debited from the gift card).

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