Hi all,
I'm Dex, the new Patron Services Manager at Washington Performing Arts. We've had some large staff turnover in the last 2+ years, and our institutional knowledge/memory regarding gift certificates is woefully weak.
I know GCs have to be valid for five years (https://www.ncsl.org/research/financial-services-and-commerce/gift-cards-and-certificates-statutes-and-legis.aspx) but our Finance department doesn't necessarily want them to be outstanding liabilities for five years. How have folks worked with the finance department to account for/reconcile the income from GCs every fiscal year?
Best,
Dex
Hi Dex! We use the Gift Certificate Expiration Utility to 'expire' any outstanding gift certificate balances at the end of the fiscal year (we typically created a list to run this utility through - ie. Purchased between X Date and Y Date) with the target payment a generic 'On Account - Write Off' payment method.
This does mean that patrons can no longer use the GC online - we just instruct them to call the box office. We then manually adjust the prices in price details in the order to comp the amount of the gift certificate, and then charge the patron for any remaining balance. (EX. If the GC is worth $50, and the total order amount is $200 for 4 tickets, we adjust each ticket price so the new total is $150 or $37.5 per ticket, and then make a note in the payment method screen that this was using X amount from GC# XYZ).
I hope that made sense! Let me know if you have any other questions or I can elaborate!
Ashleigh--thanks for sharing! This process makes total sense.
I know every org. will be different, but do you have data or anecdotal evidence about how often folks are calling with expired GCs?
It's actually quite rare! (According to our Patron Services Manager). We also have been doing TONS of messaging about making sure people use their GCs from the past few years.