In Spektrix, customers can purchase and gift Memberships to other customers. In this article, we’ll guide you through setting up, selling and redeeming Gift Memberships. Gift Memberships are a type of Gift Voucher.
We recommend that you read the following articles before setting up Gift Memberships:
- Introduction to Memberships
- Setting Up and Editing Memberships
- Setting Up and Managing Gift Vouchers
- Selling Gift Vouchers
- Redeeming and Searching for Gift Vouchers
In this article we’ll guide you through:
- What are Gift Memberships?
- How to Set Up Gift Memberships
- How to Sell Gift Memberships
- How to Redeem Gift Memberships
- How to Refund Gift Memberships
- Expiring Gift Memberships
- Reporting on Gift Memberships
What are Gift Memberships?
Gift Memberships are a type of Gift Voucher that a customer can redeem to pay for a Membership. Gift Memberships are sold, refunded, redeemed and reported using the same method as a Gift Voucher.
A customer can purchase the Gift Membership for another customer at a value equal to the price of a Membership. This Gift Membership is then redeemed for Account Credit on the recipient’s Customer Record. The recipient can use the Account Credit to pay for the purchase of the Membership.
TIP: If the Membership they’ve been gifted isn’t available for sale, the Gift Membership can be redeemed for any available item including other Memberships, Tickets, Subscriptions, Merchandise and Donations.
If you'd like to sell Gift Memberships, consider the following:
- Gift Memberships function similarly to Gift Vouchers in Spektrix. In order to use Gift Memberships, you must have the Gift Voucher function enabled. For more information, read How to set up Gift Vouchers.
- Gift Memberships are linked to a specific Membership and sold at the same Price as the Membership.
- Gift Memberships can be printed or emailed. Emailed Gift Memberships can be sent on a future date to either the purchaser or the recipient. There are limits to how many months in the future a Gift Membership can be delivered.
- Gift Memberships have an Expiry Date. This can be a set number of months from purchase date or to never expire.
- Gift Memberships will have the same limit on future delivery and default expiry period as Gift Vouchers. These limits can be changed.
- In order to redeem Gift Memberships online, you must have Account Credit displayed on your website’s “My Account” page.
- Gift Memberships have their own Design and Email Template.
- You can add Gift Memberships to your website using the Gift voucher iframe or Web Component. Gift Memberships can also be purchased through the Membership iframe.
- You can report on Gift Memberships using the Special Report.
- Gift Membership codes start with the letter M and Gift Voucher codes start with the letter V:
- The Membership purchased will be exactly the same as purchasing it through other methods. Only the payment method will be different.
How to Set Up Gift Memberships
In order to sell Gift Memberships, you must have the Gift Vouchers enabled in your system. You can set up Gift Vouchers by following the steps in How to Set Up Gift Vouchers.
WARNING: You won’t be able to sell or redeem Gift Memberships if you don’t have Gift Vouchers enabled and set up.
Once Gift Vouchers are enabled, you’ll need to set up the following to sell Gift Memberships:
TIP: Setting up Gift Memberships takes place in the Admin Interface. To access the Admin Interface, you’ll need the General Administrator Role. If you don’t have this Role, ask the Settings Administrator in your organization to add this Role to your User Account.
Making a Membership Giftable
Set a Membership to be giftable in the Basic Details section of the Membership. Follow the instructions in Setting Up and Editing Memberships.
Check the Giftable box:
Gift Membership Design
In order to Print a physical Gift Membership voucher, you must have a Gift Membership Design.
This design will apply to all Gift Memberships, with relevant Order information, for example, the name of the Membership and voucher code, pulled into the design.
TIP: Print jobs for Gift Memberships will be sent to the printer connected to your Spektrix system. This may be your Ticket Printer. Make sure that your Gift Membership Design fits your Ticket stock.
You can set up the Gift Membership Design in the Admin Interface > Document designs > Gifts:
TIP: If you don’t have a Gift Membership Design Template in your system, you’ll see the text (missing) next to Gift Membership. To add a Gift Membership Design Template in your system, click the Add button to add a custom Gift Membership template.
Click Edit to open the Gift Membership Design Tool. The Gift Membership Design Tool works in the same way as the Ticket Design Tool. Follow the instructions in The Ticket Design Tool - How to Create a New Ticket Design to create your design:
The following are available as text fields in the Ticket Design Tool.
There are some text fields that are only best used for conditional logic in ticket designs and will be indicated as such.
