Hi all!
We had some tickets refunded to a gift certificate, and are now trying to refund that gift certificate balance to On Account. When our box office staff tries to process the order, they fill in the gift certificate information as outlined in the documentation (input balance as a positive number, select appropriate GC payment method, enter GC_no) but are unable to click the Apply Payment button (it's grayed out) and proceed with the On Account portion of the transaction. They were originally trying to complete this transaction in the original order, so I advised them to try doing so in a new order. They got the same results, but with a "Gift certificate locked in batch ####" message.
I've seen this problem with web orders where the GC is locked in batch -1, but this is a controlled ticketing batch, and interestingly enough, the system claims that the GC is locked in the open batch that the box office staff member was trying to complete the order in. When I check T_GC, that certificate has mir_lock = 0, so I'm not sure why it's showing that message, or why the gift certificate payment couldn't be applied in either scenario. Appreciate any tips--I have access to SQL so can provide more detail if needed.
Thanks!
Hi Olivia! The problem here could be that the user is trying to do this in a controlled batch. Gift certificates cannot be sold or redeemed in controlled batches. (The steps you're describing are a little puzzling, because you shouldn't be allowed to even see a gift certificate payment method inside a controlled batch.) I'd suggest trying the transaction in an uncontrolled batch to see if that fixes the issue. If it doesn't, we can get a ticket open to dig further.
From a purely theoretical standpoint, I would like to know the reason behind the decision not to include GCs in a controlled batch. I admit, Controlled batches are used for donations, and GCs generally cannot be redeemed for donations for a lot places, but I do not see why that would necessarily HAVE to be the case.
Just curious.
Controlled batches by design allow a time gap between when a payment or transaction is entered by the user and when it's fully committed to the database. Imagine a situation where a pre-existing gift certificate is used to pay for one order in Controlled Batch 1, and used to pay for a different order in Controlled Batch 2. It's not possible for Controlled Batch 2 to "know" about the pending transaction in Controlled Batch 1. This means the amount of the pending payments could exceed the value of the certificate. (For similar reasons, controlled batches cannot be used to process seat changes or Resource Scheduling, because a single seat or resource might be "overcommitted" across batches.)
Makes theoretical sense. However, I could see someone wanting to use a GC for a donation being irked by that. No issue for us, though; I do not believe we accept GCs as donations. Worst case scenario, though, I suppose one could just accept it as on account via an order.