Cameo supports unique voucher codes which customers can use as a payment method in any form which takes payments. For example, for

  • gift memberships,
  • concert bookings, or
  • merchandise.

They work like mobile phone top-up cards.

For example, this means someone can purchase a voucher and give it to someone else as a gift membership, without the data protection problems of the original purchaser needing to provide a third party’s details. Or they can gift a ticket voucher without needing to decide which particular concert for the recipient.

Note: gift vouchers and their codes are different from discount codes, created in trading. Those are generic, non-unique codes to offer discounts as a marketing tool, and dont have any intrinsic value. Gift voucher codes, on the other hand, have a monetary value and behave like money.

Workflow

  1. You sell someone a voucher code. Each code is unique. So you can regard it just like any other physical product, like a T-shirt: you have a certain number in stock at a certain price. You may set the price greater than the face value for which a customer may redeem it, for example, to cover presentation (maybe you supply it on or with a branded card).

You could sell printed vouchers in person at an event, or use Cameo’s shopping form to sell them through your website, which helps you manage order fulfilment.

You could fulfil the orders with the code on a physical card, a slip enclosed with a non-unique card, or you could supply them by email.

There isn’t currently any support for automating sales by email, so you would have to keep track of which you have sold in that way.

However, we recommend physical cards, particularly when intended as gifts: just so much more attractive a presentation. Make sure you include instructions on how to redeem the voucher.

  1. The purchaser provides the token to someone else as a gift.
  1. The recipient visits your website and purchases the item which the voucher is valid for in the usual way. For example, they fill in the join form.

When they come to payment, they select Gift Voucher (or whatever you choose to call it). Then, where a credit card payment would ask for your card number, instead the form requests the voucher code.

They can either type it or, if you have provided a QR Code, they could scan it and paste it into the box.

Generating voucher codes

Cameo does not generate codes for you. You do this yourself, which means they can be in any format you choose. However, they should be

  • unique: you will provide the codes to Cameo so it can keep track of redemption: refer to that list before issuing new stock;
  • not guessable: hence random, but not so long or complicated that they cannot type it in accurately.

A good choice might be 10 alphanumeric digits, omitting 0, O, 1, I (uppercase i) and l (lowercase L) to avoid ambiguity. You could also include the codes as QR Codes (many websites can generate these – example bulk QR Code generator): if you point a modern phone camera at such a code, it offers to copy it, ready to paste into a form.

Many printers can print vouchers in business or greetings card format with unique numbers (which either they allocate or you provide as a spreadsheet or artwork). I like digitalprintonline where you upload the artwork, produced as PDF from something like InDesign mail merge, or Word if you must. Ready-made cards are available on etsy, where you supply the numbers. Many websites offer to generate random sequences for you (example random string generator). Excel and Google Sheets have random number formulae (RANDBETWEEN, RAND) but make sure you don’t generate any duplicates.

Voucher codes as payment method

How you sell voucher codes is up to you (though you can use Cameo’s shopping form to help if you want). But for someone to buy something using a code, Cameo has to know about the codes.

To do this:

  • create a “bank account” in organisation settings → bank accounts to receive the voucher payments. This is only a nominal account, not for real cash.
  • create a payment method in organisation settings → payment methods with a name like Gift Voucher.
  • Link that payment method to the bank account. Occasionally you may need more than one voucher payment method, but linked to the same account. For example, you might want to have one series of vouchers for event tickets and another for memberships, so that the two are not interchangeable.
  • Select Voucher as the Processor (this how Cameo gets knows about vouchers)
  • Click set/show credentials. This pops up a box to ask for credentials: it’s where, for example for a Stripe account you would identify yourself to Stripe. Here you identify the vouchers instead.
  • Where indicated, enter the value of a set of vouchers, for example, £10. Then enter the voucher numbers in the second box (separated by spaces and/or commas). If you have vouchers with more than one value, click add another set, repeat for the different value, and so on.
  • In the form where you want to offer those vouchers for payment, at the payment step, select it as one of the permitted payment methods, using the credit card icon ().

Then, when someone wants to pay by voucher, they select that method and enter their voucher number.

Voucher used

Cameo keeps track of used vouchers so they cannot be re-used. They can use a voucher of a higher value than the price, in which case the balance remains available for further purchases. Cameo does not currently have an expiry date associated with a voucher. There isn’t currently a way to view voucher balances, but I could provide one if it becomes necessary.

When making a purchase, the customer’s payment history shows attribution to an interim transaction in the voucher nominal bank account. That includes the voucher number.

Also, for voucher payments, the form supplies the voucher number as the payee account number. So where you would otherwise see the last four digits of the credit card number for card payments, for example, you see the voucher number for voucher payments:

  • memberships: when joining with a voucher, in the bank reference field of their membership record.
  • ticket bookings: when purchasing tickets, in the booking shown in events & bookings → reservations, booking & attendance.
  • merchandise: when using the shopping form, in the sale record in trading → online sales.
  • payment form: in the payment notification
  • invoice: when using the invoice form, in the payment notification and in the invoice notes for the paid invoice.
  • interim transaction: the voucher number as well as the payment method name in the interim transaction generated by the form payment, then carried over to the real transaction when reconciling: in short, in bank statements and payment history.
  • real transaction: reconciliation (automatic or manual) transfers the interim transaction information to the real transaction
  • newly added contact: where a form creates a new contact, the voucher number also shows up in their bank reference field
  • confirmation emails: in all cases, you can use the {BANKINFO} substitution to include the payee’s account details
  • confirmation step in form: likewise, the {BANKINFO} substitution is available to display in the final step of all the forms

Accounting

Whether you use a third-party package of Cameo for accounting, you will need to account for gift vouchers.

When you sell a gift voucher, you receive income. Book the sale to an appropriate book-keeping income account code. At this stage, that would not be If you are using Cameo for accounting and sell through the shopping form, you can do this automatically by noting the account code in the stock item for the vouchers. When you make a voucher sale, the interim transaction will automatically book to that code, and that will be carried over to the real transaction (typically credit card) when reconciled (manually or automatically).

However, the voucher sale should also create a liability in your accounts, as you are obliged to redeem it at some future time. This is similar to issuing a purchase order, except that you receive the money in advance and issue the voucher as a promise to exchange for goods or services later. That liability would be cancelled out when the voucher is redeemed. You can obtain these redemptions from the nominal bank account where payments by voucher are credited.

The payments by voucher are then booked to the account for whatever the sale is for: membership, ticket booking, merchandise or whatever. That happens automatically because the interim transaction for the sale is handled just like any other.

If you want to be formal about it, you can create real transactions corresponding to the interim transactions created by the voucher redemptions. Then reconcile against these in the usual way. That will help keep a record of which you have applied accounting for.