Using vouchers the right way

Vouchers are a popular gift and bring customers back to your business. bessa has two modules for them: the local vouchers of the Sales Point and the online vouchers. This guide shows which module suits your business, where your customers can buy and redeem vouchers, how sale and redemption appear in the Sales Point closing, and why you should not sell your own vouchers as an ordinary article.

The two modules at a glance

Details on both modules are in Vouchers at the Sales Point and Vouchers.

Which module suits your business?

• Local vouchers suit you if you sell vouchers at the counter or in the salon and your customers redeem them with you on site. Typical: hair salon, café, boutique, bakery with one or more branches.

• Online vouchers suit you if customers should be able to buy vouchers around the clock in the webshop or in your app, if you use the bessa Gastro Kiosk, if vouchers are sent by email as a designed PDF, if a voucher should only be valid at one location, or if Sales Points from other vendors are involved.

• Vouchers from third-party issuers (municipality, works council, meal vouchers) need neither module. You accept them through a payment method of their own, see Accept third-party vouchers and credits.

Redeeming vouchers at the Sales Point

At the Sales Point, you redeem both kinds of voucher in the cart. Scanning is the quickest way. If the code cannot be read, open Redeem voucher in the cart and choose the input type:

• Code for local vouchers. Enter the code printed on the voucher.

• Bonus for online vouchers. Enter the voucher code of the online voucher. This code is deliberately long and complex so that it cannot be guessed; typed in by hand it is prone to errors. So scan it whenever you can.

Step by step in Redeem a Voucher.

When does a voucher count as revenue?

For VAT, there are two kinds of voucher, explained in detail in Term: Voucher:

• Multi-purpose voucher, e.g. a €100 gift voucher that can be spent on any service. The service is not yet fixed at the time of sale. For tax purposes only the redemption counts.

• Single-purpose voucher, e.g. a voucher for a specific haircut. Service and tax rate are already fixed at the time of sale. For tax purposes the sale already counts.

With local vouchers, you control this through the tax rate of the article group that holds the article Voucher: 0 % for multi-purpose vouchers, the tax rate of the service for single-purpose vouchers, see Sell a Voucher.

Example: a gift voucher in the Sales Point closing

On Monday you sell a gift voucher for €100, and the customer pays in cash. On Thursday you provide services worth €550. One customer pays €100 of that with this voucher; all others together pay €450 in cash. This is how the two days appear in the Sales Point closing:

Total Revenue is the sum of all payment methods of the day. It contains the voucher sale on the day of sale and the redemption on the day of redemption. Both are correct, but they answer different questions:

• How much new money came in today? Total Revenue minus the payment method Voucher. On Thursday that is €450.

• Which services did you provide today? The article groups without the group Vouchers. On Thursday that is €550, even though €100 of it was already paid on Monday.

• How much voucher value is still outstanding? The list in the Vouchers menu entry at the Sales Point shows the remaining balance of every local voucher.

So pass the group Vouchers and the payment method Voucher to your tax advisor separately. The payment method appears in the tax export with its own account number if you set one, see Payment Methods.

Do not sell your own vouchers as an ordinary article

Without the Voucher Management module, it is tempting to create an ordinary article "Voucher" at 0 % and to redeem it later through Redeem voucher → €. We advise against this. The difference shows in the fiscal turnover counter, which adds up every invoice of the Sales Point continuously:

Only for articles of type Voucher (local vouchers) and bessa Card (online vouchers) does the Sales Point take the sale of a multi-purpose voucher out of the turnover counter. You get the type Voucher with the Voucher Management module, see Article Types. In the Sales Point closing both variants look the same, which is why the error goes unnoticed in day-to-day business.

Without the module: what works

• Accept vouchers from third-party issuers through Redeem voucher → €, or better through a payment method of their own per issuer, see Accept third-party vouchers and credits.

• Sell your own vouchers with the Voucher Management module or with the online vouchers. bessa or your Sales Point reseller activates the module.

Switching from an ordinary article

1. Have the Voucher Management module activated. bessa then creates the article group Vouchers and the article Voucher.

2. Sell new vouchers only through the article Voucher.

3. Hide your previous voucher article so that nobody books it any more.

4. Vouchers already sold without a code are still redeemed through Redeem voucher → €. Their sale is already included in the turnover counter. Check with your tax advisor how to treat these vouchers until they are redeemed.

Frequently asked questions

Why is Total Revenue on the day of redemption higher than the money in the drawer? Because the redemption is included in Total Revenue as the payment method Voucher. On that day you provided services at their full value; part of it was already paid when the voucher was bought. See Example: a gift voucher in the Sales Point closing.

Can a customer redeem a local voucher in the webshop or in the app? No. Local vouchers are only valid at the bessa Kassa. For the webshop and the app you need the online vouchers.

Is a local voucher only valid in the branch where it was sold? No, local vouchers are always valid in all branches of your company. If a voucher should only be valid at one location, use the online vouchers, see Venue-scoped vs. company-wide vouchers.

Can I use both modules at the same time? Yes. At the Sales Point, the scan recognises whether it is a local or an online voucher. Make sure your staff know which kind of voucher the customer receives when selling one.

Troubleshooting

The "Redeem voucher" dialog only offers input in €, no field for the code. The Voucher Management module is not active. Without the module, the Sales Point can only deduct a value but cannot look up a voucher code.

The "Redeem voucher" dialog has no "Bonus" input type. Online vouchers are not set up on this Sales Point. See Set Up the Voucher Module.

The online voucher is not found when entered by hand. Check the code character by character; long codes are easy to mistype. Scan the QR code whenever possible.

The voucher cannot be redeemed in Self-Service Mode. Check that the code is printed cleanly and not damaged. Manual entry is not possible in Self-Service Mode; redeem the voucher at a staffed Sales Point through Redeem voucher with the code.

The tax advisor finds the vouchers twice in the revenue. Vouchers are probably being sold as an ordinary article. Switch to the article Voucher, see Switching from an ordinary article.

Related topics

• Vouchers at the Sales Point

• Sell a Voucher

• Redeem a Voucher

• Vouchers — online vouchers

• Accept third-party vouchers and credits

• Sales Point Closings

• Term: Voucher