im looking to use option 3 as above. customer purchases gift card, passes card onto friend as present, friend presents gift card to redeem product.
from what i have worked out, when the customer purchases the original gift voucher i can enter its value in my ‘liabilities:gift vouchers’ account when entering the transaction on Receive Money. which will hold it to track amounts owing.
receive money: liabilities:gift vouchers-unpresented = 25
then when the customer later presents the gift voucher i have to make a double entry for the voucher. one line to debit the liability account for the value redeemed, then a second line to convert that liability into an income account
eg, in the one transaction:
receive money: liabilities:gift vouchers-unpresented = -25
receive money: income:gift vouchers-income = 25
this will have $0 Amount on the Receive Money transaction (as it hasnt cost the customer anything) but will essentially move the ‘money’ from the Liability Balance Sheet over to the Income P&L statement…correct? is this the best method to record gift vouchers or am i doing it backwards? (or should i present the income and negative liability on initial payment?)
Also is there a way within manager to track each gift voucher? i have just gone through supplier credits for another task and it might be overkill to create a ‘supplier’ for each voucher presented but would allow the voucher to be tracked individually with credit remaining. so far there has only been one or two vouchers and presume it wont happen too often