# Selling and redeeming gift cards
Gift cards are a great way to bring in upfront revenue and put new customers in your chair. SalesThumb supports two ways to sell them — from your dashboard for in-person sales, and through a self-serve purchase page you can share with customers online — plus a built-in way to redeem them against a sale.
Selling a gift card from the dashboard
Go to Promotions > Gift Cards and click New Gift Card.
1. Amount — pick a preset ($25, $50, $100, $250, $500) or type a custom amount ($5 minimum). 2. Purchaser name and Purchaser email — both are optional. You can create a card with neither filled in; if you do enter an email, it just needs to be a valid address (the Create button only blocks on a badly formatted email, never on the fields being empty). 3. Recipient name (optional) and Recipient email (optional) — who the card is for, if different from the purchaser. 4. Message (optional) — a short personal note. 5. Click Create.
The card activates immediately with the full balance. If you entered a recipient email (or a purchaser email with no recipient email), SalesThumb emails the code and PIN automatically — it should arrive within a minute. Creating the card here doesn't run a charge on its own, so collect payment from the customer the way you normally would (cash, card, etc.) as part of the sale.
Letting customers buy a gift card online
Your shop also has a self-serve gift card purchase page you can link from your website, socials, or a QR code at the counter. There, the customer picks an amount ($5 minimum — the page notes there's no expiration unless required by state law), and Your name and Your email are required fields (recipient name/email are optional, same as the dashboard flow — leave them blank and the purchaser receives it themselves). After payment, they land on a confirmation screen that says "Check your email" — the code should arrive within a minute.
Tracking your gift cards
The top of Promotions > Gift Cards shows three running numbers: Active (cards with a balance left), Sold (total value of every card ever created), and Outstanding (total balance still redeemable across all cards).
Below that, each card in the list shows its code, a status badge, who it's for or from, and its remaining balance out of the original amount. In practice you'll only ever see two badges: Active (balance remaining) and Redeemed (balance has hit $0). There's no "canceled" status — nothing in SalesThumb currently cancels a gift card. Expiration isn't shown as a badge in this list either — if a card has an expiration date set on it, that date is only checked at the moment someone tries to redeem it (see below), not surfaced as a persistent status in the dashboard.
Redeeming a gift card at Quick Sale
Gift cards are redeemed from the Quick Sale screen, right alongside the rest of a sale:
1. Build the sale as usual (add line items, tax applies per item as normal). 2. In the Gift card (optional) card, click Pay with gift card. 3. Enter the code and click Check balance. If the code doesn't check out, you'll see one of: "Gift card not found.", "This gift card isn't active.", "This gift card has expired.", or "This gift card has no balance left." 4. If it's usable, SalesThumb suggests an amount to apply (whichever is smaller — the card's balance or the sale total). Adjust it if needed, then click Apply.
In the Totals & payment section, you'll see the gift card listed as its own line (shown as a negative amount, e.g. "−$25.00") alongside Subtotal, Tax, and Tip. The Total row itself is Subtotal + Tax + Tip — it is not reduced by the gift card amount. The actual amount that will be charged to the customer's card, cash, or ACH shows separately, just below Total, as a "Charge via [payment method]" line — that's the number that reflects the gift card deduction. So if you're glancing at the receipt, check the "Charge via" line for what the customer actually owes, not the Total line above it.
Partial redemptions and multiple visits
Customers don't have to spend the whole balance in one visit. Apply only part of it to a sale, and the remainder carries over automatically — the card's status stays Active and shows the updated balance the next time it's looked up or listed. Once a redemption brings the balance to exactly $0, the card's badge flips to Redeemed.
Expiration
Most gift cards never expire — the self-serve purchase page notes there's no expiration unless your state requires one. If a card does have an expiration date set, it's checked against that date at redemption time: trying to apply an expired card at Quick Sale returns "This gift card has expired." rather than letting the sale go through. There's no separate "expired" badge in the gift card list — the balance and expiration date are what determine whether a card is usable, not a stored status.
Need help? Email info@roffik.com.