-
Order Information
Text Field Description Order ID The ID of the Order. Sales Channel The Sales Channel used when the Order was made. User Confirmed The Spektrix User that confirmed the Order. For web orders made online, the User will appear as "web". Date Confirmed The Date the Transaction was Confirmed. Agent Sale: Customer Name The First Name and Last Name listed under Details Supplied By Agent. Agent Sale: Customer First Name The First Name listed under Details Supplied By Agent. Agent Sale: Customer Last Name The Last Name listed under Details Supplied By Agent. Agent Sale: Customer Address The Address listed under Details Supplied By Agent. Agent Sale: Order Reference The Order Reference listed under Details Supplied By Agent. Order Attributes Any Order Attributes that include text, date, currency, or dropdown values added to the Order. The values from the Order will be displayed.
To display the Attribute Name with the values, add custom text to fields. Check box attributes are best used for conditional logic in ticket designs.
-
Voucher Information
Text Field Description Amount The Gift Membership amount. Expiry Date The Expiry date for the Gift Membership. From Name The Name of the Customer who purchased the Gift Membership. To Name The Name of the Customer the Gift Membership is for. Message The message added when the Gift Membership was purchased. Voucher Code The Gift Membership code. Total Charged The total sum of the Price and Commission values for the Gift Membership. Membership The name of the Membership the voucher is for. -
Customer Information
TIP: If the Order is a Facilitated Order, the Facilitator's Customer information will be listed.
Text Description Customer Id The Customer ID of the purchaser. Full Name The First Name and Last Name of the purchaser. First Name The First Name of the purchaser. Last Name The Last Name of the purchaser. Title The Title or Salutation of the purchaser. Has Address This is a data field best used for conditional logic in ticket designs.
For example, you can use the {HasAddress} field to check if a Customer has an address and set a conditional that pulls {Address/FullAddress} if true.
Address: Name
The Addressee Name of the purchaser. From the Billing Address. Address: Line 1-5 You can display any of the first five lines of the Billing Address of the purchaser. Address: Post Town The town or city of the purchaser. From the Billing Address. Address: County The county of the purchaser. From the Billing Address. Address: Post Code The post code or zip code of the purchaser. From the Billing Address. Address: Country The country of the purchaser. From the Billing Address. Address: State / Province Code The state or province code of the purchaser. From the Billing Address. Address: Full Address The full Billing Address of the purchaser. Email The email address of the purchaser. Customer Attributes Any Customer Attributes that include text, date, currency, or dropdown values added to the purchaser's Customer Record. The values from the Customer Record will be displayed.
To display the Attribute Name with the values, add custom text to fields. Check box attributes are best used for conditional logic in ticket designs.
-
Other Information
Text Description Printing Date The date the Ticket is printed. Client Name The name of your organization as it appears on your system.
Gift Membership Email Template
In order to send Gift Memberships by email, you must have a Gift Membership Email Template. The Gift Membership Email is a System Email. You can read more in System Emails.
This template will apply to all Gift Memberships, with relevant Order information, for example, the name of the Membership and voucher code, pulled into the email.
The Gift Membership Email Template can be set up in the Admin Interface > Document designs > Gifts:
System emails use merge fields to create and send emails with the relevant Order information for the Gift Membership.
Take a look at the different email templates available for Gift Membership emails.
-
Standard HTML Template
Depending on when your organization started using Spektrix, you may have the Standard HTML Template on your system:
The template includes all the necessary merge fields required:
- {ClientName}: Your organization’s name
- {ToName}: The name of the Gift Membership recipient
- {Message}: A message to the recipient
- {Membership}: The name of the Membership
- {FromName}: The name of the purchaser
- {VoucherCode}: The unique Gift Membership code
- {ExpiryDate}: The date on which the Gift Membership will expire
You can customize the templates’ colors, text and buttons. Read How to Edit Standard Templates.
To make any changes to your Gift Membership Email Template, click the Edit button. After you make your changes, click Save to save the changes. Click Cancel to discard any changes.
-
Custom HTML Template
Custom HTML Templates are available to replace Standard HTML or plain text templates which may already be on your system. With Custom HTML Templates, you can customize with an image, header and footer.
TIP: If you use a plain text template, we recommend you upload the Custom HTML Template into your system:
The template includes all the necessary merge fields required:
- {ClientName}: Your organization’s name
- {ToName}: The name of the Gift Membership recipient
- {Message}: A message to the recipient
- {Membership}: The name of the Membership
- {FromName}: The name of the purchaser
- {VoucherCode}: The unique Gift Membership code
- {ExpiryDate}: The date on which the Gift Membership will expire
You can customize the Custom HTML Template’s colors, text, buttons, image, header and footer. For more information, read How to Edit Custom HTML Templates.
