Gift card accounting: a checklist for business owners and bookkeepers
Record every gift card at three moments: when it is issued, redeemed and expired. Whether a sale counts as revenue straight away depends on VAT in the Netherlands: if the VAT is known at issue, it does. If not, the amount stays a liability until the card is used. This checklist shows what to book when and which Gifty report to use.
The checklist in short
- Sale: a card that can only be spent at one VAT rate is revenue with VAT at sale. A card that can be spent at several rates is a liability at sale, without VAT.
- Redemption: with one rate you book nothing extra. With several rates the liability now becomes revenue, with VAT on what the customer spends.
- Expiry: the remaining balance does not disappear from your books by itself. Agree with your bookkeeper in advance how to write it off.
- Payout: gift cards sold online are paid out through Stripe, with one commission invoice a month.
- Reports: daily closing, cumulative and Expected expiry are under Finance, Reporting.
What should you record for every gift card?
A gift card has three moments in your administration: issue (the sale), redemption (the customer spends the balance) and expiry (the validity has ended). You see them back as the statuses in the Gifty dashboard: Issued, Redeemed and Expired.
A card that is partly spent stays Issued with a lower balance. It only becomes Redeemed when the balance reaches zero. Keep that in mind at year end: a card with the status Issued can still hold a balance.
For each card you want to be able to find:
- the gift card code or number and the sale date
- the amount at issue and the sales channel (in store or online)
- the status and, when the balance is spent, the date and amount of each redemption
- the remaining balance
The transaction overview and the breakdown behind each report show the date, gift card number, type, status and amount per transaction. You can export that breakdown to CSV for your bookkeeper. If you give cards away for free, mark them as promotional when you issue them so you can tell them apart. Whether a free card is treated differently in your books is for your bookkeeper to decide.
Is a gift card revenue when you sell it?
That depends on VAT. The Dutch tax authority distinguishes single-purpose from multi-purpose vouchers (Belastingdienst, in Dutch). What decides it is what is already known about the VAT when the card is issued.
| Type of card | When is the VAT known? | At sale | At redemption |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single-purpose, for example a clothing shop with one rate | At issue | Book revenue and VAT straight away | No more VAT, the card works as a means of payment |
| Multi-purpose, for example a restaurant selling food and alcohol | Only when spent | Liability on the balance sheet, no revenue and no VAT | The liability becomes revenue, VAT on what the customer spends |
An example for a €50 card with 21% VAT. For a single-purpose card you book €41.32 of revenue and €8.68 of VAT at sale (€50 × 21/121). For a multi-purpose card you book €50 as a liability at sale, for example on a deferred income account. Your bookkeeper picks the account names.
Not sure whether your card is single-purpose or multi-purpose? Have your bookkeeper settle that before you sell the first card.
Gift cards sold online: what does the payout look like?
Cards that customers buy online through your order module are paid out through Stripe. The amount on your bank statement is therefore lower than what the customer paid: Stripe and Gifty deduct their costs. A bookkeeper usually books the sale at the full amount and records the deductions separately, so that the payout reconciles.
The example from the Gifty accounting handbook: a customer pays €50, Stripe deducts €1.00, Gifty deducts €1.80 and you receive €47.20. It is an example, not a fixed rate. What you pay depends on your plan and is on the pricing page. Cards you sell yourself in your store do not go through Stripe. The schedule is explained in Gift card payouts via Stripe.
What do you book when a gift card is redeemed?
With a single-purpose card you no longer book revenue or VAT on the part paid with the card. With a multi-purpose card this is the moment it happens: the liability goes down and the revenue and VAT are added. If the customer tops up, that amount counts towards the VAT.
| Situation | Single-purpose card | Multi-purpose card |
|---|---|---|
| Purchase of €50, fully paid with the card | Nothing extra, revenue and VAT were already booked | Liability of €50 becomes revenue of €41.32 and VAT of €8.68 |
| Purchase of €80: €50 card and €30 paid on top | Only on the top-up: revenue €24.79 and VAT €5.21 | Liability of €50 and €30 top-up together become revenue of €66.12 and VAT of €13.88 |
The examples use 21% VAT. If the purchase has a different rate, the VAT and revenue change with it. If only part of the card is spent, the card stays Issued with a remaining balance and, for a multi-purpose card, the rest of the liability stays on the balance sheet.
