Allow guests to support your restaurant and drive cash flow with digital and physical gift cards that are easy to sell, track, and use.
Note: These frequently asked questions only apply to users of the Toast Gift Card module, not all gift card partners.
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In Toast Web, the Gift Card Liabilities report will show transactions that occurred, connected to both the store that owns the card's liability and the store that redeemed the amount. This report allows restaurants to periodically audit how much each store owes the others based on liability amount vs redeemed amount. In this report, the redemption store is always owed the amount for accepting the original store's gift card and honoring that liability. To learn more, check out this Toast Central article: Gift Card Reports Overview.
For restaurants with Toast's Online Ordering module, guests can check their gift card balance through a link at the top of the online ordering page. If you don't offer online ordering through Toast but you sell gift cards, your guests can check their gift card balances directly in your eGift card shop, no additional link required. For more instructions, see the Add Value or Check Gift Card Balance section of this Toast Central article: Manage Gift Card Sales.
Yes, Toast gift cards are redeemable as payment for online orders. To use a gift card as payment, guests can select the Pay with a Gift Card checkbox at checkout and enter their gift card's 16-digit code. Additional forms of payment can be added to cover any outstanding balance on the check. To learn more, check out Redeem a Toast Gift Card for Online Orders & Local by Toast.
We're not able to guarantee swipe compatibility for third-party gift cards. However, in most cases, we're able to adjust the system to accept them. This is not always the case and can vary for a number of different reasons. The possibility exists that cards we import from your previous vendor will only be able to be keyed into the system using the keypad and not be able to be swiped through the credit card readers. If you have questions, please contact Customer Care.
Toast gift card payments must be voided on a Toast POS device. Voided gift card payments can be viewed on Toast Web using the find checks feature or the Gift Card Balances report. For more information, check out Void Toast Gift Card Payments on Online Orders.
Can I change a gift card's delivery date?
Currently, the delivery date cannot be changed for a gift card already purchased. We suggest copying the check info, voiding the check that includes the gift card, and re-entering the payment information into a new check that has the requested delivery date.
No, gift cards don't have an expiration date. However, you can deactivate a card using the Gift Card Balances reports in Toast Web. To learn how to deactivate a card, check out this Toast Central article, Manually Add and Adjust Rewards Balances. You can also follow the steps in Reactivate a Deactivated Gift Card if you need to reactivate a deactivated gift card.
Once an eGift card is purchased by your guest, there should be an email in their inbox. If the guest clicks the link in that email, it has a QR code, which can be scanned for use. The eGift card number can also be keyed in on the POS.
Note: Toast Go® handheld devices and Toast-issued scanners can be used to scan QR codes.
Yes. This is a 2-step process.
- You'll need to be removed from the large group that is sharing gift cards. This is easily done but unchecking the box next to your name in the group.
- If you're using physical cards, they will need loaded to your location only and not shared with the large group.
Yes! All locations that have an active Toast Gift Card module can be searched for in the Local by Toast app.
No, it is not possible to use a gift card as a payment method to purchase a gift card.
No, it is not possible to restrict the ability to add value to a gift card on the POS. Any user with POS access permissions will be able to add value to a gift card. However, the 3.3 Gift Card Adjustment setting can be used to allow only certain jobs/employees to adjust a gift card balance manually on Toast Web.
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Gift cards can be enabled anytime, but the cards will not be valid until you're live and out of Test Mode.
Toast can pre-load cards if provided a list of requested card numbers and values to upload. Similarly, if you would like to order pre-loaded gift cards, you can specify this when placing your order with E-Card Systems by sending an email to orders@ecardsystems.com with the following information:
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- Order Number
- Number of cards you would like to have a pre-loaded balance
- Requested Card Balance Amount
No, live gift cards can not be seen or used while in Test Mode. If a gift card was sold in test mode, the sale does not count, and the card will have no value attached. To sell gift cards and ensure they have real value, test mode must be disabled.