TIP: You’ll first need to download and edit the Custom HTML Template for Gift Memberships before uploading it into your system. For more information, read Download Custom HTML Templates.
To make any changes to your Gift Membership Email Template, click the Edit button. After you make your changes, click Save to save the changes. Click Cancel to discard any changes.
-
Plain Text
Depending on when your organization started using Spektrix, you may have a plain text template in your system. A plain text template has no styling.
TIP: If you use a plain text template, we recommend you upload the Custom HTML Template into your system.
The template includes all the necessary merge fields required:
- {ClientName}: Your organization’s name
- {ToName}: The name of the Gift Membership recipient
- {Message}: A message to the recipient
- {Membership}: The name of the Membership
- {FromName}: The name of the purchaser
- {VoucherCode}: The unique Gift Membership code
- {ExpiryDate}: The date on which the Gift Membership will expire
You can include additional text in the template.
-
The Link Merge Field
WARNING: The {Link} merge field is only available for use for organizations who don’t use an iframe subdomain.
The {Link} merge field adds a hyperlink to enable the recipient to redeem their Gift Membership. When logged in, clicking the link will add the Membership to the Customer’s online Basket/Cart and add the voucher to their Account Credit.
Add the following code to your plain text template:
<a href="{Link}" title="Redeem your gift">Click here to redeem your Gift</a>
To make any changes to your Gift Membership Email Template, click the Edit button. After you make your changes, click Save to save the changes. Click Cancel to discard any changes.
TIP: Before you sell Gift Memberships, perform a test sale and send the Gift Membership to your own email address. Check that the HTML displays correctly in your email. Once you’re happy with your Gift Membership Email Template, you can start selling Memberships.
If an email hasn't been sent, you’ll need to edit the email to ensure that you have included all the required merge fields and that any HTML included is correctly formatted.
How to Sell Gift Memberships
Gift Memberships can be sold in the Sales Interface or online, using the Gift Vouchers iframe or the Memberships iframe.
Selling Gift Memberships in the Sales Interface
TIP: To access the Sales Interface, you’ll need the Sales User or Sales Administrator Role. If you don’t have these Roles, ask the Spektrix administrator in your organization to add these Roles to your User Account.
To sell a Gift Membership in the Sales Interface, first search for and add a Customer to the Basket/Cart. This should be the Customer purchasing and gifting the Gift Membership.
TIP: Adding a Customer lets you select between printing or emailing the Gift Membership. If you don’t add a Customer first, you’ll only be able to print.
Go to Other > Gift Vouchers:
Fill in the following information:
-
Gift (Required): From the dropdown menu, select the name of the Membership you’d like to gift.
-
Value (Required): Selecting a Gift Membership from the list will automatically populate the Value field with the Price of the Membership. If you would like to edit this value, you can do so by clicking into the box and entering a new value.
-
Send to: Choose a delivery method for the Gift Membership:
- Print gift voucher.
- Send to purchaser's email.
- Send to recipient's email address. You must enter the recipient’s email in the text box.
TIP: The recipient doesn’t need to have a Customer Record in your system to be sent a Gift Membership. However, they’ll need one to redeem the Gift Membership.
-
Date to send (Required): Select a date when to send the Gift Membership. For vouchers that will be printed, this date will default to today and can’t change.
TIP: Under the selected date, there is a note when the voucher will expire. For example, “The voucher will expire 3 months after it is sent.” If you’d like to change the Expiry Date, read Editing Gift Membership Expiry Dates. Changing the Expiry Date will change the Expiry Date for all Gift Vouchers and Gift Memberships sold from the point the Expiry Date is changed.
-
To and From (Required): Add the names of the purchaser and recipient as they’d like it to appear.
-
Message: Add an optional message. For example, a birthday greeting.
After filling the details of the Gift Membership, clicking the blue Add button to add the Gift Membership to the Basket/Cart and complete the transaction.
TIP: If you need to update details to a Gift Membership in the Basket/Cart, go back to Other > Gift Vouchers. Scroll to the bottom to find Gift Vouchers in the Basket/Cart, update your details and click the Update button. If you need to change details after completing the transaction, follow the instructions in How to Refund Gift Memberships.
Selling Gift Memberships Online
In order to sell Memberships online, you must set up the Website details of each Membership you would like to display online. A Membership must be active on web in order to sell the Gift Membership online.
Make sure that you have integrated either the Gift Vouchers iframe or the Memberships iframe into your website.