What happens to expired gift cards?
A card with the status Expired can no longer be used, unless you extend it and the expiry date is not set to strict. In the Netherlands a gift card must stay valid for consumers for at least two years, see gift card validity (in Dutch). A card therefore stays open in your books for a while.
For a single-purpose card the revenue and VAT were recorded at sale. The Dutch tax authority only mentions a VAT refund for the case where you take the voucher back and refund the consumer (Belastingdienst, in Dutch). For a multi-purpose card the remaining balance sits as a liability. Whether and how you release it, and what that means for VAT, is something to discuss with your bookkeeper.
Use the Expected expiry report to look ahead. It shows per card the issue date, expiry date and current balance, including future years. That way you know before year end how much balance is expected to expire.
How do you handle the monthly commission invoice?
Gifty creates a commission invoice once a month, with a payout specification attached. You find it under Finance, Invoices and download it as a PDF. If it contains several VAT rates, the invoice shows a separate VAT row for each rate.
| Item on the specification | What you do with it |
|---|---|
| Payout amount | Reconcile with the deposit on your bank statement |
| Billing period | Check that the amounts belong in the right month |
| Revenue | Compare with what the dashboard shows for that period |
| Costs | Book according to the invoice, using the VAT rows on it |
| Payment date | Look for it on your bank statement, allow 1 to 2 business days for the bank |
Which Gifty report do you use for what?
Which reports you see depends on your membership. Daily closing is switched off by default and you turn it on yourself under Finance, Reporting, Settings.
| Report | What it shows | What you use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Daily closing | A summary of all transactions per day | End of day closing |
| Cumulative | Running totals over a calendar year or fiscal year | Period checks and year end |
| Expected expiry | Cards expected to expire, with expiry date and balance | Looking ahead and planning the balance |
| Breakdown as CSV | Individual transactions behind a summary card | Review by your bookkeeper |
Does your fiscal year not run from January to December? Set the start month of your fiscal year under Reporting, Settings so the cumulative totals match your accounting periods. That is also where you set up email schedules, so your bookkeeper receives the reports in their own inbox.
Keep the three movements apart. For 2025, Gifty showed €11.60 million of cards issued, €7.15 million redeemed and €3.31 million expired (all businesses together, excluding test and internal accounts). These are different groups of cards from different periods, so do not read them as percentages of each other.
Checklist: what do you do when?
| Moment | What you do | Where in Gifty |
|---|---|---|
| When setting up | Have your bookkeeper decide whether your card is single-purpose or multi-purpose and which accounts to use | Outside Gifty, with your bookkeeper |
| Every day | Compare the daily closing with your till and card payments | Finance, Reporting, Daily closing |
| Every month | Download the commission invoice and reconcile it with the payout | Finance, Invoices |
| At your VAT return | Check the redemptions of the period, for multi-purpose cards the VAT is calculated on these | Finance, Reporting, breakdown as CSV |
| At year end | Take the cumulative report for your fiscal year and look at the outstanding balance and the Expected expiry | Finance, Reporting |
What should you ask your bookkeeper?
- Is my card a single-purpose or a multi-purpose voucher, and do we record that?
- Which accounts do we use for the sale, the liability and the revenue?
- How do we book online sales and the deductions by Stripe and Gifty?
- How do we handle a partial redemption and a top-up payment?
- What do we do with the balance of expired cards, including for VAT?
- How do we treat free cards that I mark as promotional?
- Which report do you want to receive, and how often?
Frequently asked questions
Reports are under Finance, Reporting. Invoices, including the monthly commission invoice with its payout specification, are under Finance, Invoices. You need the Finance permission, and you only see the reports included in your membership.
The remaining balance of an expired card is still in your books. For a single-purpose card the revenue and VAT were recorded at sale. For a multi-purpose card the balance sits as a liability on the balance sheet. Your bookkeeper decides how to write it off.
No. It is only revenue at sale when the VAT is already known at issue, for example for a card that can only be used for items at one VAT rate. Otherwise the sale is a liability until the card is used.
For a single-purpose card, not on the part paid with the card, because that VAT was due at sale. For a multi-purpose card you do: VAT is calculated on what the customer spends, including any top-up payment.
Yes. Under Finance, Reporting, Settings you set up an email schedule with a frequency and your own list of email addresses, for example your bookkeeper’s. You can set up a maximum of five schedules.