If you are planning on selling gift cards online only, you do not need to have your hardware installed, but you will need to disable test mode. You can copy your e-gift card link from Toast Web to place on your website and customers can buy them online. If you are planning to sell them in house, at least one terminal will need to be set up, and you must disable test mode.
Note: Gift card sales will make your account live, and your monthly billing will begin.
Yes, you can. By default, the eGift card purchase limit is set to $500 per transaction. Physical gift cards purchased in-store have a $2000 value limit. Learn how to decrease this in this Toast Central article, Adjust Your Gift Card Purchase Limit.
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Check out this Toast Central article for instructions on how to prepare your files and import them into Toast: Import Gift Cards.
Gift cards, loyalty accounts, and takeout & delivery customer information can be imported from a previous system. House accounts and sales or labor data cannot.
To ensure that your customer's gift card experience is unaffected by the transition into Toast, we need the most up-to-date data on all of the existing gift cards (active and inactive) to import into the Toast database. By not importing this data, your gift cards would not be recognized in the Toast POS and customers would be unable to purchase, add value, check balances, or redeem your cards. Toast will need the following information to import into the Toast database:
- Full (unmasked) card numbers
- Current balance (cash value)
Obtaining this data is usually done by contacting the provider of your gift cards (Mercury, Heartland, Paytronix, to name a few) and requesting the report be sent to you. In some cases, the provider may offer the ability to log in to their website and run the report from your own computer. In order to ensure that your gift card customers' experiences are not negatively affected by this transition, it's important to obtain this report on (or as close to) your go-live date as possible.
Note: If you're submitting inactive cards for import (cards that have never been sold), Toast requires only the full unmasked card numbers.
Depending on the volume of total requests, the complexity of the information provided, and how much we may have to reformat what we receive, this request can take 3-4 weeks.
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If you're having trouble selling a gift card, see I'm Having Trouble Selling A Gift Card. What Should I Do?.
Your existing Gift Card Liability report for both active (sold) and inactive (unsold) gift cards needs to be imported to the Toast database. If this isn't done, your current sold gift cards will not be able to be sold or redeemed as the data has not been entered into our system. To check whether it was imported:
- Key in the card number.
- For active (sold) gift cards, check whether the gift card number appears on the Gift Card Balances report in Toast Web.
- For inactive (unsold) gift cards, check whether the gift card number appears on the Inactive Gift Cards report
If you are having trouble swiping your gift cards, please reach out to our Customer Care team to conduct a swipe test.
If you have not received your gift cards, eCard Systems should have sent an email with tracking information. If you have not received the email, you will need to reach out to eCard Systems for assistance. Their direct number is 1-866-776-7409 ext 1
Can I recover an accidentally voided gift card?
There's no means to "un-void" any selections on an order, including a gift card. You may resell the gift card in question. When voiding a selection, a gift card included, the payment for the gift card remains unless it is separately voided, removed, or refunded.
If only one of your guests is having an issue when attempting to purchase an eGift card online (for example, they see a payment error), it may be due to an authorization error. In this case, your guest will need to reach out to their bank or card issuer to resolve the issue - Toast cannot resolve this type of issue for your guest.
If no guests are able to purchase eGift cards, it may be due to a setup or configuration error. Follow the steps in this Toast Central article to make sure your Toast Gift Cards module is set up correctly: Get Started With Toast Gift Cards.
Some additional reasons that a guest might be having trouble purchasing a gift card are:
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- The credit card is not from the US
- Zip/Address entered may not match the billing address for the card
- Customer's email may be blocked - they can try a different email if they have multiple.
- Trying to purchase multiple gift cards in a single transaction. When purchasing e-gift cards, there is a minimum of $5 and a maximum of $500 for gift card purchases. For example, a customer would be able to purchase ten $50 gift cards on one transaction, but not 11.
To learn how you can re-send your guest's eGift information to the correct email address, check out the Resend Toast eGift Cards Sent to the Wrong Email Address section of this Toast Central article, Resend Toast eGift Cards.
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