Memberships sold online can be emailed either to the purchaser or the recipient on the date selected by the purchaser.
-
From the Gift Vouchers Iframe
Customers can purchase a Gift Membership from the Gift Vouchers iframe.
From the Gift dropdown, they can select the Membership they’d like to gift. The Value of the Membership will be automatically populated and can’t be edited:
-
From the Memberships Iframe
From the Memberships iframe, a customer can click on the Gift Membership button under the Membership they’d like to gift.
TIP: If the Automatically Renew? box is checked, it won’t apply to the Gift Membership.
This will take the customer to the Gift Vouchers iframe, where the Membership and its value will already be selected:
How to Redeem Gift Memberships
Since Gift Memberships are a type of Gift Voucher, Customers use them in the same way. A Gift Membership is redeemed and added as credit to their Customer Record. This credit can then be used to pay for an Order.
A Gift Membership can be redeemed:
- From the Customer Record in the Sales or Opportunities Interface
- From the Basket/Cart in the Sales or Opportunities Interface
- From their Account or the Basket/Cart (Online)
- From the Gift Membership email (Online)
If a Customer wants to redeem their Gift Membership over the phone or in the box office, they’ll need the Gift Membership code.
This will be printed on the physical voucher or displayed in the email:
You can also find it in the Order from the purchaser’s Customer Record:
REMINDER: The Gift Membership is equivalent to the Price of the Membership. If the Price has changed, the Gift Membership price will remain the same as when purchased.
For example, if the Gift Membership was purchased at $100 and the Membership is now $120, the Gift Membership will cover up to $100 and $20 will need to be paid using another form of payment.
You can also adjust the Membership Price in the Basket/Cart to reflect the Gift Membership amount.
-
From the Customer Record in the Sales or Opportunities Interface
To redeem a Gift Membership from the Customer Record in the Sales Interface or Opportunities Interface, follow these steps:
TIP: The instructions below take place in the Sales Interface but can be followed similarly in the Opportunities Interface.
To access the Sales Interface, you’ll need the Sales User or Sales Administrator Role.
To access the Opportunities Interface, you’ll need the Opportunities User or Opportunities Administrator Role. If you don’t have these Roles, ask the Spektrix administrator in your organization to add these Roles to your User Account.-
Search for and select a Customer redeeming the Gift Membership.
- Navigate to the bottom of the Customer Record and locate Credit/Vouchers:
- Enter the Code and click Redeem.
The Gift Membership will be added to the Account Balance.
In order to purchase the Membership, you’ll need to manually purchase the Membership:
- Follow the steps in Selling and Renewing Memberships to add a Customer and Membership to the Basket/Cart.
- Expand the Payments section and click on Credit, deposits & vouchers.
- Select Use customer credit/vouchers:
- From the Credit / Voucher Payment screen, under Amount, select the value you’d like to redeem. Check the details such as Customer Name are correct and add an optional Reference.
- Click Confirm and the credit will be applied to the Basket/Cart.
- Once you return to the Basket/Cart, you can continue completing the transaction.
-
Search for and select a Customer redeeming the Gift Membership.
-
From the Basket/Cart In the Sales or Opportunities Interface
To redeem a Gift Membership from the Basket/Cart in the Sales Interface or Opportunities Interface, follow these steps:
TIP: The instructions below take place in the Sales Interface but can be followed similarly in the Opportunities Interface.
To access the Sales Interface, you’ll need the Sales User or Sales Administrator Role.
To access the Opportunities Interface, you’ll need the Opportunities User or Opportunities Administrator Role. If you don’t have these Roles, ask the Spektrix administrator in your organization to add these Roles to your User Account.- Follow the steps in Selling and Renewing Memberships to add a Customer and Membership to the Basket/Cart.
- Expand the Payments section and click on Credit, deposits & vouchers.
- Select Use customer credit/vouchers:
- From the Credit / Voucher Payment screen, under Redeem Gift Voucher Code, enter the Gift Membership code:
- Click Redeem Now.
- From the Credit / Voucher Payment screen, under Amount, select the value you’d like to redeem. Check the details such as Customer Name are correct and add an optional Reference.
- Click Confirm and the credit will be applied to the Basket/Cart.
- Once you return to the Basket/Cart, you can continue completing the transaction.
- Follow the steps in Selling and Renewing Memberships to add a Customer and Membership to the Basket/Cart.
-
From the Basket/Cart (Online)
Recipients can redeem and spend their Gift Membership during checkout. You’ll need to switch on the option to Display the Account Credit section on your website’s “My Account” Page. Read Setting Up and Managing Gift Vouchers for more information.
