A stored-value card for your business: load 100, get 120

What a stored-value card is

Until now Shortip had three kinds of card: a punch card with a reward, a package paid in advance that counts down, and a recognition card. The stored-value card is the fourth kind, and it counts money, not visits.

The idea is familiar from chain store gift cards: the customer pays in advance and gets a balance. The difference is that a small business can give a little more than what was paid. For example, load 100 and get 120. You set the bonus, and if you like, you can also have no bonus at all.

A gift card is exactly the same balance, only someone buys it for someone else. For a birthday, for a holiday, or as a thank you.

Who it fits

• A cafe or bakery whose regulars buy every day. A balance on the card saves them from taking out a wallet every morning.
• A business that wants to sell holiday gifts, without printing vouchers and without tracking them in a notebook.
• A business that wants to give a reason to come back, without giving a discount on every purchase.

You can keep a stored-value card next to the punch card with a reward, or on its own. It does not count as one of the business's two punch cards.

How to load at the register

1. The customer pays at your register, and you give them your receipt, as with any purchase.
2. The staff member scans the customer's card with the phone.
3. They choose "Load", and then a tier or an amount.
4. They type the receipt number from the register.
5. They tap confirm. The button says how much money was received, not how much was loaded, so there is no confusion.

The customer has no card? They join from their own phone with an SMS code, and then you load. A customer who joined at the counter without a code is asked to verify the number with a code before loading. The reason is simple: without a code they cannot restore the card by themselves, and their money would be lost with the phone.

How to pay with the balance

1. The customer opens the card on their phone and taps "Pay". A live code appears, and it changes every half minute.
2. The staff member scans the code and types the purchase amount.
3. The staff member sees the balance before and after, and taps to take it off.
4. The customer sees at once on their page how much was taken off and how much is left.

Why a live code and not the card's regular code? Because the regular code is fixed. A screenshot of it is enough to identify a customer, but it should not be enough to spend their money. So payment is possible only from the customer's own phone, verified with a code, and each live code is used for one payment only.

• Not enough? The system offers to take off the whole balance, and the rest is paid another way. The balance never goes below zero.
• The card in the phone's wallet shows the balance, but you do not pay with it. You pay from the card's page.
• Loading and paying need a network connection. Unlike a regular visit, they are not saved to be sent later.

The money does not go through Shortip

This is the principle everything else is built on. The customer pays you, at your register, and you give the receipt from your register. Shortip does not hold the money, does not issue a document and does not calculate tax. It records what the business said it received, and what the staff took off.

So every amount you see in the portal is marked "as recorded in the system", and not as income. And before you turn on the stored-value card, you tick one line that says the money is received by you and that you are responsible for customers' balances and for refunds.

The bonus, and when it expires

The money the customer paid does not expire, not when loading and not as a gift. By default the bonus has no expiry. If you want to limit it, you can, but to at least five years.

Why five? Section 14H of Israel's Consumer Protection Law says that a voucher issued with a time limit must be valid for at least five years from the date it was issued, and that the expiry date must appear on it prominently. The safe way is to read the bonus as part of the same voucher. The card's page always shows every expiry date.

And what about a refund? If a customer asks for their money back, you refund them at the register and record it. What can be refunded is the paid part of what is left, and the portal shows the amount before you tap. The remaining bonus is removed along with it.

What you decide

A load waiting for approval appears to the customer in gray, and they cannot pay from it until you approve. In the daily report you see flagged loads by staff, loads close to the limit, cancellations and loads that are waiting.

Mistakes, returns and branches

• A staff member took off the wrong amount? They cancel their payment right away, and you can cancel any payment, always with a reason.
• A customer returned a product? Cancel the payment, and the amount goes back to their balance.
• A wrong load is cancelled on the same day, if nothing has been paid from it yet. After that it is fixed with a correction and a reason.
• You have several branches? The balance can be used at every branch, and the report shows how much was loaded and taken off at each one.

A gift card for a friend

1. The buyer pays at the register and verifies their number with an SMS code on their own phone.
2. The staff member chooses "Gift card", an amount and a receipt number. A short greeting can be added.
3. The buyer gets a page on their phone to manage the gift, and from there sends the link to a friend. Shortip sends nothing.
4. The friend opens the link, verifies a phone with a code, and the gift goes onto their card.

The friend did not open the link? From the management page, and only from the buyer's number, you can create a new link to replace the old one, or move the gift to the buyer's own card.

What is not included yet

The first version focuses on the register. These things are not included in it: loading or buying a gift on the website, moving part of the balance to someone else, a shared family balance, printed gift cards, and tips.

Frequently asked questions