- Customers should log into their online Account.
- Add the Membership to their Basket/Cart.
- At checkout, they should enter their Gift Membership code at the Payment screen and click Redeem Voucher:
- The value will be added to any Current credit available.
- The Customer should then check Use available credit to pay for this order.
The value of the Gift Membership will be used as payment for their transaction.
Customers can look up their Account Credit balance, including when their Gift Membership was issued, when it expires, how much was used and how much is available online on the Account Credit page in the Customer’s MyAccount page:
For more information, read Redeeming Gift Vouchers Online.
- Customers should log into their online Account.
-
From the Gift Membership email (Online)
If a customer has received a Gift Membership email with a link, they can redeem their Gift Membership online by clicking the link.
REMINDER: This feature is only available to organizations who don’t use an iframe subdomain.
When redeeming Gift Memberships from an email link, the following will apply:
- A Customer should be logged into their account to redeem their Gift Membership.
- When they click the link, the Membership will be added to the Basket/Cart and the voucher added to their Account Credit.
- As they checkout, they should confirm to use Account Credit for their payment.
- A Customer should be logged into their account to redeem their Gift Membership.
How to Refund Gift Memberships
WARNING: You can’t return a Gift Membership that has already been redeemed.
To refund an unredeemed Gift Membership, follow these steps:
- In the Sales Interface, go to Orders. Search for and open the Order that contains the Gift Membership you’d like to return.
- Alternatively, you can also search for a Customer and look up the Order from their Customer Record.
- In the Order Details, scroll to Other Items and locate the Gift Membership. Click the Pink Ribbon icon to check the box next to the Gift Membership:
- Click Return. This will add the Gift Membership as a Return Item in the Basket/Cart.
- Within the Payments section, select the Refunds tab and choose your method of refund.
- Click Confirm to complete the Refund.
Refunding Account Credit from a Redeemed Gift Membership
When a Gift Membership is redeemed, it’s added to the recipient’s Customer Record as Account Credit. If you’d like to refund that Account Credit as another form of payment, for example, cash or check, follow these steps in Refunding Account Credit from a Redeemed Gift Voucher.
TIP: Check with your finance team before refunding Account Credit. The exchange will happen on the recipient’s Customer Record. Redeemed Gift Memberships can’t be refunded to the purchaser.
Expiring Gift Memberships
Gift Memberships have the same Expiry Dates as Gift Vouchers. For example, they can expire in a set number of months from the date of delivery, or they can never expire.
Like Gift Vouchers, there is also a limit to the delivery date of Gift Memberships. The default is twelve months to delivery from the date of purchase.
Editing Gift Membership Expiry Dates
If you’d like to make changes to the Expiry Dates or delivery date limit of Gift Memberships, you’ll need to change the dates for Gift Vouchers.
TIP: Editing the Expiry Dates will change the period for all Gift Vouchers and Gift Memberships sold in the future.
Follow the instructions in Amending Gift Voucher Expiry Dates.
Individual Vouchers
Once you’ve sold a Gift Membership, you can’t extend its original Expiry Date. However, provided the Gift Membership is still valid and hasn’t expired, you can use the existing Gift Membership to purchase a new Gift Membership.
The new Gift Membership will have a new Expiry Date depending on the settings you’ve specified in How to Set Up Gift Vouchers.
Expired Gift Memberships
If a Gift Membership has expired and you want to honor the Membership’s value, you’ll need to perform a Sale for a new Gift Membership using a Custom Payment Type to pay for the transaction.
A Custom Payment Type is a method of payment used to complete a transaction without taking a payment, for example, cash or card, and still account for the full value of the transaction in Spektrix.
Check with your finance team before performing this type of sale, as they may have their own guidance around using Custom Payment Types.
Extending Expiration/Expiry Dates in Bulk
It isn’t possible to extend the Expiry Date of Gift Memberships previously sold. However, if you contact Support, our team can extend Gift Membership Expiry Dates in bulk.
This procedure is only applicable where Gift Memberships haven’t expired.
Reporting on Gift Memberships
If you need to report on the sale and redemption of Gift Memberships, the best report to use is the Special Report. Gift Memberships will be included under Gift Vouchers in the Special Report. For more information, read Reporting on Gift Vouchers.
REMINDER: You won’t be able to distinguish between the specific values of Gift Vouchers and Gift Memberships.
The Special Report can be found in the Insights & Mailings Interface > Reports > Special Reports:
Further Reading
This article should give you the information you need to set up and sell Gift Memberships. To sell Memberships, you may find the following articles helpful: